Category Archives: Drama

Nov 20

“Betrayal”: Soured Love Affair in Reverse

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Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson

by Harold Pinter
Directed by Maria Aitken

presented by Huntington Theatre Company Website
Huntington Theatre Company Facebook Page
Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Nov 14 – Dec. 9, 2012

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston)With a plot that flows backward, a story about a long-ended affair becomes the story of how two people fell in love. Each layer of their relationship is stripped away, taking a couple who don’t seem to fit together in the least in 1977, chilly Emma (Gretchen Egolf) and the befuddled Jerry (Alan Cox), and re-framing them to reveal who they really are and what they used to be.
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Nov 12

Aerial Stunts and Re-Kindling Mythic Passion: Ted Hughes’ Tales from Ovid

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With Jennifer OConnor, Aimee Rose Ranger and Danny Bryck at Paramount Center.

based on Tales from Ovid, by Ted Hughes published by Faber & Faber, Ltd.
Composer: David McMullin
Composer/Musician/Ensemble: Shaw Pong Liu

presented by Whistler in the Dark Theatre
directed by Meg Taintor
in association with ArtsEmerson: The World Onstage

November 8-18th
Jackie Liebergott Black Box at the Paramount Center
559 Washington Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02111
Whistler in the Dark Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

Ancient Greek myths, when adapted to the stage, need not be built-up to be timely. The dissonance between myth and the modern era can be distracting in contemporary adaptations. If anything, here, the stories chosen from Ovid’s Metamorphoses are stripped down. The production has few props and no costumes, giving the ensemble room to breathe. Whistler in the Dark is the perfect sort of theater to spur to life the passions beneath the age-old Greek myths, which will surely please both casual and Classicist audiences. Continue reading →

Nov 09

The Man in the Couch: Science Fiction Theatre Company

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Photo credit: Becca A. Lewis

Now running, Nov. 2-18 Thurs-Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm
Boston, MA

 

Shut-in Gigi hasn’t had face to face contact with another human being in years. When a teleportation disaster leaves a soldier fused with her couch, Gigi is forced to diverge from her routine significantly. Time is quickly running out for the soldier but Gigi needs to figure out if he’s a friend, an enemy or something else entirely.
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Nov 07

Crossed Communications: The Sussman Variations

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by Richard Schotter
directed by Jeff Zinn
music by Phil Schroeder
Boston, MA 02215
November 1 – 18

Boston Playwright’s Theatre Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston) Loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Charlie Sussman (Ken Baltin) is turning 75 and his entire family has come to celebrate with him at his Connecticut beach house to celebrate in The Sussman Variations. His son Jonathan (Steven Barkhimer) has a paper on The Tempest to write that will put his career on the world map. His daughter Janey (Erin Cole) has a big secret to share with the family and is afraid that they won’t share her happiness. Deirdre (Laura Latreille) needs to practice for her international tour and attempts to keep the peace. Granddaughter Miranda (Lauren Thomas) is on house arrest until she writes her college essay. Margery (Cheryl McMahon), Charlie’s wife, wants to throw a party that will reunite the family despite their differences. Each family member suffers under the weight of familial expectations, frustrated with the conflict of whom they are and whom they supposed they should be. Continue reading →

Nov 03

Trapped by the Words: THE CHOSEN

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Photo by Timothy Dunn

Adapted by Aaron Posner & Chaim Potok
Directed by Daniel Gidron

presented by The Lyric Stage Company
140 Clarendon Street
Boston, MA
October 19th – November 17th, 2012

Lyric Stage Company Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston) Adapting a novel to the stage can be a wrenching exercise. Pages upon pages of description, of scene, of setting, of theme must be boiled down to dialogue and action that can stand alone. By all accounts, Chaim Potok’s novel The Chosen is considered a richly-layered and well-written story about the tension between Jewish communities, as told through the friendship of two young men who find themselves caught between the secular and religious communities at the dawn of Zionism. Unfortunately, he and co-writer Aaron Posner fail to adapt the novel to a script form, leaving in a narrator who breaks up the scenes and explains away the heartfelt tension between the characters, leaving us with a broken dialogue that tells an incomplete tale about the weight one must bear when one is called to carry the load of doing good. Continue reading →

