Jan 23

Complaining Grows the Heart: OUR SECRETS

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Presented by ArtsEmerson
Co-presentation with: The Baryshnikov Arts Center and Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center
Created by Béla Pintér and Company
Directed and written by Béla Pintér

Jan. 19-22, 2017
Emerson/Paramount Center
Robert J. Orchard Stage
Boston, MA
ArtsEmerson on Facebook

Performed in Hungarian with English supertitles

Review by Noe Kamelamela and Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) It is 1980’s Budapest. Communism is the rule of the land (more on this important info is HERE, thanks to the ArtsEmerson blog). Impotent folk musician, István Balla Bán can only get it up for children. He is inconveniently attracted to his step-daughter Timike. At his wife’s request, he sees a therapist to whom he reveals his disgusting secrets. Govt. spies secret record his admission and use the recording to blackmail him. To avoid responsibility for his illness, István spies on his friend who writes an underground, anti-Communist magazine.  Please note, the graphic sexual content in this production involves adult actors playing minors. It is appropriately disturbing. Continue reading →

Jan 23

They Will Try to Tell You that Fighting Is Pointless: INCIDENT AT VICY

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Photography by Alex Aroyan — with Alexander Castillo-Nuñez, Jake Athyal, Danny Mourino, Nathan Johnson, Floyd Richardson, Steve Auger.

Presented by Praxis Stage
An Anti-Inaugural Event
Written by Arthur Miller
Directed by Hatem Adell and Daniel Boudreau
Fight choreography by Nathan Johnson

Jan. 19 – 27, 2017
Inner Sanctum
1127 Harrison Ave MA
Boston, Massachusetts 02119
Praxis Stage on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Praxis Stage perfectly sums up what it is we liberals are so damned scared of in Incident at Vichy. This incredibly quotable, direly prescient play by Arthur Miller engages intelligent, easily transferable dialogue to summarize the Holocaust. Adell and Boudreau’s production make the events of Incident at Vichy alarmingly apparent that Trump’s American is bound to repeat history’s atrocities.    Continue reading →

Jan 20

Better Out Than In: A DOLL’S HOUSE

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Nael Nacer and Andrea Syglowski in “A Doll’s House;” Photo: T. Charles Erickson. Sh!t is about to get real.

Presented by Huntington Theatre Company
Written by Henrik Ibsen
Adapted by Bryony Lavery
Directed by Melia Benussen

Jan. 6 – Feb. 5, 2017
Avenue of the Arts
BU Theatre
Boston, MA
Huntington on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

“If your laws don’t include me, well then, they don’t apply to me either.”
Anita Crown, Bad Girls

(Boston, MA) A Doll’s House (AHD) is a classic tragedy of manners. It features a female protagonist, and has feminist themes. On paper, it’s a strong educational tool. Its presentation on the stage is another matter entirely. ADH is a show with chatty dialogue that wiggles around its points like a Mexican jumping bean. The Huntington’s modernized production with updated script drags from the emotional constipation of its characters. Not even Bryony Lavery could salvage this one.   Continue reading →

Jan 19

THE GHOSTLIGHT PROJECT: January 19 @ 5:30 Across the Nation

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Image from The Ghostlight Project website.

TODAY
January 19, 2017 @ 5:30PM
Theaters near you
USA
Ghostlight on Facebook
Ghostlight on Twitter

If you need a place to be, to be with artists who desire to create safe havens for and with artists, and you are free this evening, please consider joining us as we gather for “THE GHOSTLIGHT PROJECT.”

Quoted from the Ghostlight Project Event Page:
“ON JANUARY 19TH, 2017 AT 5:30PM IN EACH TIME ZONE ACROSS THE COUNTRY, WE WILL GATHER OUTSIDE OF THEATERS TO CREATE A “LIGHT” FOR DARK TIMES AHEAD.

While the national event is simultaneous and collective, the particular event is yours. And here’s the thing: you’re theater people – you know how to create an event. We have suggestions and inspirations but the event is really for YOU to make. Be creative. Go deep. Get crazy.”

