The Berkshire Eagle from Pittsfield, Massachusetts • 28

ON THE WEB: www.berkshireeagle.com Arts Theater D2 The Berkshire Eagle, Friday, February 27, 2009 Festival at Kennedy Center throws light on Arab culture 'last Chance Harvey' Stars deserve better Movie Review LAST CHANCE HARVEY (PG 13). Written and directed by Joel HopKins; director of photography. John de Borman; edited by Robin Sales: production designer, Jon Henson; produced by Tim Perell and Nicola Usborne. An Overture Films release. At Triplex Cinema (Great Barrington).

1 hour 39 minutes Harvey Shine Kate Maggie Susan Brian Jean Dustin Hoffman Emma Thompson Eileen Atkins Liane Balaban James Brolin Kathy 8aker Courtesy photo Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky, and Jocie Adams of The Low Anthem. The band will release their new record, 'Oh My God, Charlie Darwin' on Sept. 2. The Low Anthem captures winter chilly joy When planning for the project began five years ago, it seemed daunting. The United States was engaged in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and U.S.

prestige in the region was suffering. "I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know whether artists were going to want to come to America," said Adams, the center's vice president of international programming. "But 1 was pleasantly surprised that they weren't angry with the American people, but they were certainly angry with the Bush administration." The League of Arab States, representing 325 million people in Africa and Asia, partnered with the center to help coordinate the festival. Funding was provided by the HRH Foundation, individual contributors, the nations of Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and others.

Organizers said they were careful to separate the center's political connections in Washington from its artistic selections. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, was recently appointed to the Kennedy Center's board but was not involved in the planning, nor were members of the current administration. "We didn't know who the president would be. We made our commitments to the artists about a year ago." Kaiser said. "That was done on purpose.

It took politics out of the selection process." Still, it helped to have a new president taking charge as some artists prepared for a trip to Washington. "They knew that our government was going to change," Adams said, "so I think that gave them some hope." Associated Press photographer Jacquelyn Martin contributed to this report. ARAB from 01 production from the only professional theater group in the Palestinian territories, the Al-Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah. "Alive from Palestine: Stories Under Occupation," a play that sparked controversy for its portrayal of Israelis in 201)2 when it was presented at Yale University, features characters emerging from a pile of newspapers to tell their stories. "The message of the play itself is that we are people like anybody else in the whole world," said George Ibrahim, the theater's artistic director.

"We don't like to be a number of injured and dead people. We are just artists saying to the American people, please see our side." Kennedy Center officials, who staged similar festivals focused on China and Japan in recent years, said they heard some complaints about including the Palestinian group but maintain it will promote dialogue. Exhibits will feature traditional and contemporary art, as well as an "Exploratorium," with a film showcasing Arab contributions to math, science, medicine and astronomy before the Renaissance in Europe. "I didn't realize that algebra was an Arab word al-jabru," Kaiser said. The exhibition of bridal dresses will show the region's intricate textiles, with wildly varying designs, colors and jewelry.

"It's going to be something everybody can relate to, whether you're interested in Arab culture or not," said festival curator Alicia Adams. Another striking installation a walkthrough kaleidoscope created by Lebanese artist Lara Baladi has an ever changing selection of images to convey a sense of "universality," Baladi said. ANTHEM from Dl and is on the bill of the ginormous Bonnaroo Festival in June. In 2008 the band netted the "Best New Act" distinction from the Boston Music Awards, and topped the "Best Album" poll in The (Providence) Phoenix. Miller and Jeff Prystowsky started the group in 2006 after first meeting as Brown under-grads, and they've self-released one album a year since.

Jocie Adams (also a Brown alum) played clarinet on one track of the 2007 record, "What The Crow Brings," and was added as a full-fledged member in time for the latest album. They're all multi-instrumentalists and work through various combinations of musical tools both in the studio and on stage. 27 instruments The new album features 27 instruments, including an "ancient" pump organ (Miller's term), banjo, acoustic guitars, clarinet, cello, harmonica, and various forms of percussion. "We play musical chairs in our rehearsal space and just try every different permutation of instruments, until the frequencies get excited and we know we're onto something that moves us," Miller explains. "It was very tense at times, but our technique for recording was notable exception of railroad blues, "To Ohio," and the Waits Kerouac composition, there are almost no place names on the album, nor any clear historical references.

In spots, the listener senses stretches of frostbitten prairie or an ominously inflamed horizon (stared at from a moving train), or, at the opening of the album, a terrifying expanse of cold water all around. Safe passage In the mystical workingman's-lament-cum-love-song, "Ticket Thker," the narrator sells tickets for safe passage on an "ark" and confides he "keep(s) a stock of weapons, should society collapse." When asked in what time and place he sees these songs unfolding, Miller pauses to consider. "There's nothing modern about the vocabulary, and yet a lot of the scenes center around a very contemporary sort of anxiety that feels unique to our age," he reflects. The Low Anthem's just-budding oeuvre seems informed by a shapeless anxiety gnawing at the heart of the American experience. Yet it responds with a sad but yearning beauty.

And as the late Phil Ochs wrote: "Ah but in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty." to do 20 to 25 takes of each song, back to back, and just kind of exhaust ourselves into coming up with something." He says they tried 60 takes of album opener "Charlie Darwin" before they "stumbled up to" the arrangement featured on the album. On the whole, the end effect ranges from icy, acoustic beauty (see "Charlie Darwin," featuring falsetto vocals from Miller) to a rowdy, junkyard clamor evocative of Tom Waits. (The album's one cover is "Home I'll Never Be," Tom Waits' musical adaptation of a Jack Kerouac poem, for which Miller apparently sucked on sandpaper and assumed an entirely different vocal identity.) Self-consciousness There's a bit of self-consciousness at play and there inevitably will be knee-jerk critics who challenge the right of a trio of Ivy League grads to assume this musical persona. And the band will never be accused of not taking itself seriously enough its official bio soberly reports that Miller and Prystowsky's "mutual interests in Americana, baseball, and morally agnostic narrative necessitated the formation of The Low Anthem." But the music speaks louder. In short, it's indeed Americana, but a timeless variety that also feels curiously placeless.

With the By David Germain Associated Press It's nice to see filmmakers occasionally spin a story of fresh romance for the aging set. Yet it's disappointing that "Last Chance Harvey" casts actors with the craft and chemistry of Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson into a love story as sappy and shallow as any other in Hollywood. Reuniting the "Stranger Than Fiction" co-stars, writer-director Joel Hopkins provides plenty of room for them to say and do endearing things. But the drama and emotion hang so heavily on cliche, blind chance and mawkish sentiment that "Last Chance Harvey" comes off as a halfhearted exercise for two great actors aiming to charm the pants off each other and the audience. Almost inevitably, Hoffman and Thompson are charming.

Even they can't turn Hopkins' thin story into a credible tale, though. Both lead characters come with overly convenient back-stories to set up their incipient romance. Hoffman's Harvey Shine is a New Yorker who wasn't good enough to realize his dream to become a jazz pianist and now faces the prospect of losing his job as a jingle writer for commercials. Amid the career pressure, Harvey heads off for the wedding of his daughter (Liane Balaban) in London, where he has an uncomfortable reunion with his ex-wife (Kathy Baker) and suffers heartbreak when his little girl says she wants her step-dad (James Brolin) to give her away. Harvey has a couple of chance encounters and near-encounters with Kate, a London lonetyheart who surveys travelers for the government at Heathrow airport.