Oct 30

Separating the Political from the Familial: NOW OR LATER

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Photo: Paul Marotta; with Tom Nelis and Grant MacDermott.

by Christopher Shinn
directed by Michael Wilson

presented by Huntington Theatre Company
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
South Boston
October 12 – November 10
Huntington Theatre Company Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(South Boston) John, Jr. (Grant MacDermott) is a college student who has pissed off the Muslim Student Association of his University in the name of free speech. He was incredibly insensitive at a privately hosted but publicly monitored “naked’ party thrown by a fellow college student. He firmly believes that he is entitled to behave in an offensive manner because he is an American citizen. Unlike many kids in his situation, he cannot just let his act of emotional terrorism blow over; he is the son of Presidential nominee John, Sr. (Tom Nelis). Amidst the tumult of election night, Jr. comes to the slow realization that his action affects more than just his immediate circle of friends and family. It has the potential to affect the entire nation. Continue reading →

Oct 29

Entertaining and Well-Done Whining: UNCLE VANYA

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Photo credit: Apollinaire Theatre Company

by Anton Chekhov
directed by Daniella Fauteux Jacques
presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company

Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet Street
Chelsea, MA
October 10th – November 4th
Apollinaire Theatre Company Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Chelsea) I believe I once read that the sitcom Seinfeld didn’t last more than a season in Russia. Now I know why. Russia already had its Seinfeld; his name was Anton Chekhov, who writes brilliantly about all light and no heat. If you would like to chuckle and grimace about the painful foibles and imagined slights of the human condition, then you should catch the Apollinaire Theatre Company’s imaginative and spirited production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. But be warned, their lives might look painfully similar to your most dysfunctional family Thanksgivings. Continue reading →

Oct 26

More than a Handful of Clever: A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE

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Photo credit: Theatre on Fire

by Martin McDonagh
Directed by Darren Evans

presented by Theatre on Fire
Charlestown Working Theater
Charlestown, MA
October 12 – October 27th, 2012
Theatre on Fire Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Charlestown) Successful comedy and drama scripts employ a slightly sadistic withhold-and-give strategy with audiences. Comedy or tension must be built and dissipated and built again. There must be some normalcy to lead us on to the surprise. Think of the easygoing date that occurs before the heroin overdose in the movie Pulp Fiction. Two couples are out on a date making small talk. We know it will end up weird because the movie already has been very weird, but the date is downright boring, and the usually witty dialogue is purposely pedestrian. The payoff comes just a few minutes later with a group of strangers trying to decide what to do with a mob boss’s wife as she is overdosing. Continue reading →

Oct 15

Some Freedoms are More Free than Others: “Parade”

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Photo credit: F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company, the cast with director Joey DeMita kickin’ it.

book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown

Directed by Joey DeMita
Music Directed by Steven Bergman

The F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company
Oct 12- Oct 20, 2012
The Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box
321 Arsenal Street
Watertown, Massachusetts

F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Watertown) A True Story: Mr. Leo Frank was infamously the prime suspect in the murder trial of a young National Pencil Company factory worker, Mary Phagan in 1913. Jim Conley, the factory janitor, was also held as a suspect. Frank was sentenced to death; Conley was sentenced to work on a chain gang. Later, Frank’s sentence was commuted in 1915 to life in prison. Local public outrage inspired a lynch mob to kidnap Frank, drive him back to Marietta, Georgia, where the murder took place, and hang him. Parade spans the trial and 2 year imprisonment of Frank. Continue reading →

Oct 10

“The Company We Keep” by Jaclyn Villano

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Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

Presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
October 4 – 21, 2012
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

(Boston) Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presents its 31st season of new plays in Boston starting with recent BPT alumna Jaclyn Villano’s The Company We Keep. We can joke about attorneys and sharks, but here the metaphor is apt. New to Georgetown with a law professorship and a freshly renovated home, attorneys Harry and wife Ellie are having difficulty settling their 12-year-old son into the new school. When their best friends Katherine and Greg come to the housewarming with surprises of their own, what ensues tests the bonds of friendship, marriage, and parenthood in this vicious, biting comedy of manners. This one is not to miss.

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