Category Archives: Comedy

Jan 21

Good, Right, True: “Legend of Sleepy Hollow: An American Pantomime”

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Imaginary Beasts 2013

Imaginary Beasts 2013; no horses were used in this production. They gave full consent.

presented by Imaginary Beasts: Winter Panto 2013
Part of the Emerging Theatre Company program

Conceived and written by Matthew Woods and the Ensemble

Directed by Matthew Woods
Choreography by Joey Pelletier and Kiki Samko

January 11 – February 2, 2013
Plaza Black Box Theatre
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Imaginary Beasts Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston) The pantomime (panto) began its troubled youth as British entertainment based on the Elizabethan masque. It touched on classical subjects, included music and often borrowed from the Commedia dell’Arte style. These days, if one travels to jolly olde England during the Christmas and New Year’s season, one is confronted with vaudeville debauchery, bedazzled drag queens, slapstick and heaps of audience participation. It’s amazing that the US hasn’t already adopted the Panto and claimed it as our own invention. Enter Legend of Sleepy Hollow: An American Pantomime.

The form has been simplified and adapted for the small stage by Imaginary Beasts and contains the same wacky charm as its British cousin and more of the brash sassiness expected from the fringe theatre scene. We’re treated to country line dancing, Rocky references, and an extra hairy Fairy Godfather (Mikey DiLoreto) who speaks in rhyme and verse but not to a multimedia spectacular. The charm is in the ensemble’s work and it is served with campy flair. Continue reading →

Jan 20

Lithgow Survives a Train-wreck: THE MAGISTRATE

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John Lithgow (Aeneas Posket) and Dandies. Photo by Johan Persson

John Lithgow (Aeneas Posket) and Dandies. Photo by Johan Persson

Simulcast at the Coolidge Corner Theatre
Presented by the National Theatre in London

by Arthur Wing Pinero
directed by Timothy Sheader
lyrics by Richard Stilgoe
music by Richard Sisson
choreography by Liam Steel

Brookline, MA
January 17th and February 3rd, 2013

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Brookline) I defy you to dislike John Lithgow on stage or film. The veteran actor has had one of the most vibrant careers in film, staring in everything from the campy 80’s classic the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension to the bloody television show Dexter. While Lithgow has amazing acting chops, much of his allure is that he appears to thoroughly enjoy himself in every role, showing the same joy as a child might upon getting his first role in a school production. His joy for acting can sometimes get in the way of his more miserable roles, but it’s impossible not to enjoy watching; his character may be dying of Alzheimer’s in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but Lithgow still seems to be having the time of his life doing so.

It is Lithgow’s ability to have fun while acting that is the only fun thing worth watching in the Simulcast production of The Magistrate, beamed from the National Theatre in London. This unfunny comedy is a testament that a play can be terrible even though it’s English and based on an antique script. John Lithgow is Posket, the judge in question, an honest man who marries into a family that harbors one little secret that will upend their sense of decency. His wife, Agatha (Nancy Carroll), lied about her age when they first met, and her lie shaved five years off the age of her son from a previous marriage, as well. Everyone thinks the youth, Cis (Joshua McGuire), is a precocious 14-year old, including himself, but he actually is a normal and randy young adult. Hilarity is supposed to ensue as this secret is in danger of being revealed, but hilarity doesn’t. Continue reading →

Dec 31

Embracing the Flaws: TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

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Stratton McCrady Photography; the cast getting funky with Shakespeare.

Stratton McCrady Photography; the cast getting funky with Shakespeare.

presented by Actors Shakespeare Project

Davis Square Theatre
255 Elm Street,
Somerville, MA
December 12th, 2012 – January 6th, 2012
Actors Shakespeare Project Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Somerville) Because Shakespeare has become the standard by which Western theatre is judged, we often forget that the man first had to feel his way in the dark, just like every other art school wannabe.  Two Gentlemen of Verona, believed by some to be the Bard’s first play, shows frustrating snatches of his future brilliance.  All his trademark comedic pieces are there (cross-dressing women, inconstant lovers and the amazing power of the wilderness to right all wrongs), but this script reads like the man was working on deadline.  Themes are picked up and discarded, wordplay only sporadically catches fire and a plot point in the final act makes you want to bang Shakespeare’s head against the floorboards and scream, “Rewrite!” Continue reading →

Dec 25

Close to a Classic: IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

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Photo: Mark Linehan* & Erin Brehm. Credit: David Costa.

Photo: Mark Linehan* & Erin Brehm. Credit: David Costa.

presented by Stoneham Theatre

adapted for the stage and directed by Weylin Symes

395 Main St. Stoneham, MA
November 23rd through December 23rd, 2012
Stoneham Theatre Facebook Page

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Stoneham) In an interview in Time Magazine, Spanish director Pedro Almodovar once quipped that every mistake he made in his first film became his signature “style” in subsequent ones. The holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life doesn’t stand the test of time because it is perfect, but because of its many flaws. It is a holiday redemption story told by director Frank Capra at his most moody, and one can see why it bombed in its inaugural run at the movie houses. The script moves in a disjointed style, with a biblical fable serving as tacked-on bookends to a dark meditation on inequality in America. If not for Capra’s bold and technically-accomplished direction and the performance of a lifetime by Jimmy Stewart, the movie would be a laugher by now.