We get to see Kate on yet another blind date turned sour and witness a few moments with her mildly daft mother (Eileen Atkins) before she and Harvey meet up for real at an airport bar. By the time the two strike up a conversation, Harvey should be fully in wallowing self-pity mode. Inexplicably, he shifts to pickup stance, insinuating himself into the rest of Kate's day with persistence that borders on stalking. If the bond that quickly forms between them works at all, it's because of Hoffman and Thompson's warmth and tenderness, PEBFOflMING ARTS CENTER I PPB Albany Symphony Orchestra 1 VISIONARY HEROES 111 with ELIOT FISK '-WM Sat Feb at 7-jopm FOREVER TANGO Sun Mar i at 7PM mm Metropolitan Opera "Live in HD" MADAMA BUTTERFLY Sat Mar 7 at ipm Mahaiwe Movie of the Month PRIZZI'S HONOR FRI MAR 6 AT 8PM Sponsored by Don Buchwald Associates LA Theatre Works WAR OF THE WORLDS THE LOST WORLD Sat Mar at 7pm JUST ADDED! Celtic evening at the Colonial PITTSFIELD Celtic Crossroads, a spirited evening of Irish music and dcance, is coming to The Colonial Theatre on March 20 at 8 p.m. Coming to the United States from its native Gahvay in Ireland, the show incorporates seven world-class musicians, playing more than 20 instruments on stage.

The music is a fusion of eastern European Gypsy, North American bluegrass, world classical and jazz, and various forms of Celtic music from around Europe and the rest of the world. The name Celtic Crossroads originates from a time in Ireland when neighboring communities met at the crossroads between towns and villages to socialize long before the pub tradition began. The show features performances throughout the United States, as well as in Ireland, Europe, Mexico and Japan. SPEAKER CHANGE FOR THE DOVVMEL LECTURE SERIES: HOWARD DEAN WILL REPLACE ANTONIA NOVELLO AS THE NEXT DOWMEL SPEAKER FORMER GOVERNOR OF VERMONT, HOWARD DEAN to speak on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 7:30 P.M. at Monument Mountain High School The topic is Healthcare in the 21st Century Free Auditorium tickets are available at 2 per person beginning Friday, February 27th at the Berkshire Museum, and Saturday, February 28th at Monument Mtn.

High School. Doors open at 7am at both venues. If there are tickets remaining after the initial distribution date, they can be picked up at the Berkshire Museum and Monument Mtn. High School during regular business hours. For additional information, call (413) 528-5486 RUFUS WAIN WRIGHT FRI APR 24 AT 8PM CHRIS BOTTI Fri May 8 at 8pm Castle Street Great Barrington 413.528.OlQO www.mahaiwe.org which compensate for some of the unlikely turns and artificial behav- ior Hopkins' script forces on them.

The rest of the cast is left standing around awkwardly, Baker with barely a walk-on, Atkins stuck with a pointless subplot. Implausible as their weekend ro-I mance proves, Hoffman and Thompson are enjoyable to watch, a couple of pros able to inject a degree of kinship and compassion even into a story as cloying as this. But just as Harvey and Kate come to realize about their own empty little lives, Hoffman and Thompson deserve better. "Last Chance Harvey" is rated PG-13 for brief strong language. M01306297-01 LARRY MOORE'S LARRY MOORE'S Sign up GYMNASTICS IP oN Now Qoccinn Qtarlc Marrh Qth Qoiut oi T- ti a a cr iw rnr i nren i it nuri i anno- nnrar nn nvminmpnr a Visionary Heroes featuring dazzling guitarist, Eliot Fisk rossini: La Scala di Seta.

Overture Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, Eroica Robert beaser: Guitar Concerto world premiere, Eliot Fisk, guitar To Register Call 445-5689 10 Lyman PimMd, MA 01201 tile BeiKStlll the Berkshi! DELIVERING FROM GREAT LOCAL RESTAURANTS! Castle Hill Theatre Company I Panda house jimmy's Tyler ST. Pizza House of India ARIZONA PIZZA AND MORE BnalMM UnchM 14 Hr. Notice 499 -FOOD (3663) DAILY 9-9 February Mahaiwe Performing L.O Arts Center Saturday, 7:30 PM For tickets: 413-528-0100 Call us for details: 5T8-465-4755 an out-of-ttie-box producHon ALBANYISYMPHONY aaaaaV en SpptivfRtib, CttrdxkFabdGKlit CfetA An exciting, mteractive, educational show based on the popular TV series. for ages 8 little ftidiry Hlod fJb time wi The High Meadow Foundation AMt.

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