Tag Archives: Eric McGowan

Sep 23

True Silence is the Rest of the Mind: “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike”

Posted on by

Presented by Titanic Theatre Company
Written by ​Christopher Durang
Directed by Darren Evans
Featuring Shelley Brown, Alisha Jansky, Scot Colford, Eric McGowan, Will Shapiro, and Julia Hertzberg

September 21-October 8, 2022
BCA Plaza Black Box Theater
Boston, MA

Review by Kitty Drexel

“Resumé”by Dorothy Parker
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

BOSTON — Titanic Theatre Company’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is the most intimate version you will ever see. The cast (and their melodramatic breakdowns) places the fourth wall practically on our laps. An audience has no choice but be sympathetic to a cast delivering breakdown after melodramatic breakdown within a short range.  

Durang’s comedy is an offshoot of Anton Checkhov’s most famous plays, but it isn’t a parody.  Vanya (Scot Colford), Sonia (Shelley Brown), and Masha (Alisha Jansky) are brother and sisters reunited to attend a costume party at the Dorothy Parker house up the street in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. To the dismay of Vanya and Sonia, Masha has brought flavor of the week Spike (Eric McGowan) with her from New York City. Spike has found Nina (Julia Hertzberg fresh, sweet and effervescent as strawberry soda) at the pond. No one gets along until they almost do. Cassandra (Will Shapiro) hopes they can read the omens before it’s too late.    Continue reading →

Oct 24

“My Fascination with Creepy Ladies” and a Complete Replication of Poe

Posted on by

Foreground, front to back: Siobhan Carroll, Luz Lopez, Elena Toppo.
Background, front to back: C. Padraig Sullivan, Christine Power, Jessica Golden

Presented by Anthem Theatre Company
A Collection of Horrors by Edgar Allan Poe
Conceived and Directed by Bryn Boice
Featuring Anthem company members Michael Poignand, Johnny Kinsman, Siobhan Carroll, Olivia Z. Cote, Sarah Gazdowicz, Jessica Golden, Katie Grindeland, Luz Lopez, Jessica Scout Malone, Eric McGowan, Christine Power, C. Padraig Sullivan, and Elena Toppo.
Designed by Bridget K. Doyle and Theona White

October 17 – November 3, 2019
South End / BCA Plaza Theatres
Plaza Black Box Theatre
539 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116
Event on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) Berenice, Annie, Ligeia, Rowena, Annabel Lee, Morella, Lenore, and so many others– an archetype with many names collapsed into a single, waifish woman with hair that hangs loose over her shoulders and a hint of otherworldliness. Meanwhile, the heroes and narrators of these stories are boiled down into the figure of a melancholic, bow-tied, possibly opium-addled narrator.

The woman in question is always on the verge of death, or has already died, but in the wake of that death, she is somehow made more beautiful, powerful, and entrancing. In Anthem Theatre Company’s My Fascination with Creepy Ladies, these characters are now four, leering, dancing, and laughing Creepy Ladies that haunt eight, terrorized, pale, bow-tied Poes. Continue reading →

Jan 11

Quality Beats Out Content in “Brilliant Adventures”

Posted on by

Michael Underhill as Rob, Sam Terry as Luke. Photo by Danielle Fauteux Jacques

Presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company & United Talent Agency
Written by Alistair McDowall
Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques

December 28, 2016-January 21, 2017
Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet St.
Chelsea, MA 02150
Apollinaire Theatre Company on Facebook

Review by Travis Manni

(Chelsea, MA) Every theatre geek knows that good theatre should ask questions and initiate a conversation. It should do something as small as make the audience think of something from a different perspective or as large as make you question everything. These were the expectations I had when sitting down to watch Apollinaire Theatre Company’s production of Brilliant Adventures. Continue reading →

May 07

Bleak Travels Through “Hamlet Asylum”

Posted on by

Presented by The Calliope Project

May 3, 4, 10, and 11th at 8PM
Green Street Studios Theatre
185 Green St
Cambridge MA
The Calliope Project Facebook Page

