Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw
Director Nike Doukas adds a three-piece combo and rocking beat to Shakespeare’s tale of magic, revenge, and love in a production that is part musical, part radio play, and all fun. Rather than a set that depicts the play’s island motif, Doukas and scenic designer Angela Balogh Calin strategically place tables – cluttered with sundry auditory devices – and a handy spiral staircase on the stripped-down stage. Read more…
Terry Morgan – ArtsBeat LA
I have seen a fair number of Shakespeare plays altered by directors in my day, from modernizations to setting/era changes, and the main thing is that the alterations have to successfully illuminate the material in an original way or they fail. So when I read that a new production of the Tempest by Antaeus Theatre was going to highlight the music referred to in the text, I was trepidatious. I shouldn’t have been. This show brims with high energy and joyful creativity and is a complete delight. Better than that, however – this production is not just great; it’s interesting. Read more…
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage
We certain got something different. The Antaeus “Tempest,” devised by director Nike Doukas (who also directed those “Three Sisters” readings), appears to be in a contemporary radio studio where a cast is performing a halfway-musicalized version of the play — and then some. The lyrics of the sung passages in this production include not only lines from “The Tempest” but also from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Merchant of Venice” and “As You Like It.” John Ballinger wrote the music. Read more…
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on” says the magician character Prospero near the end of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, one of The Bard’s final plays. Antaeus Theatre Company is currently presenting a dream of a production at the Kiki and David Gindler Performing Arts Center in Glendale. The play as written contained a lot of musical moments as well as storm and fury. It was director Nike Doukas’s inspired notion to stage the work as a radio play. The actors use hand microphones as well as standing mics as they make their way through the story of the deposed Duke of Milan, his teenage daughter and his two servants, one a helpful airy sprite, one an embittered monster. Jeff Gardner’s sound design as well as the foley design by him and Doukas are the real stars of the production. Read more…