Jul 02

“Polaroid Stories” Messily Blends Myth and Teen Anguish

Kiki Samko, Luke Murtha, Michael Underhill, Elizabeth Battey, and Michael Caminiti, photo credit: Heart & Dagger Productions

Polaroid Stories by Naomi Iizuka, Heart & Dagger Productions, Boston Actors’ Theatre, and Happy Medium Theatre**,  Black Box Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts, 6/29/12-7/14/12, http://www.heartanddagger.org/.

**THIS REVIEW WAS SCHEDULED PRIOR TO THE CHANGES IN OUR REVIEWING POLICY AND WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE THAT HAPPY MEDIUM THEATRE COMPANY WAS DIRECTLY INVOLVED

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) With mixed success, Polaroid Stories attempts an abstract production that marries mythology and youth drug culture.  It’s a uneasy union.  The actors, at least, mine the material to the best of their abilities. Continue reading

Jun 25

ADHD NPR – CAR TALK: THE MUSICAL

The cast in a scene from Underground Railway Theater’s and Suffolk University’s co-production of Car Talk: The Musical!!! running from June 14 – August 12 at Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA. Tickets & Information: 866.811.4111 or CentralSquareTheater.org. Photo: A.R. Sinclair Photography.

Car Talk: The Musical, book and lyrics Wesley Savick, original music by Michael Wartofsky, Underground Railway Theater & Suffolk University, Central Square Theater, 6/14/12-8/12/12, http://www.centralsquaretheater.org.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

Charisma can carry a show a long way. Just look at what it did for Tom and Ray Magliozzi, a pair of goofball (and genius) brother-mechanics who talked their way into a hit show on National Public Radio. For 35 years, the pair has giggled their way through thousands of calls from car owners with mystery questions, strewing terrible puns and corny humor on the road as they went.

And now, on the eve of the brothers’ retirement from “Car Talk”, they have gotten themselves involved in a musical, written by Wesley Savick, with music by Michael Wartofsky. Continue reading

Jun 21

Cirque du Soleil: Serenity Under the Big Top

photo credit: Evan Witek

Totem, Cirque du Soleil, Marine Industrial Park, 6/10/12-7/15/12, http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/totem/default.aspx.

(Boston, MA) It’s not logical or, frankly, believable that a circus featuring so many acrobats in body stockings could be capable of such grace.  In performance, style, and message, though, Cirque du Soleil’s Totem is enthralling.  I found the show unique and lovely among Boston’s other attractions this month. Continue reading

Jun 16

Awesomeness on Wheels: ROLLER DISCO: THE MUSICAL

photo credit: Ministry of Theater

Roller Disco:  The Musical, book by Sam Forman and Jen Wineman, lyrics by Sam Forman, music by Eli Bolin, Ministry of Theater and Club Oberon, 5/30/12-8/30/12, http://www.rollerdiscothemusical.com/Home.html.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Cambridge, MA) Sometimes, you come across a play that works so effortlessly on so many levels that it skates circles around your standard theatrical fare.  Club Oberon’s Roller Disco, glittery, vacant, hyper and hysterical, draws the audience into a disco-soaked world from the theme song’s opening strands.  We have no choice but to harken back to striped tube socks, gritty skating rinks and cheesy eighties movies.  Heck, we never even put up a fight. Continue reading

Jun 14

Glittery, but Not Grabbing: HELLO DOLLY!

“Hello, Dolly!” Jacquelyn Piro Donovan (Dolly Gallagher Levi) and the ensemble of North Shore Music Theatre’s production of HELLO, DOLLY! Photo by Paul Lyden

Hello Dolly!, book by Michael Stewart, music by Jerry Herman, North Shore Music Theatre, 6/12/12-6/24/12, http://www.nsmt.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=969.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

Since Elizabethan times, some plays have been built around the concept of a character as a force of nature.  As a playwright, it’s often a good strategy that allows a great actor to cover plotline foibles with a powerful performance.  But such a strategy also can backfire, because when your lead can’t will the play to life, a weak plot is exposed all the more.  Continue reading

