Sep 25

Too Much of a Good Thing: “MONKEY, A Kung Fu Puppet Parable”


Presented by White Snake Projects
Based on Journey to the West
Libretto by Cerise Lim Jacobs
Composed by Jorge Sosa
Stage direction by Roxanna Myhrum
Music direction by Tianhui Ng
Puppet design by Tom Lee and Chicago Puppet Studio

Featuring Chuanyuan Liu, Dylan Morrongiello, Carami Hilaire, Cristina Maria Catro, John Paul Huckle, Maria Dominique, Lopez, Carlos Jose Torres Lopez, Nathaniel Justiniano, Angelo Guo, Eliott Purcell, Lawrence Chan, Amanda Gibson, VOICES Boston

September 23 – 24, 2023
Emerson’s Paramount Center Theater
559 Washington St
Boston, MA

Review by Maegon Bergeron-Clearwood

BOSTON, Mass. — MONKEY, A Kung Fu Puppet Parable ticks three of my personal favorite boxes. it features puppets and opera, two traditions that are rife with simple but powerful techniques for bringing fantastical stories to life. It also features martial arts, a personal passion of mine that I rarely see experimented with onstage. It’s a tantalizing combination of performance elements, and I could not have been more excited to discover how White Snake Projects would weave them together. Continue reading

Sep 18

Witness History Repeating: “Prayer for the French Republic”

The cast of “Prayer for the French Republic.” Photo by T Charles Erickson.

Presented by The Huntington
By Joshua Harmon
Directed by Loretta Greco
Featuring: Amy Resnick, Nael Nacer, Tony Estrella, Joshua Chessin-Yudin, Talia Sulla, Carly Zien
Lighting Design by Christopher Akerlind
Scenic Design by Andrew Boyce
Dramaturgy by Charles Haugland

September 7-October 8, 2023
264 Huntington Ave
Boston MA

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

Content advisory: This production contains vivid descriptions and discussions of antisemitism, violence and death related to the Holocaust, hate crimes, and sexual violence. It also contains one instance of blood.

BOSTON, Mass. — A classic adage: if you ask two Jews a question, you’ll get three opinions. Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic features so many Jewish characters – secular and religious, Sephardic and Ashkenazi, patrilineal and matrilineal, Zionist and antizionist (and everywhere in between) – most of whom are relatives living under the same roof. Opinions are too numerous to count. Naturally, the play is three hours long.

The play is massive in other ways as well, bouncing between 2016 and 1944 and featuring 11 characters played by 10 actors. Harmon traces the legacy of the Salomon family, who have been living a comfortable middle-class life in Paris for decades, only to find themselves grappling with the same terrifying questions that their great-grandparents (and many Jewish ancestors before them) once faced: Are we safe here anymore? Is it time to flee? Continue reading

Sep 05

Cheap Art for the Long Haul: “The Heart of the Matter Circus”

Bread and Puppet Theater performs “The Heart of the Matter Circus” at Cambridge Common, Sept. 2, 2023. (©Greg Cook photo)

Presented by Bread and Puppet Theater

Touring through September 9th, 2023
Vernon, NJ
Thursday, September 7 @ 6pm
Meadowburn Farm
42 Meadowburn Rd, Vernon, NJ 07462

Brooklyn, NY
Friday, September 8 @ 4pm & 8pm
Old Stone House
336 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY 11215

Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Saturday, September 9 @ 4pm
Montgomery Place Estate @ Bard College

Easthampton, MA
Sunday, September 10 @ 5:30pm
Park Hill Orchard
82 Park Hill Road, Easthampton, MA 01027

Pittsford, VT
Monday, September 11 @ 6pm
Pittsford Village Farm
42 Elm Street Pittsford, VT 05763

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Much has been said recently about the seeming demise of American theater, with company after company reducing production capacity or closing their doors for good. Earlier this summer, The New York Times lamented this trend with the doom-and-gloom headline, “A Crisis in America’s Theaters Leaves Prestigious Stages Dark,” and a focus on big-name regional theaters – after all, if “prestigious” institutions are going under, surely this spells disaster for theater as a whole.* Continue reading

Aug 29

A Deadly Serious Delight: “Forgive Us, Gustavito!”


