Untitled (Soap Bubble Set)

Made for the Museum of Modern Art exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism, this work was the first of Cornell's shadow boxes, containing many of the characteristic features of his signature art form. In these works, Cornell used the Surrealist practice of juxtaposing unrelated found objects, in this case, a doll's head, a clay pipe used to make soap bubbles, a bird's egg, a glass, an antique map of the moon, and a print of the leaning tower at Pisa. Some writers have interpreted the piece as a family portrait, with the doll's head "depicting" the artist, the egg symbolizing his mother, the pipe his father, and the four blocks at the top as Cornell and his three siblings. The box was one of numerous works titled Soap Bubble Set, a theme linked by their creator not only with childhood but also with the cosmos.

Wood, glass, plastic, paper, box construction - Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Hartford

"Immersive" is one of those non-specific buzzwords that gets slapped on shows from time to time that could mean anything. There are undoubtedly more specific and meaningful words, and they could probably all be used to describe Jewel Box Theatre's production of BRIEF ENCOUNTER.

In the canon of theatre literature, playwright Noel Coward ranks among as prolific as any. He wrote more than fifty plays, a dozen musical theatre pieces, as well as poetry, short stories, and a three-volume autobiography. He also wrote screenplays, which is what BRIEF ENCOUNTER originally was. Well, technically it was a short play called "Still Life", which he then adapted into a screenplay for the film. In , theatre director Emma Rice adapted the film into a play with music. The basic story is timeless: two young people fall in love with each other but know that they can't have each other. Heartache ensues.

The play maintains the basic story of the movie: while returning home from her weekly excursion for shopping and a matinee movie, middle-class housewife Laura Jesson meets general practitioner Alec Harvey at the train station. What begins as an innocent relationship soon develops into something much more, which might not be a problem were it not for the fact that both are married and have children. Rice's version seamlessly blends the cinematic with the theatrical, which is appropriate given the role that the cinema plays in the story. There are multimedia elements as well as live music (in an especially fascinating bit of storytelling, some of the actors double as musicians). The original play was five scenes, and this version maintains somewhat of the same structure: a series of scenes that contrast the angst of Alec and Laura's relationship with the joy of relationships around them.

I've long held that what's possible in a performance space is constrained only by the bounds of your imagination. Sure, there are some things that just can't happen. Elphaba isn't going to fly in a set basement theatre (at least, not to the same effect). But a compelling story told well can happen anywhere. Under the direction of Ronn Burton, Jewel Box's BRIEF ENCOUNTER is an ambitious exercise in the power of creative use of space and imaginative storytelling. This play has a lot of moving parts, and they move, to use the cliché, like a well-oiled machine. The play is fluid with no intermission, and each moment flowed into the next without the show ever feeling like the pacing was too fast or too slow.

Nothing in the play feels forced or gimmicky, from the acting to the staging. The videos are seamlessly integrated into the story (true in the most literal sense; the characters physically walk through the projector screen and "into" the film). And then there are some moments of pure theatre, from a comedy of errors boat ride that relies on live sound effects and a "human" tree branch to the use of mops as dogs. There's a dream-like quality to the play, which isn't surprising given that the film was framed as Laura imagining that she's confessing her affair to her husband. The movement between the real and the surreal are aided by Isaiah Williams'lighting design and physical moments of gesture by the actors.

Jeremy Sheets brings a natural sweetness and charm to Alec, and Leah Coleman Arnold brings a similar gentle charm to Laura. Both effectively navigate between their character's affection for the other, growing guilt at their infidelity, and the angst of a fatalist romance. The entire ensemble deserves praise for wearing many hats (literally, in some cases): they were at once actors, musicians, ushers, and/or ensemble characters.

Jewel Box is producing an increasingly wide variety of shows, and BRIEF ENCOUNTER may well be its most ambitious to date. But with risk comes reward, and the reward here is a truly fascinating evening of theatre.

Ian McKellen: The Biography

Garry O’Connor
W&N, £20, pp

Sir Ian McKellen got cold feet about writing his memoirs, in the end returning a substantial advance to his publisher. In its stead his old friend Garry O’Connor has produced a fascinating account of the actor’s life and career – his passions, his craft, his gay rights activism, not to mention his generosity (“Gandalf pays”’ is his habitual cry at the end of a meal). The occasional questionable value judgment on his work aside, this is surely the definitive McKellen biography.

