Reviews Archives

  • Public Enemy

    Jimoon Cole, Nilaja Sun and cast                                  photos by Russ Rowland                                                                 By Ron Cohen    A provocative and slimmed down adaptation of Ibsen’s drama of civic corruption vibrates with timely relevance “People who don’t vote should be arrested and charged with evasion of duty,” says a character early on in Public Enemy. It’s…

  • The Encounter

                                                                                                       photos by Robbie Jack                                           By Ron Cohen If you ever had a hankering to journey through the exotic and fabled rainforests of Brazil, The Encounter, the profoundly stunning one-person show conceived, directed and performed by Simon McBurney, may well change your mind. As a vicarious experience, it is surely a trip worth…

  • Cirque de Soleil, Kurios

                                                    By Nicholas Linnehan     Every once in a while, you go to an event that truly makes you feel like a child again. Cirque de Soleil’s current production, Kurios, is so creative that one enters into its magical world and never wants to leave. From artistry to comedy, this show has it…

  • Hedda (Gabler)

    Photo Credit: Jeff Farkash                                          by Julia Polinsky Wandering Bark’s speed-dating pace cuts Ibsen’s problem play down to a 90-minute, high-concept version. Clickbait-worthy headlines on the promotional material (“Hedda Tesman (nee Gabler) has everything, but wants none of it.”), and those parentheses around her name: these clues, among others, send you all kinds…

  • Nat Turner in Jerusalem

    Phillip James Brannon I                                                                                    Joan Marcus Nat Turner in Jerusalem   By Ron Cohen  A powerful play and a discomfiting depiction of the malaise bred by slavery on the American soul. The hot buttons of racism get pushed with poetic fervor and chilling contemporary resonance in Nathan Alan Davis’s Nat Turner in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of…

  • A Taste of Honey

    Rebeckah Brockman                              photos by Russ_Rowland                                                 by Deirdre Donovan “Dear Miss Littlewood, Along with this letter comes a play, the first I have written.  I wonder if you would read it through and send it back to me because no matter what sort of theatrical atrocity it might be, it isn’t valueless as…

  • Dances Patrelle – Macbeth

                                      By R. Pikser There are two types of theater.  One is bare-bones and can be very exciting: Only the performers, the text, and the imagination.  The other type of theater involves as many elements as possible:  the text, or choreography, the performance, the lighting, the sets, the costumes.  Francis Patrelle’s production of Macbeth gave…

  • Maestro

    Hershey Felder                           photo courtesy of Hershey Felder Presents                                                      By Eugene Paul Maybe consummate master of words William Shakespeare wondered if music be the food of love, but Leonard Bernstein, master of music knew that music is love.  And God.  And all. At least in Hershey Felder’s richly emotional, deeply moving solo drama in…

  • Kim Maresca – It’s My Party and I’ll Belt if I Want to at Feinstein’s – 54 Below

      By Ron Cohen It was a mix of birthday party, benefit, cousins-club love fest and – most of all – sterling cabaret performance, when Kim Maresca took to the stage for a one-night stand at Feinsteins’s/54 Below. Maresca has just wound up a run of some 14 months Off-Broadway in Ruthless! The Musical, the…

  • Occupation Dragonslayer

    L to R: Theodore Errig, Ruby Spryte Balsamo, and Benjamin Errig                              by Nicholas Linnehan   Hope is a miracle. That line, uttered so sincerely, strikes us to the core. Isle of Shoals production of Occupation Dragonslayer  is a little confusing, but hits a chord when it needs too. Billed as a contemporary musical…