photo credits go to Brigid Davis
Grey Gardens, book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, lyrics by Michael Korie, Arlington Friends of Drama, 3/30/12-4/15/12, http://afdtheatre.org/greygardens.html.
Reviewed by Gillian Daniels
(Arlington, MA) With expert costuming and stage design, The Arlington Friends of the Drama succeed wildly in cramming the Broadway production of Grey Gardens onto its stage.
But Grey Gardens isn’t one musical Continue reading
Stephen Radochia and Anna Waldron, Photo by Diane Libby.
rogerandtom by Julien Schwab, Simple Machine Theatre, Davis Square Theatre, 3/30/12-4/7/12, http://www.simplemachinetheatre.com/productions.html. (one spoiler–marked)
Reviewed by Becca Kidwell
(Somerville, MA) Julien Schwab takes the idea of a play within a play to a new level. Exploring drama and its tools, rogerandtom pulls, tears, twists, and turns its melodramatic plot cleverly until its end. Continue reading
Alyce Householter, Liz Rimar, Stewart Evan Smith Jr — photo credit: Apollinaire Theatre
Cut by Crystal Skillman, Apollinaire Theatre Company, Chelsea Theatre Works, 3/30/12-4/21/12, http://www.apollinairetheatre.com/ productions/productions.html, in repertory with Smudge by Rachel Axler.
Review by Craig Idlebrook
(Chelsea, MA) Reality programming might be so attractive to TV. watchers because its slick production values and clean edits hold out the hope that we can make some sense out of life. As the central protagonists of our own dramas, we want the chance for playbacks and edits to gain some introspection, or at least to come off looking good. But as the characters of Chelsea Theatre Works’ Cut learn, God is a lousy editor, and life doesn’t wrap up neatly when the cameras stop rolling.
Photo Credit: d.a. Hill
TOMÁŠ KUBÍNEK: CERTIFIED LUNATIC & MASTER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, ArtsEmerson, Paramount Theatre, 3/29/12-4/1/12, http://alturl.com/255s3.
Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook
(Boston, MA) Funny is a funny thing. You can be mean and be funny. You can shock and be funny. You can do knock-knock jokes and be funny, at least to a five-year old. Or you can just be super-talented, a bit caustic and kind of weird and be funny. Tomáš Kubínek has chosen the last option to deliver a memorable and nicely brief one-man show for ArtsEmerson at the Paramount Theatre. Continue reading
Joe Kidawski and Erin Butcher, Photo credit: Company One
Hookman by Lauren Yee, Company One, Boston Center for the Arts Hall A, 3/23/12-4/14/12, http://www.companyone.org/Season13/Hookman/synopsis.shtml.
Reviewed by Gillian Daniels
(Boston, MA) Lexi (Erin Eva Butcher) appears to be the only one in Hookman aware she’s in slasher movie.
With reason to believe a masked murderer (Joseph Kidawski) is responsible for the death of her friend Jess (Nicole Prefontaine), she attempts to protect her college roommate (Pearl Shin) and various others from his hook. Continue reading
Bobbie Steinbach and Jeanine Kane, photo credit: Boston Playwrights' Theatre
Deported, A Dream Play by Joyce Van Dyke, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Modern Theatre at Suffolk University, 3/8/12-4/1/12, http://www.bu.edu/bpt/.
Reviewed by Becca Kidwell
(Boston, MA) An American rose does not smell as sweet as an Armenian rose; that’s what Joyce Van Dyke tells us. The Armenian-American culture is extremely prevalent in the Metro Boston area, particularly in Watertown where the Armenian Library and Museum is located, and has been trying to get the world to recognize the genocide in Armenia from 1915, when there were several massacres. “Armenian men were rounded up and killed. Then the women and children were ‘deported’ on a death march through the desert,” Van Dyke writes in the program. And as the hundredth anniversary approaches, the genocide is still denied by Turkey, but Van Dyke writes of the hope of recognition and reconciliation in the near future. Continue reading
Deirdre Madigan, Photo by Meghan Moore
Mrs. Whitney by John Kolvenbach, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 3/15/12-4/8/12, http://www.merrimackrep.org/season/show.aspx?sid=107.
Reviewed by Kate Lonberg-Lew
(Lowell, MA) Unless you are lucky enough to have met your soulmate at fifteen and lived happily ever after (and if you have, please take a moment to pinch yourself and make sure you’re real) then you will relate to the feelings of loneliness, love and the existence of your own romantic Achilles heel in this superb production of Mrs. Whitney at the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell. Continue reading
Pride and Prejudice, based on the novel by Jane Austen, adapted by Elizabeth Hunter, Theatre@First, Somerville Theatre, 3/22/12-3/31/12, http://www.theatreatfirst.org/shows/pride_prejudice/pride_prejudice.shtml.
Reviewed by Gillian Daniels
(Somerville, MA) Elizabeth Hunter adapts, directs, and brings an enormously funny Pride and Prejudice to the stage. Longtime Austen-fans should rejoice at their good fortune. The thorough play is probably closest to my own imagining of the classic 1813 novel.
The book is a smart satire of the husband-hunting rat race that young women engaged in during the Georgian Era when inheritances were more likely to pass to sons. Continue reading
Yvette Freeman and Corey Allen in August Wilson’s MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM. March 9 – April 8, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson, Huntington Theatre Company, 3/9/12-4/8/12, http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/production.aspx?id=10262&src=t.
Reviewed by Becca Kidwell
(Boston, MA) Music breathes and pulses as each note is played. The blues provide a voice for the inexpressible feelings of the human experience. The blues celebrate the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of life in its entirety; it is neither surprising that the blues came out of the African American spiritual tradition, nor that soul, r&b, and hip-hop were derived from the blues and at the core of the best is the heart and soul of the artist. What happens when that soul is taken away? Can the heart survive?
This question permeates the existence of each of the characters in August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Continue reading
Photo by Reid Gilman
Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth by Richard Schenkman, Hovey Players, 3/9/12-3/24/12, http://www.hoveyplayers.com/news/2011-2012-season/jerome-bixby%E2%80%99s-the-man-from-earth/.
Reviewed by Anthony Geehan
(Waltham, MA) The phrase “history is written by the victors” is a saying that shows a built in flaw in the study of our past. The idea that a subject that must be completely impartial and factual is weakened when records that are worked with could be exaggerated at some points and completely falsified at others. This concept of incomplete information is the main theme of Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth, the science fiction mystery piece currently being performed by Waltham’s The Hovey Players at The Abbot Memorial Theater. Continue reading