Jun 12

Ken Davenport’s Notice: Don’t Miss The Beautiful City of GODSPELL

photo by Jeremy Daniel from Playbill

Godspell, music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by John-Michael Tebelak, Circle In The Square Theatre (Broadway), 10/13/11-6/24/12, http://www.godspell.com/. DON’T MISS THIS BRILLIANT & EXCITING SHOW!! (Directed by Huntington’s God of Carnage director, Daniel Goldstein)

(source: http://www.godspellblog.com/the-godspell-update-we-built-a-beautiful-city)
Ken Davenport, the lead producer of Godspell, wrote this note on his blog:

“I just left the Circle in the Square Theatre moments ago, where with a very heavy heart I told the cast and crew that Godspell will play its final performance on Sunday, June 24th. While we certainly had hoped our show would run for years and years, we’re all very proud of the beautiful city we built.

Over the last nine months, our sensational cast has spread the joy of Godspell to over 153,000 people (and blasted them with over 1,000 pounds of confetti). And while this production of Godspell may not be at Circle in the Square past the 24th of June, it will be in our hearts and the hearts of everyone who saw it forever.

Continue reading

Jun 11

Happy Medium Theatre’s The American Plan

The American Plan by Richard Greenberg, Happy Medium Theatre Company, Factory Theatre, 6/8/12-6/16/12, http://www.happymediumtheatre.com/.

Feature by Gillian Daniels

Happy Medium Theatre’s The American Plan starts off light.

Set during an early-1960’s summer, a young couple meet cute and begin a hesitant courtship near a resort in the Catskill Mountains.  The first act sets up initially simple obstacles, mysterious pasts and disapproving parents.  By the second act, the play finally bears its teeth, revealing far more bile for the age than its nostalgic exterior would suggest. Continue reading

Jun 01

Hell is Other People: PRIVATE LIVES

Bianca Amato and James Waterston in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: Paul Marotta

Private Lives by Noel Coward, Huntington Theatre, Boston University Theatre, 5/25/12-6/24/12, http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/2011-2012/private-lives/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

Sometimes, the mark of a good play is how close it comes to the bone.  If you are secure in your romantic relationship, you will laugh heartily at Noel Coward’s Private Lives, playing at the Huntington.  If you aren’t secure, you will laugh nervously.  If you are single, you will laugh derisively.  Either way, you will laugh at this mashup of the foibles of all passionate lovers everywhere. Continue reading

May 27

Connecting with the Cheerfully Cheesy “Xanadu”

McCaela Donovan and Ryan Overberg, Photo: Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo

Xanadu, book by Douglas Carter Beane, music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar, Speakeasy Stage Company, Roberts Studio Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 5/11/12-6/9/12, http://www.speakeasystage.com/doc.php?section=showpage&page=xanadu.

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

Xanadu, the 1980 film featuring Olivia Newton John and music by the Electric Light Orchestra, is well known for being a critical flop.  The chief crime of this cinematic musical, however, is in creating entertainment that doesn’t connect with its audience.  After all, it’s a movie about disco released a year after the genre died a largely un-mourned death.  I’m hard pressed to find a better image of disconnection than that.

In being brought to the stage, Xanadu has finally found its correct medium.  The show not only finds its audience but winks at it furiously throughout the course of the story. Continue reading

May 23

Trojan Women: An Atmospheric View of the Devastation of War

photo credit: Whistler in the Dark

Trojan Women by Euripides,
Whistler in the Dark,
The Factory Theatre,
5/18/12-6/2/12, http://www.whistlerinthedark.com/productions/trojanwomenprod.html.

Reviewed by Anthony Geehan

(Boston, MA) The end of war is something that is looked on as a celebratory event. Images of servicemen returning home, country’s flags being raised, and a collective sigh of relief from the population are the usual symbols that are associated with victory. There is however always a losing side in a war who must deal with a devastated homeland, a shamed or exterminated army, and the loss of everything their civilization was or could ever be. Continue reading