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June 14, 2007

Don't let the time go by: Peter & Wendy, Mabou Mines' production of J.M. Barrie's novel, winds up its run at Arena Stage's Kreeger Theatre on June 24. It's a brooding, profoundly magical piece whose single storyteller conjures up many worlds, many voices. That single narrator is actress Karen Kandel, a stately figure of infinite grace who possesses more nimbly comic voices than Mel Blanc and portrays the entire English clan of Darlings as well as the denizens of Neverland. She's surrounded by puppets -- finely carved bunraku, wooden dolls, marionettes and bits of cloth -- whose actions and gestures are transporting. The lyrical effect is theater magic at its best. 1101 Sixth St. SW. $60-$75. 202/488-3300.
    -- Jayne Blanchard
    
    Exceptional European imports outclass the other new films opening this weekend. In The Golden Door, writer-director Emanuele Crialese depicts the migration of a Sicilian peasant family to the United States about a century ago. His striking sense of historical evocation is enhanced by a hopeful shipboard romance and interludes of surreal fantasy. In the show business biographical saga La vie en rose, writer-director Olivier Dahan recalls the life of singer Edith Piaf, emphasizing hardship, squalor, heartache and a passion to perform that becomes synonymous with primal survival instincts.
    Marion Cotillard, the young actress cast as Piaf from about the age of 20 to her late 40s (Miss Piaf died in 1963 at the age of 47), achieves a phenomenal embodiment and may set a daunting standard for the year's subsequent best-actress candidates. Although Hollywood seems unlikely to offer her a comparable role, Miss Cotillard is fluent in English and played the token leading lady in last year's Ridley Scott-Russell Crowe dud "A Good Year," set in Provence. It's now worth a backward glance to see what she looks and sounds like naturally.
    -- Gary Arnold
    

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