FILM
1950s B-movie festival
Thursdays in October.Series. Long before horror flicks swan-dived into buckets of gore, they dealt with anxieties. B-movies so steeped in Cold War jitters have become kitschy hoots, but they’re also revealing of a moment in time. Thursdays during October, head to the Mayan for its “1950s B-Movie Film Festival.” Next week: Picnic ruined and you can blame “THEM!” 7 and 9:30 p.m. Thursday. Mayan Theatre, 110 Broadway. $7.50-$10. 303-744-6799. Lisa Kennedy
Family fun
Up close and personal
Today. IMAX upgrade. The 3-D craze gets an educational twist when 3-D viewing comes to the IMAX screen at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The museum’s theater has a few other upgrades too, including wider seats and updated sound and visual systems. Travel to the deep sea or the far reaches of outer space in “Under the Sea 3-D” and “Hubble 3-D.” Though the new-and-improved movies begin showing today, a grand opening celebration is planned for Oct. 16-17, with educational activities, experiments and a cool solar telescope. “Hubble 3-D”: 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m. daily, plus 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. “Under the Sea 3-D”: 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m. daily, plus 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd.; 303-370-6000. IMAX-only tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors age 65 and older, students and juniors ages 3 to 18. Learn more at . Kathleen St. John
Chili with a beer chaser
Saturday. Hot stuff. It’s going to be a hot one in Golden during the third annual Knock Your Boots Off Beer Tasting and Chili Cookoff. Chili aficionados can sample all kinds of the stuff, cooked by amateur and professional chefs. Cool down spicy tongues with beer samples, including tastes from local brewhouses like Oskar Blues, Boulder Beer, Flying Dog and, of course, Coors. Discounted tickets are available for nondrinkers and kids. 2-5 p.m. Arapahoe Street between 12th and 13th streets, Golden. Advance tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for chili only and guests under age 21; buy tickets in advance at the Golden Visitors Center. Add $5 for day-of admission. Visit for more information. Kathleen St. John
Young artists on the walk
Saturday. Art on the walk. Artists of all ages will showcase their talents at the third annual Larimer Sidewalk Arts Festival. Featuring pieces from artists between the ages of 12 and 25, the fest draws representatives from local art galleries to constructively critique the artwork on display. Everyone’s invited: Food and drink will be available, plus live music from local groups, including a couple of school-age acts. Listen for a marching band and DJs too. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Larimer and 27th streets. Admission is free. Learn more at . Kathleen St. John
Scare away the crows
Saturday. Fall fest. It’s a sure sign of fall when the scarecrows start appearing, and Arvada is the place to see them: The Festival of Scarecrows fills the city’s historic downtown with the floppy fellows. Businesses, organizations and residents build scarecrows to enter in a contest. Festivalgoers can vote for their favorites in different categories. This year the fest also celebrates the 100th anniversary of the distinctive Arvada water tower, starting at 2 p.m. at the base of the tower. Also on the schedule are a kids costume parade, tasty chow, face painting, a corn maze and pumpkin patch. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Olde Town Arvada, Grandview Avenue and Olde Wadsworth Boulevard and environs. Admission is free. For more information, call 303-420-6100 or visit . Kathleen St. John
Beware: Flying pumpkins
Saturday. Pitchin’ pumpkins. Halloween goes “splat!” at Jack-O-Launch at PumpkinFest, Aurora’s autumn extravaganza. The highlight of the event is three rounds of flying pumpkins, hurled through the air to see how far they can fly. Competing pumpkin-chuckers build special devices to launch their pumpkins, hoping to avoid a “pie,” or a midair explosion. The event is also a complete fall festival, with live music, hayrides, a pumpkin patch and other seasonal delights. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. DeLaney Farm, 170 S. Chambers Road, Aurora. Admission is free. Visit for more details. Kathleen St. John
Theater
Visiting thespians
Through Nov. 7. Creede comes to Arvada. The Creede Repertory Theatre, located 250 miles southwest of Denver, is an esteemed summer repertory theater company that is bringing its well- received summer production of “The Ladies Man” to the Arvada Center for an extended run in its studio theater. In this fast-paced farce, freely adapted from “Tailleur Pour Dames” by Georges Feydeau, a little lie leads to mind-boggling chaos, several near-catastrophes and an improbable succession of slamming doors. This unusual collaboration is part of the Arvada Center’s subscription season. Performances daily except Mondays. 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., 720-898-7200, 1-866-658-2540 or . John Moore
Classical music
Rare Beethoven work
Saturday. Chamber music. Seven members of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, including new assistant principal bassist Nick Recuber, will present a rare performance of Beethoven’s Septet in E flat major (violin, viola, cello, bass, clarinet, bassoon and French horn). The performance, part of the Englewood Arts Concert Series, will take place at 2 p.m. in Hampden Hall on the second level of the Englewood Civic Center, 1000 Englewood Parkway. $15. 303-806-8196 or . The concert is in conjunction with the symphony’s Beethoven festival, which continues with three concerts this weekend at Boettcher Concert Hall. 303-623-7876 or . Kyle MacMillan
Visual art
Rockwell on display
Saturday. Painting. Eight paintings by Norman Rockwell will be on display from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of a touring exhibit marking the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. The artist and illustrator gained lasting fame as a sympathetic chronicler of everyday life in 20th-century America. The free show, which also includes eight works by Joseph Csatari, will be at the Madden Museum of Art in the Palazzo Verdi building, 6363 S. Fiddler’s Green Circle, Greenwood Village. 303-763-1970 or . Kyle MacMillan
A new use for old tires
Wednesday. Sculpture. Chakaia Booker, a New York artist who uses slices of discarded tires to assemble sculptures of dazzling complexity and grace, will spend two days next week at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She will present a free lecture from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Griffin Concert Hall in the University Center for the Arts, 1400 Remington St., and sign books at a reception afterward. Her visit is in conjunction with an exhibition of her work on view through Dec. 17 in the University Art Museum at the arts center. 970-491-1989 or . Kyle MacMillan
Canadian printmaker
Today.Printmaking. Mitch Mitchell of Halifax, Nova Scotia, evokes the surreal tar-sands landscape of western Canada in a suite of original prints on view through Oct. 30 at Red Delicious Press, 9901 E. 16th Ave., Aurora. A public opening reception will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. today. 303-366-2922 or . Kyle MacMillan
Anna Kaye’s exhibit extended at Sandra Phillips
Anna Kaye’s solo exhibition last year at the Sandra Phillips Gallery, 744 Santa Fe Drive, generated considerable buzz and completely sold out. It’s not hard to understand why.
