Tag Archives: April

Mar 29

When X+Y+Z=X+Y+Z-1: PROOF

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Photos by Meghan Moore; Michael Pemberton and Keira Keeley.

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre

by David Auburn
Directed by Christian Parker

50 East Merrimack Street
Lowell, MA 01852
March 21st – April 14th, 2013
Merrimack Rep Theatre Facebook Page
Estimated run time 2 hours with one 15 minute intermission.

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell) For a play that focuses on mathematics, Proof, playing at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, nails social theory.  In this thoughtful production, we learn that a family is really a group organism that can adapt to having a limb injured or severed, but that organism can never be the same afterwards. Continue reading →

Mar 25

Masterly, Fun Fiddling: NATALIE MACMASTER

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Photo Credit: Care of the Natalie MacMaster Facebook Page

Presented by World Music/Crasharts Festival: Winter/Spring 2013

Sanders Theatre
Cambridge, MA
Saturday March 23, 2013
World Music/CRASHarts Facebook Page
Natalie MacMaster Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idebrook

(Cambridge) When done right, there is something so unpretentiously fun about the Celtic music that comes from the little Nova Scotian island of Cape Breton.  Rooted in Scottish musical traditions and honed in kitchen parties on long winter nights, it is a musical form that is vibrant, heartfelt and accessible.  And few Cape Breton products so embody the spirit of this musical scene better than Natalie MacMaster, a world-class fiddler from world-class fiddling stock.  Continue reading →

Mar 17

There’ll Be a Whole Lotta Sunlight Someday*: “A Raisin in the Sun”

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Keona Welch ("Beneatha Younger") and Corey Allen ("George Murchison") in the Huntington Theatre Company's production of Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN. Mar. 8 - Apr. 7, 2013 at Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. photo: T. Charles Erickson

Keona Welch (“Beneatha Younger”) and Corey Allen (“George Murchison”) in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A RAISIN IN THE SUN. Mar. 8 – Apr. 7, 2013 at Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. photo: T. Charles Erickson

Presented by Huntington Theatre Company 
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Directed by Liesl Tommy

March 8-April 7
BU Theatre
Boston, MA
Huntington Theatre Company Facebook Page

Review by Noelani Kamelamela

(Boston) Theatre with an African American focus owes its considerable roots to Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, which debuted on Broadway in 1959.  The Younger family’s struggle against external limitations has been the inspiration behind the musical Raisin (1973) as well as the play Clybourne Park (now at Speakeasy Stage Co, running through March 30th) to name a few.  The racial oppression that existed then hid behind God and country, and now decades after the gains of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s has the power to still do so, to hold prisoner hard-working men and women and to frame that incarceration as well deserved. The Huntington’s current production is definitely not a re-staging of their 1995 show, and makes a bold statement about resistance to the status quo and the courage it takes to insist on fair treatment in any era. Continue reading →

May 10

Keeping the Bard on His Toes: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

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Much Ado About Nothing…With A Twist adapted by Daniel Morris, Bad Habit Productions, Deane Hall at Boston Center for the Arts, 4/28/12-5/13/12, http://www.badhabitproductions.org/shows/season/MuchAdo.html.

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) There’s a funny story the actor Charles Grodin shares about famed acting teacher Uta Hagen, where Hagen was dissecting the terribleness of a scene Grodin had just done.  She hated everything except for one moment when Grodin’s scene partner was slow to hand the actor a prop.  Because there was a delay, Grodin looked genuinely concerned, and that, Hagen announced, was true acting.

I’m not a big fan of the Method myself, but I’m starting to see her point, especially when it comes to Shakespeare.  Acting involves a weird combo of memorization and playful improvisation.  But when it comes to the Bard’s work, too many productions are populated with actors who know they are saying weighty words and making weighty gestures; every move is preordained and dripping with importance.  Such a style robs the lyrical and impish qualities of plays that once were performed for bawdy Elizabethans.

