Art Gallery

By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

M. C. Escher: Rhythm of Illusion

Where: Mobile Museum of Art (4850 Museum Dr. in Langan Park)

When: Through Sunday, Jan. 6

Dutch artist Maurits Escher was an ideal fit for the turbulent times of the early 20th Century arts world as his paradoxical forays into light and shadow bent perspective and geometry with a mastery of perception. His intuitive gifts with mathematics worked in tandem with a creative instinct custom fit for a time where sciences such as quantum physics opened a world seemingly as much a part of Lewis Carroll as Albert Einstein.

This astounding exhibit contains 81 prints and drawings from all periods of Escher’s career and was organized by the Portland Art Museum in Oregon.

Museum hours are Monday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sundays, 1 – 5 p.m.

Entrance is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors and military, $6 for students and group rates are available.

For more information, call 208-5200 or go to www.mobilemuseumofart.com.

“Nightmares: Tell Me That Isn’t Scary!”

Where: Playhouse In the Park (4851 Museum Dr. in Langan Park)

When: Oct. 24 – 27

Community youth theater The Playhouse in the Park enlisted local mystery writer Thomas Lakeman to create an original script for their annual Halloween production. The result is “Nightmares: Tell me That Isn’t Scary!” Lakeman, whose second novel is being published by St. Martin’s press this November, drew on his love of monster movies and knowledge of literature to adapt Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark,” Balzac’s “The Elixir of Life,” and Ambrose Bierce’s “The Damned Thing.”

These disparate stories are united by a single concept, that, according to Lakeman, “three artists from Hollywood’s golden age – a director, a producer, and a screenwriter – are trying to out-do each other, concocting horror stories for an unnamed studio boss who may or may not be the Prince of Darkness (which is pretty much a given in the movie industry). Each narrator has his or her own ideas about what’s frightening, which explains the play’s subtitle: “Tell Me That Isn’t Scary!”

Lakeman finds inspiration for these stories from throughout time, noting that the themes of perfection at any cost in “The Birth-Mark” are still relevant today and conceiving of “Elixer of Life” as an “homage to 1950s comics like Tales from the Crypt – grim and gory, but hopefully funny as well.”

Playhouse Director Danny Mollise and Scenic Designer Pamela Mollise are staging the play for school audiences Oct. 24 through Oct. 26, culminating in public performances that weekend, Oct.26 and 27 at 7:30 pm. Attendees at the Saturday night performance are encouraged to wear costumes.

Thomas Lakeman is the author of the novels The Shadow Catchers and Chillwater Cove. For reservations or further information, call 601-0630.

- Contributed by Asia Frey

Moonlight & Magnolias

Where: Mobile Theatre Guild (14 N. Lafayette St.)

When: Oct. 26 – 28

Producer David O. Selznick began principal photography for “Gone With The Wind” in 1939 then immediately changed directors and ordered rewrites. Selznick then locked himself, new director Victor Fleming, screenwriter Ben Hecht and Selznick’s long-suffering assistant Miss Poppenghul in his office for a week to forge a new script. Hecht was unfamiliar with the work so Selznick and Fleming acted out the book while Hecht wrote scenes.

British-born playwright Ron Hutchinson exploited this chaos for all it s comic potential and brought his Emmy award-winning talents to bear in “Moonlight and Magnolias.” The play has particular appeal to both fans of Margaret Mitchell’s work and those who silently suffer the cult that has blossomed around the Old South “bodice ripper.”

Friday and Saturday evening shows begin at 8 p.m. with Sunday’s starting at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $17 for the general public, $14 for seniors and $10 for students.

For more information, call 422-7513 or go to www.mobiletheatreguild.org.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

Archives