Category Archives: Drama

Jul 06

Notes After Creation: The Theater Offensive’s Queer [Re]Public Festival

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Presented by The Theater Offensive 
In partnership with Double Edge Theatre and Think Outside the Vox
June 26-29, 2025
Arrow Street Arts
2 Arrow Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The Theater Offensive’s inaugural Queer [Re]Public Festival was a glorious presentation of queer, trans and BIPOC joy. At which, artists Victoria Lynn Awkward, Annalise “River” Guidry, and Cheyenne Wyzzard-Jones convened and performed the fruits of their 22-month-long Emergent Artist and True Colors Residencies. By doing so, the residents transformed Arrow Street Arts into a community space where artists offered art to their audience, we received it and offered it back again. 

I was fortunate to attend Awkward’s dance composition In The Space Between in the main theater and a reading of Wyzzard-Jones’ The Messenger in the studio. My reactions to those works are below. I was unable to see Guidry’s Theater of Union or attend The Audacity of Being Yourself conversation with Durand Bernarr, Victoria Awkward and Diovanna Frazier. It is my sincere hope for the artists involved that they received everything they wanted and needed from their work.  Continue reading →

Jun 19

Travesty to Atonement and Back Again in 13 Lessons: “Our Class”

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The Cast of “Our Class.” Photo by Pavel Antonov.

Presented by Arlekin Players Theatre
By Tadeusz Słobodzianek 
Adapted by Norman Allen
Directed by Igor Golyak
Scenic & Prop Design by Jan Pappelbaum
Costume Design by Sasha Ageeva
Lighting Design by Jeff Adelberg
Sound Design by Ben Williams
Music composed by Anna Drubich
Projection Design by Eric Dunlap & Igor Golyak with Andreea Mincic
Chalk Drawings Design by Andreea Mincic
Choreography by Or Schraiber
Dramaturgy by Dr. Rachel Merrill Moss
Stage violence and intimacy choreography by Leana Gardella (2024 New York production)
Featuring: Gigi Watson, Gene Ravvin, Kirill Rubtsov, Deborah Martin, Jeremy Beazlie, Zach Fike Hodges, Chulpan Khamatova, Richard Topol, Ilia Volok, Ryan Czerwonko

June 18 – June 22, 2025
Calderwood Pavilion
Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

Duration: 2 hours 50 minutes with one intermission

Suitable for ages 16+

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Our Class is about the slow radicalization of Polish catholics against their Jewish friends and neighbors in the years before and during the Holocaust (1918-2021). It is violent, angry, and expertly crafted by the Arlekin Players. While the historical events depicted and themes explored look similar to ongoing news events, Our Class is about the 1940s Russian occupation of Poland and not current international crises: the christian nationalization of the United States and retreat from its status as a world superpower, Russia’s war on Ukraine, or even Israel’s bombing of Iran. Performances at the Boston Center for the Arts Calderwood Pavilion run through June 22.  

Off of 2024’s award-winning production of The Dybbuk, Arlekin presents another triumph in Our Class. This production worked out its technical and stagecraft kinks in New York during its run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, because, from its horizontal staging to its multidisciplinary incorporation of projection and live-camera video, it is spotless. Its Boston run brings new cast members and new opportunities for accolades.  Continue reading →

May 30

Progression and Congestion: “Stories”

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Pretty poster art by Leon Friedman

Presented by Cunning Folk Theatre
Based on a short story by Y.L. Peretz
Adapted and directed by Catherine Alam-Nist
Translated by Giovanna Truong and Ruthie Davis
Guitarist: Gabe Nixon

May 28 – 29, 2025
BCA Plaza Black Box
539 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Kitty Drexel

75+ minutes with one intermission

BOSTON — Cunning Folk Theatre has shown significant growth from 2023’s Selkie Play at the Somerville Armory to this week’s Stories playing at the Boston Center of the Arts’ Plaza Black Box theater. Stories is an ambitious project with moments of delightful artistic freedom, and its writing is overwhelmed with too many layers of meaning. The creative team should be proud of their progress, and also aware of how much farther they’ve yet to go.  Continue reading →

Apr 28

Bleeding Heart Fox Lovers: “The Squirrels”

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Photo by Apollinaire Theatre. Great squirrels of our time.

Presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company 
By Robert Askins
Directed by Brooks Reeves
Movement Choreography by Audrey Johnson
Fight Choreography by Matt Dray

April 18-May 18, 2025
Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet St.
Chelsea, MA

Running Time: estimated 2 hours

Critique by Kitty Drexel

“Artists must let audiences in on the risk of the live performance through intentionally crafting moments in which it is revealed. This is why moments of misfire, moments that shatter the theatrical illusion, feel so resonant: they reveal the risk underpinning a truly live and dynamic experience… These moments don’t have to be literal mistakes… But rather ideas, images or performances that surprise us by upsetting our expectations and enhancing our awareness of events unfolding around us.” 