 

Continue reading →

Jan 11

Quality Beats Out Content in “Brilliant Adventures”

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Michael Underhill as Rob, Sam Terry as Luke. Photo by Danielle Fauteux Jacques

Presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company & United Talent Agency
Written by Alistair McDowall
Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques

December 28, 2016-January 21, 2017
Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet St.
Chelsea, MA 02150
Apollinaire Theatre Company on Facebook

Review by Travis Manni

(Chelsea, MA) Every theatre geek knows that good theatre should ask questions and initiate a conversation. It should do something as small as make the audience think of something from a different perspective or as large as make you question everything. These were the expectations I had when sitting down to watch Apollinaire Theatre Company’s production of Brilliant Adventures. Continue reading →

Jan 11

“Mirror” Immerses Audience in Both Moving Show and Modern Complexities of Womanhood

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Presented by Boston Opera Collaborative
Frauenliebe und –leben
Music by Robert Schumann
Text by Adelbert von Chamisso

From the Diary of Virginia Woolf
Music by Dominick Argento
Text from the diaries of Virginia Woolf
Directed by Greg Smucker & Patricia-Maria Weinmann

January 6-8, 2017
Longy School of Music of Bard College
Cambridge, MA
Boston Collaborative Opera on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Cambridge, MA) Two portraits of women, written over a century apart. The first is an idealized character looking to not only marry, but be subsumed by her husband’s identity in a happy, storybook life. In German, she sings of having no desire beyond being this man’s wife. She is the heroine of Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben (A Woman’s Love and Life) from 1830, itself based on a series of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso. Two men filter the story of a fictional woman, a touching if pastel view of a girl coming of age. Carley DeFranco breathes life into this creature (also played by Susannah Thornton, Rhaea D’Aliesio, and Julia Cavallaro, depending on one’s tour of the Zabriskie House mansion where the show is staged) with a Disney-esque sweetness. Continue reading →

Jan 10

Wasted on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

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Photo credit: Lara Woolfson

Presented by Magnificent Bastard Productions
Based on the play by William Shakespeare

Reviewed on January 7, 2017
The Rockwell
255 Elm Street
Somerville, MA
Magnificent Bastard Productions on Facebook

Review by Travis Manni

(Somerville, MA) There’s nothing quite as dazzling as experiencing theatre, the Shakespearean kind no less, under the hazy glow of stage lights as a soft buzz starts to settle in. While I chose not to partake in the highly encouraged consumption of alcohol, I figured my flu-like-symptoms-inducing hangover was enough of a qualifier to get me in the mood for Magnificent Bastard Productions Shit-faced Shakespeare performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And to top it off, the entire audience had the privilege of playing witness to the company’s first ever sex-swapped show. Continue reading →

Jan 09

Son of a Biscuit: HAND TO GOD

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It starts so innocently. It always does. Eliot Purcell and Josephine Elwood; Photo by Glenn Perry Photography

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
Written by Robert Askins
Directed by David R. Gammons
Puppetry direction by Roxanna Myhrum
Fight direction by Ted Hewlett

Jan. 6 – Feb. 4, 2017
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
527 Tremont St
Boston, MA
SpeakEasy on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

Trigger warning: Devil references, supernatural activity, gore, violence, implied sex with a minor, graphic puppetry

(Boston, MA) Horror gets nastier when it employs kid’s toys. Personally speaking, dolls are the worst, but cinematic history has proved that puppets can be just as creepy. They can be really, super, frickin’ creepy. SpeakEasy’s Hand to God has a puppet. Like the previously referenced horror movies, it gets creepy and weird. Like, Evil Dead chainsaw hand meets Avenue Q levels of weird. It’s awesome.   Continue reading →

Jan 05

Color and Joy for the End of the Year: “Squirrel Stole My Underpants”

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Bonnie Duncan and The Gottabees are on a mission!

Presented by Puppet Showplace Theater
Created by The Gottabees
Created and performed by Bonnie Duncan
Live Musicians Brendan Burns and Tony Leva

December 30, 2016-January 1, 2017
Puppet Showplace Theater
Brookline, MA
Puppet Showplace on Facebook

Review by Noelani Kamelamela

(Brookline, MA) Puppet Showplace Theatre produced the show Squirrel Stole My Underpants to ring out the old and terrible year of 2016.  Originally created with the support of PST’s Incubator program as well as a grant from the Jim Henson Foundation in 2013, the Gottabees presented a rare puppet show that managed to capture the attention of kids and kids at heart without spoken words.   Continue reading →

Jan 03

Exploring BOC’s “Mirror: An Immersive Song Cycle Experience”

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Presented by Boston Opera Collaborative
Music directed by Jean Anderson Collier, Patricia Au, Brendon Shapiro, Chelsea Whitaker
Stage directed by Patricia Weinmann, Greg Smucker

January 6-8, 2017
Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall (directions at bottom of page)
Longy School of Music of Bard College
27 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138
BOC on Facebook
Twitter: @BostonOperaCollaborative

Preview by Gillian Daniels

(Cambridge, MA) I love immersive theater when done well. I thought I’d take a moment to explore MIRROR, a one-weekend song cycle show based on Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben and Dominick Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. Continue reading →