Jan 24

Sugar: A Naturally Sweetened Life Story

Sugar by Robbie McCauley, ArtsEmerson, Jackie Liebergott Black Box in the Paramount Center, 1/20/12-1/29/12, http://alturl.com/fj8j3.

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) Robbie McCauley begins the story of her life reciting food from her Georgia upbringing in the 1940’s.  In detail, she describes cake and succulent barbecue ribs, the taste of Southern cooking compacted with an African American childhood restricted by racial segregation.  She cheerfully rattles off the names of her favorite dishes and the relatives she best associates with them before revealing the diabetes with which she continues to fight. Continue reading

Nov 08

Moby Dick: Sobering One-Man Show

Conor Lovett in Gare St Lazare Players Irelands Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Photo by Ros Kavanagh.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville, adapted by Conor Lovett and Judy Hegarty Lovett, ArtsEmerson and Gare St. Lazare Players, The Jackie Liebergott Black Box at the Paramount Center, 11/7/11-11/12/11, http://alturl.com/z4pzz.

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) 

“Call me Ishmael,” performer Conor Lovett begins casually.

His hour and forty-five minute monologue makes up the whole of the Gare St. Lazare Players’ adaptation of Moby Dick. The way Lovett relates the story based on Herman Melville’s novel is restrained and often timid, however.  His Ishmael is a lost soul, marked by events he’s still struggling to parse. Continue reading