Theatre of the Unimpressed: In Search of Vital Drama by Jordan Tanahill, Coach House Books, Toronto: 2015.

CHELSEA, Mass. — The Squirrels by Robert Askins (best known for Hand to God, a play about a boy and his outspoken hand puppet) is a strange ‘lil beastie of a play. At first glance, it is a departure for Apolliniaire Theatre Company – a company that stages adventurous plays about the human experience. But, upon further investigation, The Squirrels is well within Apollinaire’s bailiwick. Askins’ play is about the failures of our flesh, our need for compassion and warmth, and our propensity for greed when left unchecked. It is also about common street Rodentia. 

Apollinaire’s website summarizes The Squirrels thusly: “A bitter struggle for love, power, and the almighty acorn divides a once-peaceful tree in Robert Askins’ dark satire of prejudice and greed… A tragi-comical epic battle for nuts.” It is Watership Down meets King Lear with some Lysistrata thrown in for good measure. It is fluffy, horny, and entirely human.  Continue reading →

Apr 24

A House with Good Bones: “Alba”

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Presented by Teatro Chelsea
A new play by Alejandro Rodriguez
Based on The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca
Produced & directed by Mariela Lopez-Ponce

April 17-May 4, 2025 
Chelsea Theatre Works Black Box
181 Winnisimmet Street
Chelsea, MA 02150

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CHELSEA, Mass. — Alba, currently running at the Chelsea Theatre Works black box through May 4, is a modern adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1945 classic The House of Bernarda Alba. Playwright Alejandro Rodriguez spins Lorca’s play by adding a narrator, a male Poet, to a play originally written for 12 women and one child. Rightly or wrongly, this adaptation provides the male perspective on the relationships between women in a family free of men.   Continue reading →

Apr 15

Hell Hath No Fury: “Don’t Eat the Mangos”

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Left to right: Evelyn Howe, Jessica Pimentel, Yesenia Iglesias; photo by Marc J. Franklin.

Written by Ricardo Pérez González
Directed by David Mendizábal
Featuring: Jessica Pimentel, Yesenia Iglesias, Evelyn Howe, Susanna Guzmán, José Ramón Rosario
Voice of Radio: José C. Massó III
Fight Director and Intimacy Coach: Ted Hewlett

March 26 – April 27, 2025
The Huntington Calderwood
527 Tremont Street. Boston, MA 02116

Content warnings: Don’t Eat the Mangos includes frank discussion of past sexual assault, incest, and traumatic forced abortion. The play includes depictions of patriarchal control in a family setting, at-home end-of-life care, and violent suffocation. There is a brief discussion of suicide and the inclusion of homophobic and sexist slurs.

This play is performed in English and Spanish. 

BOSTON — After the first seeing the striking mango tree (designed by Tanya Orellana with rising sunlight designed by Cha See) burdened with tangibly ripe fruit next to a cozily busy cottage, the audience hears the silence-splitting call of the Puerto Rican coquí frog. (I’ve never been to P.R., but I’ve heard the coquí’s invasive rant from inside my family’s home on Big Island, Hawai’i enough times to recognize the frog’s plaintive call for nonrecreational booty even in my nightmares.) 

The sound design by Jake Rodriguez layers the persistent morning call of coquís under the clanging of daily housework in Don’t Eat the Mangos’ first moments. Shortly after the first lines of dialogue, a ringing bell joins the coquís call. These sounds, with director David Mendizábal’s staging, plus the tense character work between the actors, indicate that something is not right in this house.  Continue reading →

Apr 09

Being Polite is the American Way of Lying: “Her Portmanteau”

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In Photo: Lorraine Victoria Kanyike, Patrice Jean-Baptiste Photo by: Maggie Hall Photography

Presented by Central Square Theater with the Front Porch Arts Collective
By Mfoniso Udofia
Directed by Tasia A. Jones
Dramaturgy by Elijah Estolano Punzal
Original music and sound design by Eduardo M Ramirez
Dialect coaching by Bibi Mama
Featuring Patrice Jean-Baptiste, Jade A Guerra, Lorraine Victoria Kanyike

March 27 – April 20, 2025
Central Square Theater
450 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

Online playbill

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Central Square Theater and The Front Porch Arts Collective present the fourth play in Boston’s Ufot Family Cycle, Her Portmanteau by Mfoniso Udofia. Many elements recommend this play, including great acting and moving storytelling. Additionally, while it is part of the Ufot Cycle, it stands alone as a tribute to a Massachusetts family trying to love each other despite intergenerational trauma, betrayal, and culture shock. 

