Tag Archives: yoga

Oct 03

Yoga Delights and Destroys: “The Hombres” at Chelsea Theatre Works

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The Hombres cast. Photo by Jason Grow.

Presented by Teatro Chelsea and Gloucester Stage Company
by Tony Meneses
Directed by Armando Rivera 
Intimacy Direction by Olivia Dumaine
Fight Direction by Robert Walsh
Movement Direction by Nathaniel Justiniano
Dramaturgy by Yijia Yu

September 6 – 29, 2024
Gloucester Stage & Chelsea Theatre Works 
Featuring Arthur Gomez, Jaime José Hernandez, Ricardo “Ricky” Holguin, Luis Negrón, Patrick O’Konis

100 minutes + 15 minute intermission

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CHELSEA, Mass. — We sincerely apologize to the cast, crew, and staff of The Hombres for our publishing delay. Life had become personally and professionally unwieldy and there weren’t enough hours in the day for our many responsibilities. Nosotros nos disculpamos. 

The run of The Hombres ended on Sept. 29. If you missed it, it sucks to be you. This play rocked.

The Hombres is a play about a generous, kind yoga instructor, studio manager, and dancer Julián (Ricardo “Ricky” Holguin) turning around to find random straight men in his studio. Julián is cleaning and choreographing a new dance piece. He turns around: BAM! Strong and silent construction site manager Héctor (Arthur Gomez, who is finally getting the larger roles he deserves) is standing in the studio offering custodial services in exchange for yoga classes. Julián contemplates the risks he’s taking by allowing Héctor in the studio after hours. He turns around: BAM! Héctor’s coworker from the site Pedro (Luis Negrón) wants classes, too. Julián can’t face the back wall for fear he’ll discover another straight guy when he turns around.  Continue reading →

Apr 18

Drinking with Aristotle in “Ipsa Dixit”

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Presented by Original Gravity Concert Series
Music & Libretto by Kate Soper
Performed by Equilibrium
Soprano: Stephanie Lamprea,
Violin & Acting Music Director: Nicole Parks
Flute: Orlando Cela
Percussion: Mike Williams

April 12th at 7:30pm
Inner Space
17 Station Street
Brookline, MA, 02445
Original Gravity on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Brookline, MA) Ipsa Dixit is Art with a capital, “AH,” an often playful and highly erudite experiment with language and music chiefly meant for people who are already into That Kind of Thing. As a whole, it doesn’t have a clear entrypoint for laymen. This is, at least partially, about the meaning of words vs. the intent of the isolated mind that created them, ie. the vast chasm between expressing something verbally and the isolated brain meat where that verbiage was formed. So yes, it certainly falls into the category of My Thing, with its mosaic of words excerpted from the works of Aristotle, Sophocles, Freud, and Lydia Davis, among others. The music layered on top of these various texts construct an impressionistic portrait of what that language feels like. If you have ever found yourself hungry for a tense drama about a diagrammed sentence, this show is for you. During its two intermissions, there were people who bounced so solidly off the text, they ended up bouncing themselves. Otherwise, others stuck it out for the impressive oddity of Soper’s work as well as the free drinks provided by participating breweries. Continue reading →

Jan 08

Awkwardness is Part of the Process: “Small Mouth Sounds”

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All photos by Nile Scott Studios. The cast. Digesting.

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
By Bess Wohl
Directed by M. Bevin O’Gara

Jan. 4 – Feb. 2, 2019
Boston Center for the Arts
The Calderwood Pavilion Boston, MA
SpeakEasy on Facebook

This critique has been updated from its previous posting. The update includes corrections and clarifications. (1/31/19 KD)

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Trigger warnings: penis, simulated pot smoking, heavy moaning

It’s January and chances are that you (or your acquaintances) are experiencing an influx of athletic practitioners in your studio of choice. For example, at my own neighborhood ashtanga yoga studio, January 1 meant that the floor became overwhelmed with novices and their wholesome, divot-free mats. Small Mouth Sounds(SMS) captures that awkward group consciousness of baby-yogis talking first “did I make a huge mistake?” steps towards enlightenment. An enlightened mind is not obtained overnight. The journey is schadenfreude for the audience. Continue reading →