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enlarge Bill DeLoach END OF DAYS: Grant Wiggins (Johnell J. Easter, left) and Jefferson (Eric J. Little) Theatrical Outfit's production of A Lesson Before Dying initially resembles a study in dated theatricality. Romulus Linney's death-penalty drama, set in Louisiana in 1948, feels like the kind of clunky, midcentury social-issues play that spells loudly and repeats its themes in the most blatant possible terms. It's kind of a shock to remember that Ernest J. Gaines published the acclaimed novel in 1993 and that Linney premiered the adaptation at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2000. Directed by Jill Jane Clements, A Lesson Before Dying frequently creaks in subordination ...

By Julie MuhlsteinHerald Columnist Crime of the hundred, that's what he called it.My 21-year-old had a nervous laugh when I picked up my phone a week ago. "Hey, Mom," he said, "did you hear on the point Ellensburg's crime of the hundred?" He was calling to let me know he was fine.I was clueless. This news hadn't made it western of the Cascades.In September, I helped him move into a nice apartment a few blocks from Central Washington University, where he goes to school. He lives on N. Yellowstone Street, a name that conjures images of rustic beauty, not big-city crime.Even under the jurisdiction acquisition off the phone ...

enlarge Illustration Slug Signorino I'm sure you've heard the term "concrete shoes," mobsters' choice of swimwear for fellas with rodent traits and other individuals who ran afoul of them. Is there any truth to it? – – Ale, Bangkok When your question came in, Ale, I thought: At last, a chance to have it out with E.L. Doctorow. You remember the opening of Doctorow's award-winning 1989 novel Billy Bathgate, right? (Play along here, slackers.) Evil crime lord Dutch Schultz motors across New York harbor in a tugboat while a henchman sticks the feet of doomed underling Bo Weinberg into a tub of concrete in preparation for ...

grow larger Illustration Tray Butler SOMETHING FISHY: A woman from Plantation, Fla., said she visited the Georgia Aquarium one Friday afternoon. It was crowded when she arrived, she said. About an hour later, she said she noticed that her diamond-and-gold tennis bracelet had been stolen. (It's worth about $2,000.) No suspects. SOMETHING FISHY, Part II: A 56-year-old woman from Huntington, W.Va., said she visited the Georgia Aquarium one Saturday afternoon. She said she was looking at the fish and tried to step in between two folks in wheelchairs. She said a man moved his wheelchair toward her. The woman said she jumped back and away from ...

enlarge Marc Brotherton COLOR CODED: "Subverter" Proliferate: Recent Paintings by Marc Brotherton Through Dec. 19. Free. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Callanwolde Fine Arts Center Gallery, 980 Briarcliff Road. 404-872-5338. www.callanwolde.org. The paintings in Proliferate, Marc Brotherton's solo exhibition at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center Gallery, map as well-as; not only-but also; ...