The Jewel

Neil Hegarty
Head of Zeus, £, pp

With his second novel (following the excellent Inch Levels) the Irish author Neil Hegarty proves again that he is one to watch. After an atmospheric prologue dealing with the making of a Victorian painting, The Jewel, the narrative moves to the present day where we are given detailed perspectives on the curation, theft and recovery of the picture. Hegarty writes with sharp intelligence, which coupled with his strong storytelling and well-defined characters, results in a gripping plot that also offers an affecting insight into how artifice permeates our lives.

Five Days of Fog

Anna Freeman
W&N, £, pp

The quote on the dustjacket (“It’s Peaky Blinders with a feminist twist!”) sells Anna Freeman’s intelligent and stylish novel short. Like Dominick Donald’s Breathe, it’s a crime story set in the great smog of London in , but while Donald used the fog as a metaphor for the crimes of John Christie, Freeman focuses on a gang of female thieves, led by Florrie, who is beginning to have doubts about her purpose and vocation. The author has an ear for snappy argot, whether it’s a sharp one-liner or slangy insult, making for a promising debut.

To orderIan McKellen: The BiographyorFive Days of Fog go to www.enthralaviation.com or call Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £

C. Fitz’s documentary “Jewel’s Catch One,” is a love letter to a historical landmark of Los Angeles nightlife, the now-shuttered Catch One nightclub on Pico Boulevard, which was the “Studio 54 of the West” for decades. But more than a portrait of the club itself, the film is a tribute to Catch One proprietor Jewel Thais-Williams, an African American lesbian who broke barriers, fostering a nightlife destination that welcomed people of all races, gender identities and sexual orientations.

Opening in , Catch One was a hub during the gay and lesbian movement, weathering police raids and arson, serving as an important community center during the AIDS crisis, raising money for the cause and providing a place of support, love and free expression. The club was frequented by celebrities, musicians, DJs and the party people of L.A., including Madonna, Thelma Houston, Sharon Stone and Christina Aguilera, before closing its doors in

Thais-Williams is more than just a nightclub owner, though. The documentary charts her history starting with the Catch One, building up her corner of the community with a vegan restaurant and a thriving acupuncture and Chinese medicine center, the Village Health Foundation.

Anecdotes and photos bring the golden age of Catch One to life, with a lively disco soundtrack and Thais-Williams’ font of fascinating stories. But the film itself could use a more rigorous structure as it wanders from anecdote to anecdote and era to era. This piece of L.A. history is thankfully preserved on film, but the execution of “Jewel’s Catch One” lacks the kind of focus and energy that would truly represent the place.

‘Jewel’s Catch One’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Playing: April 28, 2 p.m. Silver Screen, Pacific Design Center; also streaming on Netflix starting May 1

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Book Summary

In A Night Without Armor, her first collection of poetry, Jewel explores the fire of first love, the fading of passion, the giving of trust, the lessons of betrayal, and the healing of intimacy.

I've learned that not all poetry lends itself to music -- some thoughts need to be sung only against the silence. There are softer and less tangible part[s] of our selves that are so essential to peace, to openheartedness, to unfolding the vision and the spiritual realm of our lives, to exposing our souls. - Jewel, From the Preface.

Writing poems and keeping journals since childhood, Jewel has been searching for truth and meaning, turning to her words to record, to discover, and to reflect.

In A Night Without Armor, her first collection of poetry, Jewel explores the fire of first love, the fading of passion, the giving of trust, the lessons of betrayal, and the healing of intimacy.

She delves into matters of the home, the comfort of family, the beauty of Alaska, and the dislocation of divorce.

And then there are the images of the road, the people, the bars, the planes, places exotic and mundane, loneliness and friendship.

Frank and honest, serious and suddenly playful, A Night Without Armor is a talented artist's intimate portrait of what makes us uniquely human.

I Miss Your Touch

I miss your touch
all taciturn
like the slow migration of birds
nesting momentarily
upon my breast
then lifting
silver and quick--
sabotaging the landscape
with their absence

my skin silent without
their song
a thirsty pool of patient flesh



Insecurity

you don't call
I check again
I become uneasy--
is this a frame?
Suddenly I'm not so sure
I check my sources
each conversation becomes a crumb
how easily I'm led
how stupid I've been
to believe
you could be
loving me
you who can not be seduced
by anything other than
the temperance
of need
each one facilitating the next
and suddenly I see my place
the phone rings
you say hello
but I don't believe you


&#;

I Say to You Idols

I say to you idols
of carefully studied
disillusionment

And you worshipers
who find beauty
in only fallen things

that the greatest
Grace
we can aspire to
is the strength
to see the wounded
walk with the

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