Presented by Otherland Theatre Ensemble
Devised and performed by Rebecca Finney, Tushar Mathew, and Lucius Robinson

August 24 and 25, 2023
The Rockwell
255 Elm Street
Somerville, MA
Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

SOMERVILLE, Mass. — I have seen lots of theater over the past few years, but I still find myself encountering the occasional post-lockdown firsts. In this case, Forgive Us, Gustavito! marked the first production I’ve seen since 2020 that succeeded in being consistently, unabashedly funny – from snorts and chuckles to full-blown guffaws, the three-person ensemble elicited a spectrum of laughs from its audience, myself joyously included, marks itself as the darkest production I’ve seen since 2020.

The devised piece was inspired by a 2017 Washington Post article about the grisly death of hippopotamus, the most famous resident of the now-defunct National Zoo of El Salvador. Speculations as to the cause of Gustavito’s death ran rampant: the original theory, that he had been beaten and stabbed in an act of possible gang-related violence, was replaced by the more mundane (and in some ways more tragic) theory of poor health coupled with inadequate care. Continue reading

Aug 18

Mockumentary, not Mockery? Or, The Kids are Alright?: “Theater Camp”


Theater Camp the film
Directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman
Written by Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Ben Platt
Featuring Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Jimmy Tratto, Nathan Lee Graham, Amy Sedaris

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

Find Your Local Listing — Like virtually every movie-about-theater that has come before it, Theater Camp features an audition montage. The young performers have barely unpacked for their summer at AdirondACTS (a rundown summer camp in upstate New York) when, one by one, they file onstage to determine their fates for the next three weeks. Stage lights in their eyes and Broadway dreams in their hearts, they begin to belt.

Watching the movie last week, I braced myself for secondhand embarrassment.

And yet, against every precedent set by other films in the mockumentary genre, no embarrassment came. Instead, I found myself beaming with joy. These kids are good, I thought. Nerdy and not great at choosing audition songs, but good. I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was this early audition montage that convinced me that Theater Camp is unique. Theater Camp plays with the expected mockumentary tropes, particularly in its characterizations: everyone at AdirondACTS is a caricature of a theater person, from Rebecca-Diane and Amos (Molly Gordon and Ben Platt), the overly serious co-writers of the summer’s original musical, to Glenn, the thankless stagehand with a secret dream to be in the spotlight (Noah Galvin). Continue reading

Jun 30

Breadth without Depth: “The Lehman Trilogy”

Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

Presented by The Huntington
By Stefano Massini
Adapted by Ben Power
Directed by Carey Perloff
Featuring Joshua David Robinson, Steven Skybell, Mayer Lehman
Music performed by Joe LaRocca
Dramaturgy by Julie Felise Dubiner

June 29 – July 23, 2023
264 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

Update: This article previously credited Carey Perloff as the former artistic director of the incorrect institution. Perloff was the AD of American Conservatory Theater.

BOSTON, Mass. — If the playbill for The Lehman Trilogy is any indication, The Huntington artistic team knows that are dealing with a flawed, if renowned, play. The three-and-a-half-hour epic has a developmental history of international proportions: Italian playwright Stefano Massini’s play about Jewish-American bankers was adapted by British playwright Ben Power, then enjoyed critical acclaim on the West End before transferring to Broadway and winning the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.

The production was a critical darling, but never without its skeptics. Think-pieces abound have accused the play of a) pandering in antisemitic tropes and b) sidestepping the centrality of slavery in the Lehman brothers’ (and more broadly, capitalism’s) rise to power. Continue reading

Jun 07

Witnessing a War-torn Wonderland: “The Gaaga”

Photo via https://www.arlekinplayers.com/the-gaaga

Presented by Arlekin Players Theatre
Written and co-directed by Sasha Denisova
Co-Directed by Igor Golyak
Environmental Design by Irina Kruzhilinia
Produced by Sara Stackhouse
Featuring: Jeremy Beazlie, Boris Berdnikov, Irina Bordian, Daniel Boudreau, Jenya Brodskaia, Darya Denisova, Polina Dubovikova, Taisiia “Taya” Fedorenko, Anne Gottlieb, Dev Luthra, Robert Pemberton, Michael Sáenz, Garrett Sands, Julia Shikh, Misha Tyutyunik, Irina Vilenchik, Ilia Volok, Robert Walsh

June 2-18, 2023 | US Premiere
BEAT BREW HALL
13 Brattle St., Harvard Square
Live, In-Person June 2-18
Streaming live, online, June 8-18

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Imagine a future in which not only dictators, but also their conspirators and allies and simpering cronies, are held actually held responsible for their crimes against humanity. Imagine a forum for truth-telling and accountability, where the perpetrators are subjected to mockery and the survivors are entitled to impart judgment, rather than the all-too-common other way around.

