Tag Archives: Boston

Apr 01

A Pleasant Surprise: EXPECTING

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Danni, Mom, and Gabrielle at the mall — with Jo d'Angelo and Jenny Reagan., photo credit: Boston Actors' Theatre

Expecting by Noah Tobin, Boston Actors’ Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 3/30/12-4/7/12,    http://www.bostonactorstheater.com/.

Reviewed by Kate Lonberg-Lew

(Boston, MA) Have you ever found your cell phone lying on the back seat after ripping open the box of the replacement? Or perhaps you found your watch at the bottom of the hamper after strapping on your new Swatch? Somehow, we always manage to find what we’re looking for the moment we stop looking for it. This is what Expecting, currently at the Boston Actors Theater, is all about and the experience is wonderfully complex. Continue reading →

Mar 29

Textured Clowning: TOMÁŠ KUBÍNEK: CERTIFIED LUNATIC & MASTER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

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Photo Credit: d.a. Hill

TOMÁŠ KUBÍNEK: CERTIFIED LUNATIC & MASTER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, ArtsEmerson, Paramount Theatre, 3/29/12-4/1/12, http://alturl.com/255s3.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) Funny is a funny thing.  You can be mean and be funny.  You can shock and be funny.  You can do knock-knock jokes and be funny, at least to a five-year old.  Or you can just be super-talented, a bit caustic and kind of weird and be funny.  Tomáš Kubínek has chosen the last option to deliver a memorable and nicely brief one-man show for ArtsEmerson at the Paramount Theatre. 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 17

James and the Giant Peach

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James and the Giant Peach, based on the book by Roald Dahl, Boston Children’s Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 3/17/12-3/25/12, http://bostonchildrenstheatre.org/season/jamesandthegiantpeach/.

Reviewed by John Herring

(Boston, MA) James and the Giant Peach follows a young orphan boy and the charming crew of insects he befriends on an entertaining and hilarious trans-Atlantic journey aboard a gigantic piece of fruit.” If you have read the story, or have been read the story, you know and probably love it already. If not, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN HIDING?! And you also will love the story in full live presentation. 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 13

“Just Another Day” for Kerry Dowling

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Foreground: Chris Caron and Kerry A. Dowling. Rear from Left: Michael Tacconi, Christopher Chew, Sarah Drake, and Michael Levesque in a scene from the SpeakEasy Stage Company production of Next to Normal, running now thru April 15th at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, in Boston’s South End. Tix/Info: 617-933-8600/www.SpeakEasyStage.com. Photo: Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo.

Interview by Becca Kidwell

Continuing its electrifying season, SpeakEasy Stage Company is presenting now thru April 15th the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal.  The overwhelming demand for tickets prompted SpeakEasy to extend the run one additional week before the show even opened – an unprecedented move in the company’s 20-year history.    http://www.speakeasystage.com/doc.php?section=showpage&page=normal 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 →

Mar 04

Acting Natural While Cramming it In: SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE IN IOWA

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Photo Credit: Another Country Productions

Saint John the Divine in Iowa by Lyralen Kaye, Another Country Productions, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 3/2/12-3/18/12, http://www.anothercountry.org/productions.html.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) There is a fine line to walk when it comes to groundbreaking plays.  It’s difficult to keep a thought-provoking issue from swallowing the play.  The result can be a diatribe at worst, or an afterschool special at best.  The only way to keep a play that handles heavy-hitting social issues on track is to populate it with characters who are drawn razor-sharp and true to life. Continue reading →

Feb 12

Shouting and Spittle: MONSTER

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Monster by Neal Bell, Boston Center for American Performance/Boston University Theatre, Lane Comley Studio 210, 2/9/12-2/25/12, http://www.bu.edu/cfa/bcap/monster.html.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) A play rarely works when the actors have to emotionally sprint throughout all acts.  A cast needs to pick its moments to ratchet up the tension and raise the stakes, or risk numbing the audience with melodrama.  Unfortunately, the Boston University production Monster begins at a precipice of volume and angst and never can climb down to connect with theatregoers.  Instead of communion, the production comes closer to an assault.

Monster is an ambitious staging of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  At its best, the tale can be a window into the theme of the messy pain of creation and abandonment from God and/or our parents.  Continue reading →

Jan 24

Sugar: A Naturally Sweetened Life Story

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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 →