Some 60 years after Marie Curie died (in 1934) from a rare blood disorder caused by her work with radium and polonium, the French government had planned to move her body as well as that of her husband Pierre to the Panthéon. However, the team responsible for exhuming their coffins had to be extraordinarily cautious … Read more
INTRODUCTION One year ago, when The Utah Review presented the 2019 edition of the top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment, it was a jubilant representation of Utah’s integral strengths as a community of the arts and the momentum that catapulted Salt Lake City as one of the Intermountain West’s most dynamic centers for creative … Read more
In one of many intensely emotional passages in Plan-B Theatre’s unprecedented streamed production of Jenifer Nii’s The Audacity, actor April Fossen rises to an unforgettable moment in Utah theater history. Among the six characters she portrays in this solo work is Josie Bassett, one of Utah’s most famous pioneer ranchers. Josie, nearly 90, is walking … Read more
“Legend, lore, mystery, romance and even murder.” That is the opening sentence in Linda Wommack’s recently published book Growing Up with the Wild Bunch: The Story of Pioneer Legend Josie Bassett. “This rugged, tough-as-nails, small-statured lady moved to a new homestead on Cub Creek in Utah, where she would struggle to survive for the next … Read more
More than 50 years ago, Susan Sontag’s essay Against Interpretation became one of her most famous and widely scrutinized writings. Sontag wrote in the last line of the essay, “In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art,” – a declaration that resonated in her deep admiration for Franz Kafka’s work and, in … Read more
In a season where consumers exchange expectations of peace and goodwill for short-lived marketing ‘magic,’ Rob Tennant’s impressively on-point Booksmart is an entertaining call beckoning us back to a sane conscience for the holidays. Plan-B Theatre’s production, which has sold out the house in every performance, is as pitch perfect as an original holiday show … Read more
“It doesn’t make sense, I know it doesn’t. Forty-five minutes later, I’m tied in knots. I’m angry and confused and all over the place. But the moment that he asked, in that second, that breath hanging in the air between him and me— There was a blossom of warmth. A burst of— I don’t know. … Read more