Kaye, a visiting assistant professor and co-coordinator of drawing studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver, creates exquisitely detailed and tonally nuanced charcoal drawings.
Three large-scale examples of her work and a superb miniature are on view as part of “Natural Encounters,” a three-person exhibition that has been extended through Oct. 23 at Sandra Phillips.
Kaye’s recent work, which focuses on the 2002 Hayman fire southwest of Denver and its natural aftermath, is based on photographs as well as her own observations.
She combines her old-master draftsmanship with a contemporary aesthetic that hovers in that ambiguous area between realism and abstraction.
A compelling example is the triptych “Kindling,” a close-in look at onrushing flames that is at once alluring and scary.
Free. 303-573-5969 or . Kyle MacMillan
Theater review: Woman’s hour of death is fiercely brought to life
*** STAR REVIEW (out of 4) | Mortal combatMarina Carr’s “Woman and Scarecrow” is a strange and mystical Irish play, but a lot of older Catholic women in America who raised large broods in the pre-Gloria Steinem era surely will relate to the contemporary, unnamed woman of the title.
She’s a young mother of eight at the end of a bitterly unrealized life. She lies on her deathbed romanticizing her forthcoming death. But really, in the end, is anyone ever truly prepared to die?
There will be no angel sweetly singing this woman to her rest. Instead, Death awaits inside her wardrobe closet — a clawed creature impatiently scratching for her. A human scarecrow constantly hovers, both a chum and twisted guardian angel who chides the woman for surrendering her life so easily. A severe aunt berates her for leaving her to raise her children. And when you meet the philandering husband who has grown impatient for her to die, already, you can see why this woman just wants out. Ah, the Irish.
Yes, this is a chosen death, a willful jaunt to her own doom. But she will not go quietly into his cold night. And enough women watching will identify that Carr’s play might easily have been pluralized as “Women and Scarecrows.”
While divorce in America was almost unheard-of in the 1960s, it wasn’t even legal in Ireland until 1997. Which is not to say infidelity or separation was uncommon — merely incorporated. Pre-liberated women (here and there) were expected to raise their small armies without complaint, turn a blind eye to their husbands’ indiscretions and muddle and mutter through their lives as subordinated citizens in loveless marriages. Then die without complaint.
The right to happiness, we’re reminded, is a modern concern, “an invention of the Sunday papers.”
The Victorian Playhouse’s exquisite and harrowing staging is tenderly directed by Erica Sarzin-Borrillo and fiercely brought to life (and death) by Rita Broderick in a breakout performance. For two hours, she rails with regret and rancor on the consequences of her wasted life, a clarion call to all women within earshot to live their lives more fully. The play is an Irish “Our Town,” infused with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe and Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal.”
Carr is a provocateur — a brutal, female answer to Martin McDonagh. In her “Ariel,” a businessman sacrifices his teen daughter to the gods, but his reward (a spectacular political career) is thwarted by a vengeful wife. And I saw Holly Hunter in “By the Bog of Cats” in London, where she played a despairing woman who embarks on a terrible journey of revenge against a man who abandoned her with child.
This staging belongs to Broderick. She expresses childlike longing one moment and unloads on her husband the next, liberating herself of all unspoken regrets. “It’s good to tell the truth,” we’re told, “especially when it’s vicious.”
While a few sizzling barbs might benefit from an even more pitchforked delivery, a gaunt and galvanized Broderick is fully invested in her role.
The true origin of the ever- present scarecrow (played by Paige Lynn Larson) is the play’s great mystery. This avian shrew haunts and taunts the woman, keeping her always accountable for her own role in her unhappiness. For putting up with her husband’s abuse. For deciding to die without further struggle.
Because she knows the woman so intimately, might she in fact be the voice inside the woman’s head? The empowered woman within? Her buried self-esteem taking flight in the wing of an imaginary bird?
The staging benefits from evocative lighting effects by Karlyn Star Pytel but suffers from repetition and too much enigma. The end of the first act, for example, introduces an impactful image that is never again revisited. And as passionately as Broderick’s scenes play with Larson, those with her husband (Tom Borrillo) lack similar combustion. Her triumphant scene is an evisceration of the lout, but the actor’s utter lack of emotional response robs it of maximum impact.
But this is a woman who clearly has never been more alive than at the hour of her death.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“WOMAN AND SCARECROW.”
Victorian Playhouse, 4201 Hooker St. Written by Marina Carr. Directed by Erica Borrillo. Through Oct. 30. 2 hours, 5 minutes. 7:30 p.m. Fridays- Saturdays; 6 p.m. Oct. 10 and 17; 2 p.m. Oct. 24. $19. 303-433-4343,
