Every Thursday, WGBH Arts Editor Jared Bowen sums up the exhibitions, theater, movies and music you should check out in and around Boston and delivers news from the city's arts scene.
NICE FISH, playing at the American Repertory Theater through Feb. 7
Synopsis: Actor Mark Rylance—up for an Oscar for his performance in "Bridge of Spies"— is in town starring in "Nice Fish," a piece he co-wrote with poet Louis Jenkins. He plays a man considering life while fishing atop creaking Minnesota ice.
Watch Rylance's Open Studio interview.
Jared says: "It’s a little bit like 'Waiting for Godot' on ice. I found it very, very delightful."
VIOLET, presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company, at the BCA's Calderwood Pavilion through Feb. 6
Synopsis: It’s 1964, and a deeply scarred young woman named Violet believes she can turn her life around by visiting a televangelist halfway across the country. Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori wrote the songs.
Jared says: "This is a really warm, tender musical…I love Jeanine Tesori’s music, this mix of country and folk and gospel."
DOS MUJERES, on view at the Museum of Fine Arts through March 1 and re-installed in the Arts of the Americas Wing later this year, after conservation treatment
Synopsis: The Museum of Fine Arts scored a major piece of art this week: "Dos Mujeres," by legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Painted in 1928 and the first work she ever sold, it depicts two maids she’d known since childhood.
Jared says: "This is really, really exciting because we are now the first museum in New England to have a Frida Kahlo painting…I found this terrific serenity in this beauty in these two women."
THE FINEST HOURS, in theaters Friday
Synopsis: After two oil tankers full of men split in half during a 1952 nor’easter, the chief of the Chatham Coast Guard station sends a small crew to do their best to save them. The story is based on the nonfiction book by Casey Sherman and Mike Tougias.
Jared says: "The film is OK. What makes it work is this story is so infinitely compelling. It’s worthwhile to know it was filmed right here in and around Cape Cod, and all of the interiors were shot in the Quincy Shipyard."
Looking for more arts coverage? This week on Open Studio, meet Jeanine Tesori, the composer of "Violet," and see "Dos Mujeres" up close inside the MFA’s conservation lab.
