Rockwell Kent and the Cape Cinema Mural, by Lucy Vivante

Cape_cinema

(First published on 5 July 2008 by Lucy Vivante)

Part of the Cape Cinema’s appeal comes from the high contrast between outside and in. The church-like exterior is patterned after the nearby town of Centerville's Congregational Church. The murals you might expect inside–of a Puritan religious gathering or colonists working–are instead of exuberant figures dancing across the ceiling. Within the space of a few feet, just by crossing the lobby, we travel from stern New England to lush Art Deco.

Dennis's Cape Cinema is open year round, in the summer months for art-house movies and some live concerts and in the winter for Metropolitan Opera Live in HD performances. The movies are selected by Eric Hart, the cinema's manager, and George Mansour. Mansour has been booking art-house films for more than forty years and is a consultant for the Angelika Cinemas.

The cinema forms part of a larger cultural campus with the Cape Playhouse (formerly a Unitarian Meeting House) and the Cape Cod Museum of Art. The Playhouse was founded in 1927 and it bills itself as the oldest professional summer theater in America.  The cinema is well located since it is at the Cape's midpoint. It is well located in another way–far away from multiplex viewing– shoebox proportioned rooms, jolting sound, and the assault of snack advertisements.

Read More at the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts.