Tag Archives: MA

Mar 16

Crave & Beyond The Light: Emotional Explosion

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Daniel J. Raps, Erin Rae Zalaski, Jesse Wood, and Christina Malanga in Beyond the light — at Calderwood Pavilion; photo credit Heart and Dagger Productions

Abigail Matzeder, Michael Underhill, and Terrence Patrick Haddad in CRAVE — at Calderwood Pavilion, Photo Credit: Heart and Dagger Productions

Crave by Sarah Kane and Beyond the Light by Joey C. Pelletier, Heart & Dagger Productions, Boston Center for the Arts Rehearsal Hall A, 3/9/12-3/17/12, http://www.heartanddagger.org/.Partial nudity and mature themes

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Boston, MA) Many have tried to dramatize depression to mixed results. The problem tends to be that depression by it’s very nature is a passive thing-the person doesn’t want to do anything. Heart & Dagger escapes the trap of a dry, clinical look at depression by presenting two one acts that cut to the visceral core of despair and the fight to survive.

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Mar 13

“Just Another Day” for Kerry Dowling

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Foreground: Chris Caron and Kerry A. Dowling. Rear from Left: Michael Tacconi, Christopher Chew, Sarah Drake, and Michael Levesque in a scene from the SpeakEasy Stage Company production of Next to Normal, running now thru April 15th at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, in Boston’s South End. Tix/Info: 617-933-8600/www.SpeakEasyStage.com. Photo: Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo.

Interview by Becca Kidwell

Continuing its electrifying season, SpeakEasy Stage Company is presenting now thru April 15th the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal.  The overwhelming demand for tickets prompted SpeakEasy to extend the run one additional week before the show even opened – an unprecedented move in the company’s 20-year history.    http://www.speakeasystage.com/doc.php?section=showpage&page=normal Continue reading →

Mar 10

Impressive, Uneven and Important: REFLECTIONS OF A ROCK LOBSTER

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Felix Teich as ‘Paul Guilbert’ and Ian Shain as ‘Aaron Fricke’, Photo by Saglio Photography, Inc.

Reflections of a Rock Lobster by Burgess Clark, based on the true story of Aaron Fricke, Boston Children’s Theatre, Wimberley Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts, 3/3/12-3/11/12, http://bostonchildrenstheatre.org/season/rocklobster/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) To be a gay teen often has meant living every moment in hostile territory, where everything you do is wrong because of who you are.  Too often, it has meant years of enforced isolation and violence.

This is what the Boston Children’s Theatre production of Reflections of a Rock Lobster does best, creating the claustrophobia of a gay teen’s world where everything feels hostile, including one’s own feelings.  The play, put on by the Boston Children’s Theatre with a few grown-ups thrown in the mix, chronicles the true story of a pair of trailblazing gay teens who in 1980 challenged their school’s ban on same-sex couples at the prom and made the world a little bit less hostile.  Continue reading →

Mar 04

Acting Natural While Cramming it In: SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE IN IOWA

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Photo Credit: Another Country Productions

Saint John the Divine in Iowa by Lyralen Kaye, Another Country Productions, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 3/2/12-3/18/12, http://www.anothercountry.org/productions.html.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) There is a fine line to walk when it comes to groundbreaking plays.  It’s difficult to keep a thought-provoking issue from swallowing the play.  The result can be a diatribe at worst, or an afterschool special at best.  The only way to keep a play that handles heavy-hitting social issues on track is to populate it with characters who are drawn razor-sharp and true to life. Continue reading →

Mar 04

Not Buying It: BAKERSFIELD MIST

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Photo Credit: Andrew Brilliant / Brilliant Pictures

Bakersfield Mist by Stephen Sachs, New Repertory Theatre, Arsenal Center for the Arts, 2/26/12-3/18/12, http://newrep.org/bakersfield_mist.php.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Watertown, MA) 

Audiences, like art critics, want to believe, but the New Repertory Theatre production of Bakersfield Mist doesn’t give theatergoers a chance.  Instead, the audience must suspend disbelief the moment we spot a central character’s obviously-fake tattoo.  For a play intent on debating what is real, Bakersfield Mist provides a poor facsimile of real life.