Stoneham Theatre’s staging of Weylin Symes’ theatrical adaption of Capra’s screenplay may have seemed like a safe end-of-year choice, and crowds have come in droves to see the spirited production, but this is as difficult a script as some of Shakespeare’s obscure works, and director Caitlin Lowans fails to navigate this production around many pitfalls. If not for Mark Linehan’s heart-on-sleeve performance as the desperate George Bailey and near-universal knowledge of the iconic storyline, this staging would have derailed. Continue reading →

Dec 17

Enduring Marriage: HALF N’ HALF N’ HALF

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Carol Halstead, Zoë Winters, Andrew Pastides and Jim Ortlieb. Photo by Meghan Moore.

Carol Halstead, Zoë Winters, Andrew Pastides and Jim Ortlieb. Photo by Meghan Moore.

by John Kolvenbach
directed by Kyle Fabel

Merrimack Repertory Theatre
50 East Merrimack Street
Lowell, MA
November 29th – December 23rd, 2012
Merrimack Repertory Theatre Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell) It is frustrating to see a craftsman like playwright John Kolvenbach run rings around pedestrian writers.  His play Half n’ Half n’ Half shows that he understands how a play functions on a deep level and that he could write in any genre he chooses, from The Seagull to Lend Me a Tenor.  Kolvenbach toys with the audience in several genres with this comedy, while demonstrating his near-mastery of them all.  This is more than an exercise in play writing, however.  Throughout this script of multiple plays, Kolvenbach is able to document how a lifetime romantic commitment often drives us to need to be committed. Continue reading →

Dec 17

A Mishmashed Culture Clash: CHING-LISH

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Photos by Nerys Powell

Photos by Nerys Powell

by David Henry Hwang
directed by Larry Coen
Lyric Stage Company
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA
November 30th – December 23rd, 2012
Lyric Stage Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston) There is something that can be excruciatingly transcendent about trying to communicate in a foreign language.  For one thing, you must forgo words like “excruciatingly” and “transcendent” for utilitarian expressions and gesticulations to get the job done.  You must expose yourself to ridicule and connect in a raw and childlike way in the hope that others will understand you.  If you stick with the process, it’s easy to believe your artifice is stripped away in the process to reveal the real you. Continue reading →

Dec 12

Happy Medium Theatre’s Playing Nice while Being Naughty

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"You don't know what it's like to be the world's most famous victim."

“You don’t know what it’s like to be the world’s most famous victim.”

Happy Medium Theatre proudly presents:
THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES BY JEFF GOODE 
(A Staged Reading)

This staged reading will be performed on December 21st, 2012 at 8pm.
Democracy Center,45 Mount Auburn Street  Cambridge, MA 02138.

Happy Medium Theatre Facebook Page

A dark, dark Christmas comedy. Scandal erupts at the North Pole when one of Santa’s eight tiny reindeer accuses him of sexual harassment. As mass media descends upon the event, the other members of the sleigh team demand to share their perspectives, and a horrific tale of corruption and perversion emerges, which seems to implicate everyone from the littlest elf to the tainted Saint himself. With each deer’s confession, the truth behind the shocking allegations becomes clearer and clearer. …and murkier and murkier. Continue reading →

Dec 06

A Decadent 18th Century Treat: “The Way of the World”

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Photo credit: The Boston Conservatory

Written by William Congreve
Directed by Christopher Webb
December 4 – 7, 2012

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston) For a tragically short engagement, The Boston Conservatory has decided to showcase the adultery comedy of manners, The Way of the World.  The theatrical effort revives the Restoration-era play by William Congreve (1670 – 1729) for the contemporary stage.  With everyone in powdered wigs and dimpled with fake moles, Mirabell (Marchant Davis) plots to marry the clever Mrs. Millamant (Emily Shankman) by outwitting her wealthy, mean-spirited aunt, Lady Wishfort (the delightful Jacqueline Harding, playing her role with zeal). Continue reading →

Dec 03

It’s a Weirdly Wonderful Life with ImprovBoston’s “Merry Christmas, Mister Lampost!”

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Image Credit: ImprovBoston

presented by ImprovBoston

ImprovBoston
40 Prospect St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
December, Fridays at 10pm
ImprovBoston Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Cambridge) Criticized as saccharine on its initial release, It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) is probably one of the most watched Christmas movies of the era. In it, Jimmy Stuart stars as George Bailey, an unlucky small town businessman who gains a new lease on life when his guardian angel shows him how awfully the world would get on without him. Continue reading →

Nov 13

indiegogo Campaign: “From Denmark With Love”

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Vaquero Playground: Fun, Cheap, Dirty Plays made just for Boston.
FROM DENMARK WITH LOVE,
May 10 – June 1, 2013
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

Vaquero Playground Facebook Page

WHO WE ARE and WHAT We’re Doing:
In Spring of 2013 Vaquero Playground will be bringing it’s biggest production yet: FROM DENMARK WITH LOVE, a mash-up parody of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the one and only Bond, James Bond.
Written by John J King, the play stars Boston rising legend Daniel Berger-Jones and is directed by Barlow Adamson.

What We Need
Funds raised for the project will go primarily to the hard-working cast, crew, and creative team.  But just as importantly, the monies will go towards making sure the show is as BIG, bold, and exciting as it’s sources demand.
$3000 will go towards stipends for artists.
$3000 will go towards set, costumes, props, and necessary rehearsal space.

THREE WAYS TO HELP!
1. Toss us some Cash!
2. Spread the word!  Post the video on Facebook and Twitter; email friends; help us tell the world what we’re doing!
3. LIKE us on Facebook – best way to keep tabs on the show and everything from Vaquero Playground!