Category Archives: Drama

Mar 25

Hookman: Existential Thriller for the 21st Century Girl

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Joe Kidawski and Erin Butcher, Photo credit: Company One

Hookman by Lauren Yee, Company One, Boston Center for the Arts Hall A, 3/23/12-4/14/12, http://www.companyone.org/Season13/Hookman/synopsis.shtml.

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) Lexi (Erin Eva Butcher) appears to be the only one in Hookman aware she’s in slasher movie.

With reason to believe a masked murderer (Joseph Kidawski) is responsible for the death of her friend Jess (Nicole Prefontaine), she attempts to protect her college roommate (Pearl Shin) and various others from his hook. Continue reading →

Mar 25

‘Deported’ dreams fragrant hope

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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 →

Mar 24

Pride and Prejudice: Stage Proves a Better Home for the Classic Satire Than Film

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Pride and Prejudice, based on the novel by Jane Austen, adapted by Elizabeth Hunter, Theatre@First, Somerville Theatre, 3/22/12-3/31/12,   http://www.theatreatfirst.org/shows/pride_prejudice/pride_prejudice.shtml.

 

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

(Somerville, MA) Elizabeth Hunter adapts, directs, and brings an enormously funny Pride and Prejudice to the stage.  Longtime Austen-fans should rejoice at their good fortune.  The thorough play is probably closest to my own imagining of the classic 1813 novel.

The book is a smart satire of the husband-hunting rat race that young women engaged in during the Georgian Era when inheritances were more likely to pass to sons.  Continue reading →

Mar 22

‘Ma Rainey’ Sings the Music of the Soul

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Yvette Freeman and Corey Allen in August Wilson’s MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM. March 9 – April 8, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson, Huntington Theatre Company, 3/9/12-4/8/12, http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/production.aspx?id=10262&src=t.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Boston, MA) Music breathes and pulses as each note is played.  The blues provide a voice for the inexpressible feelings of the human experience.  The blues celebrate the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of life in its entirety; it is neither surprising that the blues came out of the African American spiritual tradition, nor that soul, r&b, and hip-hop were derived from the blues and at the core of the best is the heart and soul of the artist.  What happens when that soul is taken away?  Can the heart survive?

This question permeates the existence of each of the characters in August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.  Continue reading →

Mar 20

The Man From Earth: A Mystery of History

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Photo by Reid Gilman

Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth by Richard Schenkman, Hovey Players, 3/9/12-3/24/12, http://www.hoveyplayers.com/news/2011-2012-season/jerome-bixby%E2%80%99s-the-man-from-earth/.

Reviewed by Anthony Geehan

(Waltham, MA) The phrase “history is written by the victors” is a saying that shows a built in flaw in the study of our past. The idea that a subject that must be completely impartial and factual is weakened when records that are worked with could be exaggerated at some points and completely falsified at others. This concept of incomplete information is the main theme of Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth, the science fiction mystery piece currently being performed by Waltham’s The Hovey Players at The Abbot Memorial Theater. Continue reading →

Mar 19

Scenes from the Mausoleum: THE MOURNERS’ BENCH

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Trinity Rep resident company members Phyllis Kay (Caroline) and Janice Duclos (Wilma) in The Mourners’ Bench, a world premiere by George Brant, directed by Michael Perlman. Now playing at Trinity Repertory Company as part of the Three by Three in Rep. Sets by Michael McGarty, Costumes by William Lane, Lighting by Dan Scully. Photo by Mark Turek.

The Mourner’s Bench by George Brant, Trinity Repertory Company, 3/7/12-5/24/12, http://www.trinityrep.com/on_stage/current_season/mb.php.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Providence, RI) A moment of violence can leave its mark on many, including those who never experienced it.  The Trinity Repertory Company’s production of The Mourner’s Bench bravely tries to examine a traumatic event through three disparate lenses that traverse time and family, but the effort ultimately fails to create a cohesive vision of loss and healing.  Continue reading →

Mar 18

An Imperfect Study of Grief : LOVE ALONE

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Trinity Rep resident company member Anne Scurria as Helen and Brown/Trinity Rep MFA actor Leah Anderson as Clementine (foreground) in Love Alone by Deborah Salem Smith. Directed by Tyler Dobrowsky and Deborah Salem Smith, this world premiere drama is now playing at Trinity Repertory Company as part of the Three by Three in Rep. Sets by Michael McGarty, Costumes by William Lane, Lighting by Dan Scully. Photo by Mark Turek.