This is, of course, a topsy-turvy dream, so it is fitting that The Gaaga: a site specific phantasmagoria situates the absurd concept within the mind of a child. Its Alice in Wonderland-inspired protagonist, The Girl (played by 17-year-old Ukrainian refugee and artist Taisiia “Taya” Fedorenko), leads her audience of juror-witnesses through her fantasy world, in which she puts Vladimir Putin and his conspirators on trial for horrific crimes against her family and country. Continue reading

Jun 05

An Imaginative View from Above: “Rooted”

Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography.

Presented by The Lyric Stage Company
By Deborah Zoe Laufer
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Composer & sound design: Dewey Dellay
Featuring Karen MacDonald, Lisa Tucker, and Katherine Callaway

June 2 – 25, 2023
The Lyric Stage Company
140 Clarendon Street, 2nd Floor
Boston MA, 02116

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

BOSTON, Mass. — Rooted makes a breathless first impression. Walking into the theater at The Lyric Stage Company, perhaps for the first time since I’ve started attending theater post-lockdown, I literally gasped at the sight: part treehouse deck, part overgrown garden, all shrouded in dappled shade from the foundational tree’s outstretched limb.

The set, designed by Janie E. Howland, is as much a character in Deb Zoe Laufer’s play as its protagonist, Emery (Lisa Tucker). Emery has sequestered herself to her treehouse sanctuary for 12 years by the start of the play, with only two connections to the world below: her caregiver sister, Hazel (Karen MacDonald), and her unexpectedly popular YouTube channel showcasing her plant experiments. Her compassionate, charismatic way with plants inspires her online fans to form a literal cult around her beloved tree. Continue reading

May 29

Righteous but Unfocused Rage: “Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight”

Daraja Hinds, Jennifer Mischley, Sophie Appel, Beth Alianiello Jennifer Mischley and cast of GOODNIGHT SWEETHEART, GOODNIGHT at Wilbury Theatre Group; photo by Erin X. Smithers.

Presented by Wilbury Theatre Group
Written by Darcie Dennigan
Music by Niki Healy
Directed by Josh Short
Music Direction by Milly Massey
Choreography by Ali Kenner Brodsky
Featuring Jennifer Mischley, Sophie Appel, Beth Alianiello, Daraja Hinds, Christine Treglia, Lydia Grosswendt

May 25 – June 11
The Wilbury Theatre Group
475 Valley Street
Providence, RI 02908

Content Warning: ​This production includes the use of strobe effects, and contains references to ​rape, sexual assault, and torture.​

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

PROVIDENCE, RI — In theory, Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight is in the same lineage as two of my all-time favorite musicals, Six and Lizzie: campy, riotously angry, mostly sung-through works that are more structurally akin to pop concerts than an integrated, plot-driven musical. It’s a niche mini genre of musical theatre that seeks to fill in the holes of patriarchal history by means of loud, glittery, feminist revisionism. The point of these concert musicals isn’t to tell a factual story, but to offer catharsis; to witness the violence of misogyny inflicted on a historically maligned figure, but also relish in a devilishly empowered version of her, however mythologized that version may be. Continue reading

May 10

Words, Words, Words (With a Few Feelings): “Joy and Pandemic”


Presented by The Huntington Theatre Company
Written by Talor Mac
Directed by Loretta Greco
Sound Designer and Composer: Fan Zhang
Voice coaching by Rebecca Schneebaum
Dramaturgy by Shirley Fishman
Movement Consultant: Ryan Winkles
Featuring Stacy Fischer, Ella Dershowitz, Marceline Hugot, Ryan Winkles, Breezy Leigh

April 21 – May 21, 2023
The Calderwood Pavillion
527 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02116

Tickets

Review by Maegan Clearwood

BOSTON, Mass. — In an interview with dramaturg Shirley Fishman, Taylor Mac cites 19th century playwright Henrik Ibsen as a major influence behind Joy and Pandemic, currently premiering at Huntington Theatre. “Content almost always dictates the form,” Mac says, and indeed, the hyper-naturalism of judy’s (more about Taylor Mac’s pronouns here) play complements the central themes of belief versus reality.

The playwright whose echoing influence I heard the loudest however, was one of Ibsen’s contemporaries, George Bernard Shaw. This is a play about ideas, lots of them, with characters who represent opposing societal viewpoints and a captivating script that broadly prioritizes intellect over feeling. Continue reading