Review: “Call Them by Their True Names” by Rebecca Solnit
By Robert Thomas Subtitled American Crises (and Essays), Call Them by Their True Names is Rebecca Solnit’s powerful 2018 collection of timely essays. The book’s forward, “Politics and the American Language,” sets the author’s course in sifting the wheat from the chaff that is the contemporary Babel of linguistic chicanery. “Calling things by their true names is the work I have tried to do in the essays...
Flint Repertory Theatre kicks off 2022-23 season with Death of a Salesman
By Patsy Isenberg Arthur Miller’s 1949 Death of a Salesman opened Sept. 23 to a full house of enraptured theatergoers at Flint’s Repertory Theatre (The Rep). For this opening night of the new season, food and drinks were served before the play began and a champagne toast was offered afterward — perhaps to help salve the gloomy effect of the plot. The play runs through Oct. 9 and tickets can be purchased at...
Review: Fantastic adaptation of “The Fantasticks” celebrates a new perspective
By Patsy Isenberg and Tom Travis A festive conclusion of The Rep’s final presentation of the season, The Fantasticks, opened to an appreciative full house Friday, June 3. The iconic musical is the longest-running production in the history of the American stage and one of the most frequently produced musicals in the world. The Rep’s production, while respectful of that history, also offers something different. A pre-show...
Review: Connor Coyne’s URBANTASM Book Four: THE SPRING STORM finishes the gripping allegory with a hammer blow
By Robert Thomas The publication of the fourth and final book of Flint author Connor Coyne’s serial novel, URBANTASM, marks the finale of his epic allegory set in the heart of the American Rust Belt in the fictional city of Akawe, Michigan, somewhere north of Detroit. As befits any gripping serial, The Spring Storm delivers a hammer blow with a rollicking readerly ride through a perfect storm of rusty decay and an abundance of evil. ...
Review: World premiere at The Rep of “Wrong River,” captures one Flint family’s near impossible struggle to survive the water crisis
By Patsy Isenberg “Wrong River” is a story about six people in a home in Flint at the start of the water crisis. It’s intense and delves into each character’s personal reaction and how the water crisis intensifies and complicates their lives. It premiered at The Flint Repertory Theater last weekend and runs through Sunday afternoon, Feb. 20. The production is directed by Flint native Jeremiah Davison, now of Atlanta. Playwright Josh...
Writer Gary Gildner looks back on a Flint that “gave joy to my youth”
By Jan Worth-Nelson To understand how writer Gary Gildner feels about his Flint childhood in the 1950s, some Latin is in order. Flint — specifically Flint’s legendary Holy Redeemer Catholic Church and school and its devoted diaspora — is at the heart of the second essay and central to many of the others in Gildner’s new collection, How I Married Michele and other journeys, just out from BkMk Press in Kansas...
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