Review by the lovely Gillian Daniels

**EXPLICIT CONTENT INCLUDING RAPE AND VIOLENCE**

Some contemporary productions of Hamlet play with the ambiguity of the Prince of Denmark’s sanity.  Is he seeking justice or satisfying a personal vendetta with the logic of a “ghost” to back him up, “mad north-north-west” or just vengeful?  In Hamlet Asylum, this ambiguity is dismissed.  Most of the play clearly takes place in the head of Bryan Bernfield’s Hamlet.  A masked Greek chorus (Meghan Kelly, Amiel Bowers, and Samuel Guerin) speak in the voice of his father, his confidant Horatio, the gravediggers, and others, all in the guise of Hamlet’s repressed desires.   It’s a clever idea.  The result, though,
is a production both rich with symbols and dark with melodrama. Continue reading →

Feb 24

Melanie Garber’s Ephemeral Direction Of Dreams and Mysteries

Posted on by

548619_10152332862015103_1430469856_n

A Dream Play

Presented by Heart & Dagger Productions

By August Strindberg, Translated by Harry G. Carlson
Directed by Melanie Garber

February 22, 2013 to March 2, 2013
The Factory Theatre
791 Tremont Street, Boston

Directing Profile by Becca Kidwell

photo credit: Drew Linehan

photo credit: Drew Linehan

Melanie Garber has a dancer’s sensibility of direction with Heart & Dagger Productions’ A Dream Play, but this is not a surprise.  She has shown this intricate direction in Actor’s Shakespeare Project’s Medea, Fresh Ink Theatre Company’s Priscilla Dreams The Answer, and Heart & Dagger’s Crave.  Not only does Ms. Garber make words come alive, but she also brings life to words. From the initial moments of each of the productions, she chooses specific, distinct movements that create the environment of the play. Continue reading →

Feb 18

Everything is Possible and Likely: A DREAM PLAY

Posted on by

Heart & Dagger Productions

presents

548619_10152332862015103_1430469856_n

Expecting the unexpected = sexy and you know it.

 

Heart & Dagger Productions plunge into their 3rd Season with A DREAM PLAY by August Strindberg.  The production opens February 22, 2013 at The Factory Theatre, Boston, MA.

Agnes, a daughter of the Vedic god Indra, descends to Earth to bear witness to problems of human beings. Following the logic of a dream in which characters merge, locations change in an instant and a locked door recurs obsessively-A DREAM PLAY is a potent mix of Freud plus Alice in Wonderland. “The characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge.”

Featuring:
Elizabeth Battey, Quentin James, Emily Kaye Lazzaro, Lauren Foster, Eric McGowan, Drew Linehan, Angel Veza, Michael Dix Thomas, Nicole Howard, Katie Drexel, Tony Dangerfield, Jenny Reagan, Erin Brehm, and Ryan Edlinger.

The world premiere of A DREAM PLAY was at The Swedish Theatre in 1907, six years after it was written. August Stringberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, painter, and poet.  He is the playwright of The Father, Miss Julie, and The Ghost Sonata.  During the 1890s he spent significant time abroad engaged in scientific experiments and studies of the occult.  Strindberg died in 1912 at the age of 63. Continue reading →

Jan 30

“Everything Can Happen; Everything is Possible and Likely”

Posted on by

Heart & Dagger Productions

presents

548619_10152332862015103_1430469856_n

Heart & Dagger Productions plunge into their 3rd Season with A DREAM PLAY by August Strindberg.  The production opens February 22, 2013 at The Factory Theatre, Boston, MA.

Agnes, a daughter of the Vedic god Indra, descends to Earth to bear witness to problems of human beings. Following the logic of a dream in which characters merge, locations change in an instant and a locked door recurs obsessively-A DREAM PLAY is a potent mix of Freud plus Alice in Wonderland. “The characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge.”

Featuring:
Elizabeth Battey, Quentin James, Emily Kaye Lazzaro, Lauren Foster, Eric McGowan, Drew Linehan, Angel Veza, Michael Dix Thomas, Nicole Howard, Katie Drexel, Tony Dangerfield, Jenny Reagan, Erin Brehm, and Ryan Edlinger. Continue reading →

Apr 05

On Ego: A Bundle of Questions

Posted on by

On Ego by Mick Gordon (playwright) and Paul Broks (neuroscientist), Science Fiction Theatre Company, Factory Theatre, 3/30/12-4/15/12, http://www.sciencefictiontheatrecompany.com/.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Boston, MA) Quantum Leap and Star Trek have enticed us with the possibility of travelling through time and space through a transporter of some sort.  When I used to work an hour and a half away from my home, I longed for a teleportation device that would transport me home in the blink of an eye.

But while the fiction is intriguing, the science leaves a lot of mystery and questions before we take that leap. Continue reading →