Dec 23

One Big Deep Breath. Now: “Chicken & Biscuits”

Presented by Front Porch Arts Collective
In partnership with Suffolk University
Written by Douglas Lyons
Directed by Lyndsay Allyn Cox
Dramaturgy by Juliette Volpe
Fight/intimacy consultations by Ted Hewlett

Dec. 9, 2022 – Jan. 8, 2023
Modern Theater
525 Washington St.
Boston, MA 02108

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON, Mass. — For centuries white people told the lie that the white experience is universal. Theatre is about universal stories, we white people said. If a story is truly universal, it can be played by any cast and be seen by anyone, and the intended message will still resonate. 

These days, it’s less about convincing producers that Black people can tell a story; it’s about convincing white people that they’ll appreciate a show created for someone else first, white people last. My fellow white people, if you can love Lizzo, an artist who has said to ETonline she makes music for the Black experience, you can love a play like The Porch’s Chicken & Biscuits

In St. Luke’s Church in New Haven, CT, sisters Baneatta Mabry (award-winning Boston actor Jacqui Parker) and Beverly Jenkins (Thomika Bridwell) are mourning the death of their father Bernard Jenkins. Reginald Mabry (Robert Cornelius) is leading the service for Bernard while being a supportive husband to Baneatta but the drama is flying too high for Reginald to catch up.  Continue reading

Nov 20

Adapt or Perish: “3Sisters”

The sisters Prozorov. Photo by Stratton McCrady

Presented by the Suffolk University Theatre Dept.
Inspired by the play by Anton Chekhov
Adapted and directed by Robert Kropf

Nov. 16-19, 2017
Modern Theatre
Boston, MA 02111
Modern Theatre on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Script adaptations are like staged, audience-ready fanfiction. In a Boston Sunday Globe article by Sandy MacDonald from August 2017, director and writer Robert Kropf explained that he adapts works to bypass the laws preventing him (and anyone) from making edits. The laws are frustrating but necessary to protect a playwright’s work. If the author is extremely dead, such as Anton Chekhov, it’s difficult to know what his original intentions for a work were without thoroughly researching first. Continue reading

Mar 09

Infanticide: The Musical : SHOCKHEADED PETER

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Photo Credit- Liza Voll

Photo Credit- Liza Voll

Presented by Company One
Created for the stage by Julian Courch and Phelim McDermott
Original music and Lyrics by The Tiger Lillies
Adapted from Heinrich Hoffmann’s The Struwwelpeter
Music Direction by Walter Sickert
Directed by Steven Bogart
Featuring Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys

March 6 – April 4, 2015
Modern Theatre at Suffolk University
525 Washington Street Boston, MA
Company One on Facebook
Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys on Facebook

Review by Danielle Rosvally

(Boston, MA) All the macabre poetic whimsy of Edward Gorey combined with the nostalgic cartoony lines of Disney’s Haunted Mansion are on display in Company One’s Shockheaded Peter. Fans of local band Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys will recognize the musical style of this production, and new aficionados are in for a treat. The Toys bring their incredible sense of boisterous musicality and penchant for dark themes to this ninety minutes piece that marries puppetry with physical performance to create a poetic ode to infanticide. Continue reading

Mar 25

‘Deported’ dreams fragrant hope

Bobbie Steinbach and Jeanine Kane, photo credit: Boston Playwrights' Theatre

Deported, A Dream Play by Joyce Van Dyke, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Modern Theatre at Suffolk University, 3/8/12-4/1/12, http://www.bu.edu/bpt/.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Boston, MA) An American rose does not smell as sweet as an Armenian rose; that’s what Joyce Van Dyke tells us.  The Armenian-American culture is extremely prevalent in the Metro Boston area, particularly in Watertown where the Armenian Library and Museum is located, and has been trying to get the world to recognize the genocide in Armenia from 1915, when there were several massacres.  “Armenian men were rounded up and killed.  Then the women and children were ‘deported’ on a death march through the desert,” Van Dyke writes in the program.  And as the hundredth anniversary approaches, the genocide is still denied by Turkey, but Van Dyke writes of the hope of recognition and reconciliation in the near future. Continue reading

May 02

Antony and Cleopatra (ASPBoston): To the mattresses

Antony & Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, The Modern Theatre at Suffolk University, 4/27/11-5/21/11.  http://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/season7/antony_cleo.html.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

Photo by Stratton McCrady

Actors’ Shakespeare Project continues to bring intelligible Shakespeare to Boston.  One of Shakespeare’s most complicated plots of politics and passion, Antony and Cleopatra can leave Shakespeare neophytes confused and questioning.  This production provides a clear path for understanding and appreciation of the text.

The backdrop, designed by Jeff Adelberg, looks like a collection of mattress coils that make up a wall.  This suggestive detail reflects Antony’s decision-making processes.  Antony is caught up in his love and does not recognize the ever-present threat of his fellow triumvirate colleague, Octavius.  Octavius uses Antony’s distraction to destroy the triumvirate and become emperor of Rome. Continue reading