Category Archives: Drama

Oct 29

Entertaining and Well-Done Whining: UNCLE VANYA

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Photo credit: Apollinaire Theatre Company

by Anton Chekhov
directed by Daniella Fauteux Jacques
presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company

Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet Street
Chelsea, MA
October 10th – November 4th
Apollinaire Theatre Company Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Chelsea) I believe I once read that the sitcom Seinfeld didn’t last more than a season in Russia. Now I know why. Russia already had its Seinfeld; his name was Anton Chekhov, who writes brilliantly about all light and no heat. If you would like to chuckle and grimace about the painful foibles and imagined slights of the human condition, then you should catch the Apollinaire Theatre Company’s imaginative and spirited production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. But be warned, their lives might look painfully similar to your most dysfunctional family Thanksgivings. Continue reading →

Oct 26

More than a Handful of Clever: A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE

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Photo credit: Theatre on Fire

by Martin McDonagh
Directed by Darren Evans

presented by Theatre on Fire
Charlestown Working Theater
Charlestown, MA
October 12 – October 27th, 2012
Theatre on Fire Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Charlestown) Successful comedy and drama scripts employ a slightly sadistic withhold-and-give strategy with audiences. Comedy or tension must be built and dissipated and built again. There must be some normalcy to lead us on to the surprise. Think of the easygoing date that occurs before the heroin overdose in the movie Pulp Fiction. Two couples are out on a date making small talk. We know it will end up weird because the movie already has been very weird, but the date is downright boring, and the usually witty dialogue is purposely pedestrian. The payoff comes just a few minutes later with a group of strangers trying to decide what to do with a mob boss’s wife as she is overdosing. Continue reading →

Oct 15

Some Freedoms are More Free than Others: “Parade”

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Photo credit: F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company, the cast with director Joey DeMita kickin’ it.

book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown

Directed by Joey DeMita
Music Directed by Steven Bergman

The F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company
Oct 12- Oct 20, 2012
The Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box
321 Arsenal Street
Watertown, Massachusetts

F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Watertown) A True Story: Mr. Leo Frank was infamously the prime suspect in the murder trial of a young National Pencil Company factory worker, Mary Phagan in 1913. Jim Conley, the factory janitor, was also held as a suspect. Frank was sentenced to death; Conley was sentenced to work on a chain gang. Later, Frank’s sentence was commuted in 1915 to life in prison. Local public outrage inspired a lynch mob to kidnap Frank, drive him back to Marietta, Georgia, where the murder took place, and hang him. Parade spans the trial and 2 year imprisonment of Frank. Continue reading →

Oct 10

“The Company We Keep” by Jaclyn Villano

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Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

Presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
October 4 – 21, 2012
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

(Boston) Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presents its 31st season of new plays in Boston starting with recent BPT alumna Jaclyn Villano’s The Company We Keep. We can joke about attorneys and sharks, but here the metaphor is apt. New to Georgetown with a law professorship and a freshly renovated home, attorneys Harry and wife Ellie are having difficulty settling their 12-year-old son into the new school. When their best friends Katherine and Greg come to the housewarming with surprises of their own, what ensues tests the bonds of friendship, marriage, and parenthood in this vicious, biting comedy of manners. This one is not to miss.

Continue reading →

Oct 04

Looking for Heaven in All Places: “A Bright New Boise”

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Photo by Richard Hall/Silverline Images

Photo by Richard Hall/Silverline Images; The Cast acting the crap out of “A Bright New Boise.”

 

by Samuel D. Hunter
presented by Zeitgeist Stage Company
directed by David J. Miller

Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Black Box Theatre
September 28 – October 20

Zeitgeist Stage Company Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston) A Bright New Boise, is the tale of one man seeking redemption in the break-room of a craft store by reconnecting with his son. It is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.  The hero, soft-spoken and prodigal father, Will (Victor Shopov), reconnects with his son Alex (Zach Winston) after a successful interview at Hobby Lobby. Pauline (Janelle Mills), the manager, introduces the two and things start to go downhill, slightly uphill and then furiously downhill. They are joined by characters Anna (Dakota Shepard) and Leroy (David Lutheran), Alex’s brother. Continue reading →

Sep 26

“Immaterial Girl” as an Old-Fashioned Haunted House (Episode 1 of Blood Rose Rising)

