Paul Birchall – Stage Raw In today’s world of “Fifty Shades of Blech,” where young ladies of intelligence and means agree to be subjected to dominating brutes who whack them with neck ties and do terrible things with handcuffs and strings of beads, what a pleasure it is to be reminded of more civilized times, … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw What happens when you construct a mashup of Shakespeare with a Quentin Tarantino movie? The result is a convoluted plot, with pseudo-Elizabethan dialogue, and masses of violence, throat-cuttings, and general death and destruction, delivered via blunderbus, sword, dagger, or in one case by an overdose of cocaine. Read more… Now running … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw We’ve all known folks with outsized perspectives on their own talent or worth. Justin Tanner’s funny hour-long play turns on an encounter between Ginny (Laurie Metcalf), a screechy community theater performer with diva aspirations, and Nate (French Stewart), a reserved but financially pressed vocal coach who reluctantly agrees to give … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Philip Ridley, whether as playwright (The Fastest Clock in the Universe, Mercury Fur, Tender Napalm) or filmmaker (The Mysterious Skin, Heartless), remains ever distinctively individual, and this revival of his first play, 1991’s The Pitchfork Disney, produced locally in 2006 by Company of Angels (and subsequently in 2011 at Next Stage), … Read more
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw If its Pulitzer Prize nomination is any indication, Howard Korder’s Boys’ Lifemust have caught something in the zeitgeist when it debuted on Broadway in 1988. Read more… Now running through March 7.
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw One element that’s always appealed to me in the Tristan and Yseult story [this version, anyway] has to do with how King Mark – a betrayed ruler and cuckolded husband – declines to violently avenge himself on the erring lovers. Although the opportunity is there, he forbears from plunging a dagger … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Backed by a top-notch trio of jazz musicians, petite and pretty vocalist Maria Elena Infantino takes to the stage in a plain black dress and dark wig. Channeling “the little sparrow” — Édith Piaf — Infantino devotes the first third of her hour-long performance to the famous French songbird. Read more…Now … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Those who tend to be consistently disappointed in new musicals could profitably explore new opera as a more reliable alternative, where the creative energies appear to have been more vibrant so far in this latest century. Read more… Now running through February 1.
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw One of the pleasures of attending theater is witnessing the rebirth of a classic play through a vital new production. There’s something profoundly satisfying in realizing that the concerns of the past aren’t that different from our own; that art, when well done, resounds down the corridors of time like … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw The church referred to by playwright Allen Barton in his play is never identified, but the details of his story evoke the horror stories told by disillusioned former Scientologists: accounts of demands for total conformity, hefty financial contributions, total commitment, and a willingness to declare all-out war on any member … Read more