Luckily, there are productions like Bad Habit’s staging of Much Ado About Nothing to inject life into scripts that we have too long sanctified.   Continue reading →

May 07

Horrific Comfort Food: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

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l. to r. Bill Mootos, Ceit McCaleb Zweil, Lovely Hoffman, and Jennifer Fogarty in Little Shop of Horrors. Photo by Andrew Brilliant / Brilliant Pictures.

Little Shop of Horrors, book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken, New Repertory Theatre, Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 4/29/12-5/27/12, http://www.newrep.org/little_shop.php.

Reviewed by Kate Lonberg-Lew

(Watertown, MA) Sometimes you are having a bad day. Sometimes you are in such a bad mood that escapism is the only way to manage.  It was in such a state that I entered the New Rep’s production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Arsenal Center for the Arts. I tell you this so that you will know exactly how steep a hill the cast had to climb in order for me to emerge smiling; which I did. Continue reading →

Apr 29

A Pitch-Perfect Meditation: GHOST-WRITER

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Dan Kremer and Rebecca Harris. Photo by Meghan Moore.

Ghost-Writer by Michael Hollinger, Merrimack Repertory Theatre,    4/19/12-5/13/12, http://www.merrimackrep.org/season/show.aspx?sid=109.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell, MA) The author starts with a blank page. It fills with words. From where do the words come? That is the underlying mystery of Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s masterful production of Ghost-Writer. Continue reading →

Apr 21

Growing up at the “Bee”

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25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinkin, Turtle Lane Playhouse, 4/13/12-4/29/12, http://www.turtlelane.org/showdetail.php?show=SpellingBee.

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Auburndale, MA)  Healthy competition is good for children!–Well, that’s what everyone says.  The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee tells a story that soccer and hockey parents have been learning in the past few years:  kids still need to be kids.  It’s hard enough to adjust to the physical, social, emotional changes without being expected to act like an adult.  Continue reading →

Apr 16

Luck of the Irish: Race Warfare in the 20th and 21st Centuries

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Nikkole Salter and McCaleb Burnett in Kirsten Greenidge’s THE LUCK OF THE IRISH. March 30 – April 29, 2012 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson.

The Luck of the Irish by Kirsten Greenidge, Huntington Theatre Company, Boston Center for the Arts Virginia Wimberly Theatre, 3/30/12-5/6/12, http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/2011-2012/The-Luck-of-the-Irish/.

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) When the upwardly mobile Lucy and Rex Taylor (Nikkole Salter and Victor Williams, respectively) are unable to buy a house in Boston because they’re black, they turn to Patty Ann and Joe Donovan (Marianna Bassham and McCaleb Burnett) to buy one for them during the 1950’s.  The complex relationship this creates between them bleeds over into the early 2000’s when the Harrisons’ grandchildren discover the elderly Donovans want the house back.  The drama that results is tight and enjoyable. Continue reading →

Apr 08

Community amidst Hostility: THE TEMPERMENTALS

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Steve Kidd, Will McGarrahan, Victor L. Shopov, & Shelley Bolman in The Temperamentals. Photo by Mark S. Howard

The Tempermentals by Jon Marans, Lyric Stage Company, 3/30/12-4/28/12, https://lyricstage.com/

main_stage/the_temperamentals/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

The oppressed can’t name their condition without fear of reprisal.  They can’t gather together.  They can’t escape their condition in the traditional refuges of family, community, friendship and sex.  Imagine trying to create change swimming against such a tide.  Continue reading →

Apr 08

The Walking Dead: LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

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Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill, New Repertory Theatre, Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 4/1/12-4/22/12, http://newrep.org/long_days.php.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Watertown, MA) Inconvenient truths sometimes come from the mouth of the mad, from those with the least to lose.  From the most hopeless in the New Repertory Theatre’s unflinching drama Long Day’s Journey into Night, we receive the troubling message that you can’t outrun the past.  If the past is not dealt with, it can rise from the grave and overtake the present and the future.   Along with this, we also learn that perhaps you should ask your doctor about possible side effects before taking any new medication. Continue reading →