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Photo Credit: Honest Ghost Productions LLC

Episode 1 of Blood Rose Rising
presented by Honest Ghost Productions
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, starting September 14 – November 18
NAGA Nightclub, Central Square
450 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

Blood Rose Rising Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Cambridge) A real gothic story isn’t about tragic romance, torture, or death, but houses. Houses with long histories and dark secrets. In the contemporary setting of Cambridge, Immaterial Girl offers the beginning to an old-fashioned gothic serial centered on the haunted Blackwood Manor. Continue reading →

Sep 22

Theater meets Chaos Theory: Jay Scheib’s “World of Wires”

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Photo Credit: Jay Scheib’s “World of Wires”, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

presented by The Institute of Contemporary Art/ Boston

The Institute of Art/Boston Website
Jay Scheib’s World of Wires Facebook Page
Friday + Saturday, September 21 + 22, 2012 , 7:30 pm
100 Northern Avenue
Boston, MA 02210 – directions

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston) Jay Scheib’s World of Wires is a live-cinema presentation that utilizes the mediums of television, live theater, the internet, music and all manners of spectating. It is an exhibition that posits that human experience on the internet is both defined by and created through actual and simulated human interaction. The result is a chaotic melodrama birthed by an obsessive zeitgeist. Continue reading →

Sep 17

“No Room for Wishing” Makes Room for All

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No Room for Wishing
Performed and written by Danny Bryck.

Photo credit: “No Room for Wishing”

Directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian.

Co-produced by Company One and Central Square Theater, supported in part by a Boston Playwrights’ Theatre Black Box Fellowship.

Playing at the Boston Center for Arts, 9/13 – 9/22
Playing at Central Square Theater, 9/30 – 10/9

No Room for Wishing Facebook Page
No Room for Wishing Website

Review by Kitty Drexel

“But I hear the boys the boys and girls are coming up up up from the underground… You can find ‘em there, they’re all fired up in Dewey Square… you can call them what you want, you can call them what you need, you can call them what you want but there’s no room for wishing in revolution.”  – Ruby Rose Fox, “Dewey Square”

(Boston) No Room for Wishing is a compilation of interviews and live recordings from the Occupy Boston Movement. The production was written and performed by local actor, Danny Bryck. It is directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian.

Bryck’s tour de force performance is a must see for Occupy Movement supporters and sympathizers. It offers a personal perspective of Occupy Boston that was not captured by local media during 2011. It is also a must see for those who opposed the movement.  This bare bones production lionizes the individual reasons for protesting while disassembling the stereotypes associated with the majority of activists. Bryck’s characterizations personalize the movement and the many people that the media had neglected; the moderate and the revolutionized. Continue reading →

Sep 16

Brilliance and Bravery in New Rep’s “The Kite Runner”

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The Kite Runner adapted for the stage by Matthew Spangler.
Novel by the same name by author Khaled Hosseini.
Directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue.

Photo by Andrew Brilliant/ Brilliant Pictures.

Photo by Andrew Brilliant/ Brilliant Pictures.

Performances, September 9-30, 2012
New Repertory Theater
Charles Mosesian Theater
Arsenal Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, MA 02472

New Repertory Theater Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Watertown) New Rep’s The Kite Runner is adapted for the stage by Matthew Spangler from the novel by the same name by author Khaled Hosseini. Director, Elaine Vaan Hogue, interprets her subject with fresh perspective in our post-9/11 world with compassion and ingenuity. Continue reading →

Sep 14

Bent, Not Broken

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BENT
Presented by Theatre@First
A Play by Martin Sherman
Directed by Nick Bennett-Zendzian

Theatre@First Facebook Page

Performances: Friday, September 14 – Saturday, September 22
Unity Somerville, 6 William Street at College Ave.
TICKETS – $15 for adults, $12 for students/seniors. Group discounts available.

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Somerville) When the stakes grow to dizzying heights, Theatre@First’s production of Bent has the power to draw its audience as tightly as a bowstring. The air crackles expectantly as viewers wait for the other shoe to drop.  As its characters are fenced in with barbed wire and SS guards, they are left with nothing but the hope that things can’t get any worse.  It certainly will, especially when that backdrop is the Holocaust and the principal characters are homosexual. Continue reading →