Jeffrey C. Wolf photos by Matthew Dunivan By Marc Miller Back in ancient history, when there were just three networks, everybody got their news from middle-of-the-road Huntley-Brinkley or Walter Cronkite or Harry Reasoner, and extremism was less extreme. Now political zealots dwell within their bubbles of Fox News or MSNBC, and the…
By Julia Polinsky Director Sean Daniels has paced I and You is if it were dishing out social-media instant information, and the two actors who play the high school students blitz through their dialogue at warp speed. That speed may be appropriate for teenagers, but it serves the story badly. All the clues are…
A Review by Deirdre Donovan Teaser: Kecia Lewis resurrects Brecht’s iconic character with gutsiness and daring at the Classic Stage Company. “Still tough as nails, I see; but that’s what I like about you.” The Cook’s words to Mother Courage in a late scene in Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children might well apply…
Photos by Carol Rosegg By Julia Polinsky Directors Milton Zoth and John Pierson, of the St. Louis Actors’ Studio, have done what they can to rise above two of the toughest challenges facing much regional theater: actors who do too much, and budget/space constraints that force them to do everything with nothing. As…
Sara Topham and Christian Coulson by Deirdre Donovan Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling is one wild and wooly play. Part tragedy, part comedy, part suspense-thriller, it’s altogether a Jacobean morality play that will make you gasp with horror—and even occasionally giggle. Jesse Berger, the intrepid artistic director of the Red Bull Theater…
Susanne Sulby Photo credit: Carol Rosegg) by Deirdre Donovan Sanctuary is a solo show with a conscience. Written and performed by stage and film actress Susanne Sulby, this play unfolds, in turn, like a docudrama, news broadcast, and surreal play. Now in a brief run at Theater Row (at the Lion Theatre), Sulby draws…
Steven Friedman Photos by Gerald Slota Phalaris’s Bull: Solving the Riddle of the Great Big World by Julia Polinsky Enchanting or annoying: which? You’ll have to make that decision for yourself. Steven Friedman’s Phalaris’s Bull claims to be “solving the riddle of the great big world.” In the process of trying to understand what…
Andrew Dunn, Ashley Adelman, Tim Riley, Alla Illvosa, Kaitlyn Huczko, Jordan Gwiazdowski by Julia Polinsky Who’s insignificant? Sean Michael Welch’s Insignificant, as mounted by Infinite Variety Productions says that women are, even when they do important work. The show feels like a class in Women’s History, complete with a catalogue of postmodern feminist…
Kathleen Chalfant plays Rose Kennedy Photo credit: Carol Rosegg) by Deirdre Donovan Laurence Leamer’s Rose , a new one-woman bio-drama about the Kennedy matriarch, is a theatrical confection. And, with the excellent Kathleen Chalfant inhabiting Rose, we learn how the grande dame managed to brave the political winds and personal tragedies of…
Malcolm Gets, Jerry Dixon, Mario Cantone, Matt McGrath Photo by Monique Carboni. By David Schultz Jazzy Show Biz riff on middle aged gay New Yorkers settling down, and raising children. Coincidence or fate has transpired to give New York theatergoer’s two separate plays that cover the identical emotional territory onstage. This variation on…