The play centers on a plausible and chewy scenario:  A trailer-park loser, Maude (Paula Langton), has summoned a renowned art critic, Lionel (Ken Cheeseman), to authenticate a Jackson Pollack painting bought at a thrift shop.  Some $50 million to $100 million is riding on Lionel’s opinion.  The answer, the play suggests, is much messier than checking “yes” or “no”, and both Maude and Lionel must wrestle with their pasts and their notions of art to view the painting. Continue reading →

Mar 03

Monsters: A Midlife Musical Meltdown

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Photo Credit: Mak Kramer Photography

Monsters! A Midlife Musical Meltdown; The Regent Theatre, GP Productions, and Image Theater, 2/25/12-3/10/12, http://www.regenttheatre.com/details/monsters_the_musical.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Arlington, MA) We’ve all been there (well, at least anyone 25 or older).  Years pass; we have successes and failures.  And then it hits us–where did all those years go?  Remember the wide-eyed 18 year old who thought he/she had everything figured out?  Monsters! A Midlife Musical looks at what happens when all of the insecurities, all of the doubts, and all of the concessions that have been made in Samantha’s life confront her on her 40th birthday. Continue reading →

Feb 23

Photograph 51: A Slighted Discovery

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Becky Webber as Rosalind Franklin and Nick Sulfaro as Ray Gosling in Photograph 51 performing through March 18 at Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA. Presented by The Nora Theatre Company. Photo: A.R. Sinclair Photography

Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler, The Nora Theatre Company, Central Square Theater, 2/9/12-3/18/12, http://www.centralsquaretheater.org/season/11-12/photograph-51.html.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Cambridge, MA) Photograph 51 chronicles Rosalind Franklin’s work, which leads to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.  Surrounded by men, Franklin does not have a chance for her voice to be heard amongst her male colleagues.  Nora Theatre Company’s production presents a truthful historical presentation of the discovery. Continue reading →

Feb 19

Daddy Long Legs: Musical Humor and Charm

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Robert Adelman Hancock & Megan McGinnis, photo by Meghan Moore

Daddy Long Legs, Music and Lyrics by Paul Gordon, Book by John Caird, Based on the novel by Jean Webster, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 2/9/12-3/4/12

Reviewed by Anthony Geehan

(Lowell, MA) The concept of love at first sight is something that has been around in theater and literature since the times of ancient mythology. There is another and more complicated hook for a love story however, in which two people fall in love without ever seeing each other. Such pieces as Mask, Sleepless in Seattle, and Parfumerie have taken on the concept that love can spark purely on personality and intrigue without any physical attributes taken into account. So it is with the musical Daddy Long Legs, a new performance being hosted by The Merrimack Repertory Theatre based off the book by John Caird. Continue reading →

Feb 16

Medea: Special Victims Unit – Corinth

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Medea with Chorus, L to R: Sarah Newhouse*, Obehi Janice, Jennie Israel* & McCaela Donovan © 2012 Stratton McCrady Photography

Medea by Euripides, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, 2/8/12-3/4/12,  http://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/whats-new/medea.  Mature content.  Not recommended for children under 13.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Cambridge, MA) No one who watches Court TV or Law and Order can deny the pull of a good crime drama.  Even those who pretend to be indifferent or opposed to crime drama cannot help being drawn in (and for those who are still pretending that they don’t care, wasn’t that you who tweeted about the Casey Anthony trial all of those times?).  What may surprise audiences of Medea is that society hasn’t changed much in 4000 years.  Actors’ Shakespeare Project brings to life a Greek drama that examines the dark impulses and desires that haunt not only the “cultured” audiences from Greece’s Golden Age, but also the dark realities of our own society.

Before the play even starts, the audience is surrounded by an air of mystery and foreboding.   Continue reading →

Feb 12

Shouting and Spittle: MONSTER

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Monster by Neal Bell, Boston Center for American Performance/Boston University Theatre, Lane Comley Studio 210, 2/9/12-2/25/12, http://www.bu.edu/cfa/bcap/monster.html.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) A play rarely works when the actors have to emotionally sprint throughout all acts.  A cast needs to pick its moments to ratchet up the tension and raise the stakes, or risk numbing the audience with melodrama.  Unfortunately, the Boston University production Monster begins at a precipice of volume and angst and never can climb down to connect with theatregoers.  Instead of communion, the production comes closer to an assault.

Monster is an ambitious staging of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  At its best, the tale can be a window into the theme of the messy pain of creation and abandonment from God and/or our parents.  Continue reading →