Love Alone by Deborah Salem Smith, Trinity Repertory Company, 2/28/12-5/27/12, http://www.trinityrep.com/on_stage/current_season/st.php,

Reviewed by Kate Lonberg-Lew

(Providence, RI)  

When someone you love dies unexpectedly, you struggle with grief. And so does the cast of Love Alone at the Trinity Repertory Company. Unfortunately, they also struggle to portray the nuance and rawness of the emotions that course through a person and a family at times such as these. Continue reading →

Mar 16

Crave & Beyond The Light: Emotional Explosion

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Daniel J. Raps, Erin Rae Zalaski, Jesse Wood, and Christina Malanga in Beyond the light — at Calderwood Pavilion; photo credit Heart and Dagger Productions

Abigail Matzeder, Michael Underhill, and Terrence Patrick Haddad in CRAVE — at Calderwood Pavilion, Photo Credit: Heart and Dagger Productions

Crave by Sarah Kane and Beyond the Light by Joey C. Pelletier, Heart & Dagger Productions, Boston Center for the Arts Rehearsal Hall A, 3/9/12-3/17/12, http://www.heartanddagger.org/.Partial nudity and mature themes

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Boston, MA) Many have tried to dramatize depression to mixed results. The problem tends to be that depression by it’s very nature is a passive thing-the person doesn’t want to do anything. Heart & Dagger escapes the trap of a dry, clinical look at depression by presenting two one acts that cut to the visceral core of despair and the fight to survive.

Continue reading →

Mar 11

Making a Point with a 2 x 4: RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS

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Recent Tragic Events by Craig Wright, Whistler in the Dark, The Factory Theatre, 3/9/12-3/24/12, http://www.whistlerinthedark.com/productions/recenttragicevents.html.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) The subject of free will vs. determinism is a fun one to debate, a question that has been the bane of my ex-father-in-law’s existence for decades.  It also has been well-covered in theatre and movies, including in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.  As this multi-leveled play proves, a play that argues a point must balance storytelling with its agenda to be successful.

Unfortunately, the fine storytelling and performances of Whistler in the Dark’s Recent Tragic Events is marred by gimmicks to drive home the idea that our lives are predestined.  The gimmickry, from a sock puppet stand-in for Joyce Carol Oates to some shenanigans that mess with the borders of the play, would be doubly frustrating if it weren’t for the delivery of one of the best acting performances of the year by lead actor Aimee Rose Ranger. Continue reading →

Mar 10

Impressive, Uneven and Important: REFLECTIONS OF A ROCK LOBSTER

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Felix Teich as ‘Paul Guilbert’ and Ian Shain as ‘Aaron Fricke’, Photo by Saglio Photography, Inc.

Reflections of a Rock Lobster by Burgess Clark, based on the true story of Aaron Fricke, Boston Children’s Theatre, Wimberley Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts, 3/3/12-3/11/12, http://bostonchildrenstheatre.org/season/rocklobster/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) To be a gay teen often has meant living every moment in hostile territory, where everything you do is wrong because of who you are.  Too often, it has meant years of enforced isolation and violence.

This is what the Boston Children’s Theatre production of Reflections of a Rock Lobster does best, creating the claustrophobia of a gay teen’s world where everything feels hostile, including one’s own feelings.  The play, put on by the Boston Children’s Theatre with a few grown-ups thrown in the mix, chronicles the true story of a pair of trailblazing gay teens who in 1980 challenged their school’s ban on same-sex couples at the prom and made the world a little bit less hostile.  Continue reading →