In Her Portmanteau, the American Ufot family reconnects with the Nigerian Ekpoyong family. Adiaha Ufot (Lorraine Victoria Kanyike) welcomes half-sister Iniabasi Ekpeyong (Jade A Guerra) to her New York apartment. It is winter, and Iniabasi has neither the coat nor footwear for the frigid weather. Adiaga offers Iniabasi a sweater and woollen socks, but Iniabasi refuses them. Iniabasi had to wait over an hour at JFK Airport. She was supposed to land in Boston. Their mother, Abasiama (Patrice Jean-Baptiste), was supposed to pick Iniabasi up so they could stay at the family house in Worcester. No one looks like their photos. Iniabasi doesn’t know why things have changed or who to trust.  Continue reading →

Mar 27

An Umbrella of Representation: “Queer Voices Festival”

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The Queer Voices Festival
Presented by Boston Theater Company
The Balcony or The Last Night by Pascale Florestal, she/her/hers
Halftime v. Intermission by Michael J. Bobbitt, he/him
Left Overs by Roni Ragone, they/them
Limpia by Leonard P. Madrid, he/him
Oop, Can’t Say That by Tom Zhang, they/them
Seance by Dylan Horowitz, He/Him & She/Her
Zelda by Haz Cady, he/him

March 21 -23, 2025
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116

2 Hrs 15 Minutes with 1 intermission

Review by Helen Ganley

BOSTON — This past weekend, the Boston Theater Company hosted its 2nd annual Queer Voices Festival at the Boston Center for the Arts. We are caught in an onslaught of voices, opinions, and legislation—the whipping wind of oppression slapping us in the face, the ice of hatred hardening on the sidewalk, daring us to fall. This event gathers a community under the umbrella of representation, shielding them—if only for an hour and a half—from the deluge outside.
Continue reading →

Mar 05

BPT Spring Plays in Repertory: “The Fig Tree, and The Phoenix, and The Desire to be Reborn” & “The Recursion of a Moth”

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Presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
Parking & Directions

The Fig Tree, and The Phoenix, and The Desire to be Reborn 
February 20 – March 9 on the Snodgrass Stage
By Isabelle Fereshteh Sanatdar Stevens
Directed by Nikta Sabouri
Original Music and Sound Designer: Arshan Gailus
Digital playbill 

The Recursion of a Moth 
February 27 – March 9 on the Snodgrass Stage
By Brandon Zang
Directed by Katie Brook
Digital playbill 

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — This Spring, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presents two new plays as part of its repertory season: Isabelle Fereshteh Sanatdar Stevens’ The Fig Tree, and The Phoenix, and The Desire to be Reborn and Brandon Zang’s The Recursion of a Moth. Fig adapts an Iranian/Zoroastrian creation myth into a fantasy parable. Moth explains time recursion (a physics term for time looping back in itself… I think.) via an expanded family social experiment.  Both trace love across oceans of time.  Continue reading →

Feb 28

Dreams Are Not Prophecies: “The Odyssey”

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Alejandra Escalante, Kate Hamill, Nike Imoru, and Wayne T. Carr in The Odyssey.
Photo: Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall

Presented by American Repertory Theater 
Written and adapted by Kate Hamill
Based on the epic poem by Homer
Directed by Shana Cooper
Dramaturgy HERE

Digital Playbill HERE

Feb 11 – Mar 16, 2025
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge MA 02138

This production contains sex, violence (including the death of children and animals), and references to sexual assault, as well as fog, haze, strobe, and flashing lights. 
Recommended for ages 14+.

“As a feminist playwright, I believe deeply in creating female-driven narratives and reclaiming the classics for people of all backgrounds and genders. My Odyssey is narrated by the three female Fates, who literally haunt Odysseus as the spirits of the women of Troy; women drive the story. Not only warriors bear the cost of war, and it’s easy to lose the stories of how often women and children are the victims of brutal conflict around the world.”

-Adaptor Kate Hamill in “A Note from Kate Hamill” on the A.R.T. website

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Kate Hamill’s The Odyssey running at the American Repertory Theater reimagines its title character Odysseus if he were just a guy. In Homer’s epic poem and the adapted play, Odysseus makes terrible choices which he conveniently blames on the gods and mortal women if he doesn’t like the consequences. The Odyssey reminds us that myths provide moral guidance that modern entertainment does not; when we remove the fantastical from our myths, we’re left with stories about everyday people ignoring red flags and turning from society’s fundamental principles of dignity, loyalty and honesty. 

Public schools have been teaching Homer’s The Odyssey for decades. It’s been turned into movies and T.V. serials. It’s inspired numerous fanfictions. Margaret Atwood’s 2005 The Penelopiad was made into a play for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 2007. It’s a fast read that pays homage to Atwood’s novel and Homer’s antagonized heroine. There’s even a 1987 episode of the original DuckTales entitled “Home Sweet Homer” loosely based on Homer’s poem. There are oodles of opportunities to know The Odyssey without reading the original… Which can be tricky to read and absorb depending on the dry clunkiness of the translation. Fortunately, Hamill’s play is anything but.    Continue reading →