Author Archives: craigidlebrook

Oct 02

The Limits of Pretend: A BROTH OF A BOY

Posted on by

Directed by Richard Smithies
Cead Mile Failte Productions
Arsenal Center for the Arts
in Black Box Theater
Watertown, MA
September 25th – October 7th, 2012
A Broth of a Boy Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Watertown) A one-person production can be an all-or-nothing proposition for theater going audiences. At its best, it can break the limits of human expression; at its worst, it can feel like watching someone tell a terrible joke at a party. Danny Venezia’s production of Broth of a Boy is best avoided unless you are a true lover of Irish history, for it never allows an audience to suspend disbelief that the show is anything but a lone man trying hard for us to believe in what he is seeing. Continue reading →

Sep 24

Half-Baked Silliness: LUMBERJACKS IN LOVE

Posted on by

Photo Credit: Carla Donaghey.

BOOK AND LYRICS BY: Fred Alley
MUSIC BY: James Kaplan
STORY BY: Fred Alley & James Kaplan

presented by Stoneham Theatre
Stoneham, MA
September 13th – 30th, 2012
Stoneham Theatre Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Stoneham) There is nowhere to hide with a new musical. Unlike a fresh drama, where an audience can be tricked into going along if there’s enough shouting, as soon as an actor opens her mouth to start singing, the audience can tell whether the song enhances or detracts from the plot, usually with disastrous results. Continue reading →

Sep 13

Election-Year Escapism: THE MIKADO

Posted on by

Erica Spyres (Yum-Yum) and cast of The Mikado at The Lyric Stage. Photo by Mark S. Howard

The Mikado, music by Arthur Sullivan, libretto by W.S. Gilbert
Directed by Spiro Veloudos

Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA
September 9 – October 13

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

It is rare to see good actors overacting, over-annunciating and mugging the audience to ring out every laugh. It is even rarer to enjoy every minute of it. In the Lyric Stage Company’s staging of Gilbert and Sullivan’s the Mikado, you get the delicious treat of both.

If you have never seen a Gilbert and Sullivan play, then now’s the time to get initiated with this production. Continue reading →

Sep 01

Two Hours of Sweet Traffic: ROMEO AND JULIET

Posted on by

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Still Harbor, Dorchester 8/31/12-9/2/12
As well as other performances along the Eastern Shore through 9/14/12

Brown Box Theatre Project
Brown Box Theatre Project Facebook Page

Directed by Kyler Tausten
Fight Choreographer: Conor Olmstead

Review by Craig Idlebrook

What are your evening plans this weekend?  Cancel them.  I’ve got a Shakespeare play for you.

Wait, no, I’m serious.  I can hear the arguments now from the Bard-haters: long-winded speeches, posturing on stage, something fit for academic halls.  But that’s why you’ve got to drop what you’re doing and see the Brown Box Theatre breathe some life into the dusty folios with a no-frills, fast-paced production of Romeo and Juliet.  Continue reading →

Aug 01

Earnestness, Perfected: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Posted on by

Photo Credit: F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, book and lyrics by Tim Rice,

F.U.D.G.E Theatre Company,
Black Box Theatre at the Arsenal Center for the Arts
7/27/12 – 8/4/12,

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-FUDGE-Theatre-Company-Inc/77922709870

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Watertown, MA) I grew up believing Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice represented the theatrical establishment to overthrow. They wrote the stuff that mediocre crooners sang on cheesy records sold to bored housewives. They cursedly created the material for the medley that my 7th grade choir was forced to sing, filled with needless trills and fills. Continue reading →

Jul 20

Big Heart, Strings Showing: ANNIE

Posted on by

Photo by Paul Lyden, Jacquelyn Piro Donovan and Lauren Weintraub.

Annie, music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charmin, book by Thomas Meehan, North Shore Music Theatre, 7/17/12- 7/29/12, http://www.nsmt.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=971&Itemid=2320.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Beverly, MA) Sometimes, when you shine a light on a worn-out plotline by staging a good production, you breathe new life into the script.  Other times, a strong production’s focus can make a threadbare script fall to pieces.  Continue reading →

Jun 25

ADHD NPR – CAR TALK: THE MUSICAL

Posted on by

The cast in a scene from Underground Railway Theater’s and Suffolk University’s co-production of Car Talk: The Musical!!! running from June 14 – August 12 at Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA. Tickets & Information: 866.811.4111 or CentralSquareTheater.org. Photo: A.R. Sinclair Photography.

Car Talk: The Musical, book and lyrics Wesley Savick, original music by Michael Wartofsky, Underground Railway Theater & Suffolk University, Central Square Theater, 6/14/12-8/12/12, http://www.centralsquaretheater.org.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

Charisma can carry a show a long way. Just look at what it did for Tom and Ray Magliozzi, a pair of goofball (and genius) brother-mechanics who talked their way into a hit show on National Public Radio. For 35 years, the pair has giggled their way through thousands of calls from car owners with mystery questions, strewing terrible puns and corny humor on the road as they went.

And now, on the eve of the brothers’ retirement from “Car Talk”, they have gotten themselves involved in a musical, written by Wesley Savick, with music by Michael Wartofsky. Continue reading →

Jun 16

Awesomeness on Wheels: ROLLER DISCO: THE MUSICAL

Posted on by

photo credit: Ministry of Theater

Roller Disco:  The Musical, book by Sam Forman and Jen Wineman, lyrics by Sam Forman, music by Eli Bolin, Ministry of Theater and Club Oberon, 5/30/12-8/30/12, http://www.rollerdiscothemusical.com/Home.html.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Cambridge, MA) Sometimes, you come across a play that works so effortlessly on so many levels that it skates circles around your standard theatrical fare.  Club Oberon’s Roller Disco, glittery, vacant, hyper and hysterical, draws the audience into a disco-soaked world from the theme song’s opening strands.  We have no choice but to harken back to striped tube socks, gritty skating rinks and cheesy eighties movies.  Heck, we never even put up a fight. Continue reading →

Jun 14

Glittery, but Not Grabbing: HELLO DOLLY!

Posted on by

“Hello, Dolly!” Jacquelyn Piro Donovan (Dolly Gallagher Levi) and the ensemble of North Shore Music Theatre’s production of HELLO, DOLLY! Photo by Paul Lyden

Hello Dolly!, book by Michael Stewart, music by Jerry Herman, North Shore Music Theatre, 6/12/12-6/24/12, http://www.nsmt.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=969.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

Since Elizabethan times, some plays have been built around the concept of a character as a force of nature.  As a playwright, it’s often a good strategy that allows a great actor to cover plotline foibles with a powerful performance.  But such a strategy also can backfire, because when your lead can’t will the play to life, a weak plot is exposed all the more.  Continue reading →

Jun 02

Vampires, Actually: YOUR WILDEST DREAMS

Posted on by

Your Wildest Dreams by Joey C. Pelletier, Heart & Dagger Productions, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 5/18/12-6/2/12, http://heartanddagger.weebly.com/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

So you want to be a playwright.  Great.  From painful personal experience, let me offer one suggestion: limit your characters.  I know you will be tempted by the prospect of adding a zany waiter with a secret past or a crazy aunt with who steals the scene at dinner, but don’t.  Playwriting is hard.  Making a fully dimensional character is hard.  Keeping the audience’s attention is much harder than you think, and there is no worse sinking feeling than watching your friends make excuses halfway through your stage-reading, believe me.  Continue reading →