Reviews by T de V

Begun in 1991, DorothyL is a mailing list which goes 3330+ addresses of people in 25+ countries who are interested in mystery, suspense, & crime fiction. Click DorothyL to start at the top of the DorothyL section on this site (i.e. the underlined and highlighted word). This link will give you some extra information about the group of DorothyLers.

Every year members of DorothyL post lists of their favourite books read in the prior year. This year we had a team of kindly volunteers to help get the job done. Click Best of 2009 DorothyL booklists or select the menu item "DorothyL" at the top of the screen to see 2009 and prior years. And I have finally gotten around to putting 2006 data online!

Part of the job of a work of art is to startle the viewer, to jostle her/his expectations in some way—often, but not necessarily, unpleasantly—to do something new and fresh. Many people who write reviews, or those who burble about a performance just seen, convey their impressions of the work by detailing what happened, not how it made them feel—in other words, they diminish the power of the storyline to surprise the viewer. In my view, every creater should get her/his moment in the sun. For this reason before I see a new work, I usually shun speculation and limit myself to the first sentence and last paragraph of reviews and publicity announcements.

In spite of these habits it’s almost impossible to bring a truly open-minded perspective, so I had expectations for Kitchen Witches—what do you expect from a comedy whose playbill illustrates a chef wearing her mixing bowl with contents as a hat? Camp jokes?

Kitchen Witches, written by Caroline Smith and directed by Robert Taylor, concerns two friends who aren’t, anymore. These historically rancorous celebrity chefs (should that be chèves?) must work a televised show together.

I'm not a fan of horror but I read Chapter 1 of AFRAID and survived, so I volunteered to review the book. Then I forgot about it. A few days later I woke up from a horrible nightmare, only pulling through by remembering the book was fiction. Chapter 1 seemed well written and friendly enough, but it intimated terrifying things.

RACING THE DEVIL, by E. Michael Terrell, is a compelling story you know you’d like to slow down and savour; but there’s no time—you must read on. Forget laundry and gardening, once you begin the story, your afternoon is done for.

Bay Area community theatre management (not limited to Masquers in Point Richmond) would do well to reconsider having actors speak in accents which are not their own. At least not without some extensive training or a teleprompter.

Few community theatre actors perform accents well, so speech is difficult to understand in all plays with accented English (including British).

My reviews of prior Masquers Theatre performances (since December 2004) are now online. Select the "Theatre" menu item from the top of the screen, then select the season or choose the alphabetical list.

Note that all actors/actresses, the director and music director, and some of the production staff in a production have been "tagged". By clicking on the tag for a particular actor at the bottom of the review, you will receive a list of all performances with that actor, which is equivalent to a search query as follows:
http://www.reviewsbytdev.com/category/theatre/Tammara-Plankers
http://www.reviewsbytdev.com/category/theatre/Robert-Love
http://www.reviewsbytdev.com/category/theatre/Michelle-Pond
http://www.reviewsbytdev.com/category/theatre/Coley-Grundman

Of course, you can also use the search box in the upper right hand corner of the screen to locate a review or a person.

Please let me know what you think (add comments) and send me any corrections.