Theater

Theater

The A.R.T.’s Latest Import: Beowulf

May 2, 2013

The A.R.T’s most recent hip New York import is Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, now running at Oberon. The show opens with three speakers talking in a kind of broken academic cant in something that’s part book talk and part lecture. Their takes on the book are humorously weighed down by their personalities. This […]

Theater

Imaginary Beasts Takes on Thornton Wilder’s Early Stuff

April 24, 2013

I don’t think there’s a company in town that’s better equipped to take on Thornton Wilder’s early short plays than Imaginary Beats. Dealing with their brevity and vast range, while maintaining their headiness and sense of comedy isn’t easy to do. These plays jump from the mythological to the spiritual to the philosophical with slapstick […]

Theater

Hub Theater’s “Lebensraum”

April 10, 2013

I usually don’t get that excited about new groups appearing on the Boston fringe scene. There’s a part of me that fears too many people (or egos) trying to do their own thing only strains a finite number a resources and pits companies against each other for what is a limited audience. But I walked […]

Theater

Raisin in the Sun at the Huntington

March 28, 2013

A Raisin in the Sun takes on a complex subject matter that’s not easy to discuss, unless you lace your discussion of it with generic, PC statements on race and oppression. I think this is why so much focus is put on the segregation issue that comes up late in the play, when our protagonists, […]

Theater

On Duration

February 27, 2013

I don’t expect every show I see to knock me over. The best playwrights, actors, and other theater creatives all have duds. And that’s OK. There’s often a great play, or a great performance, or some cool lighting effects there to put a positive spin on any kind of overall weakness or mediocrity, especially in […]

Theater

The Glass Menagerie at the A.R.T

February 16, 2013

All the pieces are in place to send the ART’s production of The Glass Menagerie to Broadway. And I mean the Broadway that still kinda matters, not the tourist traps state officials would bribe producers to have Boston become a proving ground for. There’s the gushing review from Ben Brantley, there are actors with New […]

Theater

David Cromer Comes to Town

December 22, 2012

There’s been a lot of chatter on how David Cromer’s production of Our Town at the Huntington is somehow hard–a vacuum of the nostalgic hokeyness typically painted over Thornton Wilder’s text by high school drama teachers. And perhaps that’s true. If we get an extra coat of anything here, it’s irony and acerbity and metaness, […]

Theater

All Strung Up: Imaginary Beasts’ “The Death of Tintagiles”

November 16, 2012

You have until Saturday night to see Imaginary Beast’s latest installment of their heady and truly unparallelled brand of theater. I didn’t have enough good things to say about their last BCA production, a darkly comic and heavily stylized double feature, and this current production of Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Death of Tintagiles will only further […]

Theater

Rock & Roll Genocide: “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”

November 13, 2012

In what continues a very youthful streak for the SpeakEasy stage, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson pulls together a large, young cast into an oddly satirical rock musical on the life and times of our notorious 7th president Andrew Jackson. The show transforms the history and cutthroat politics of a nation just barely holding onto its […]

Theater

The Nora’s “The How and the Why”

October 25, 2012

Central Square Theater’s resident Nora Theatre Company has been been building a name for itself as a producer of plays about science. This, I’m guessing, is at least in part due to financial support from MIT, which lacks the artistic operations and fronts of its neighbor up the street. It’s not quite theater for geeks, […]

Theater

Two Talking Plays: SpeakEasy’s “Motherfucker with the Hat” and the Huntington’s “Good People”

September 26, 2012

If there are two hot tickets in Boston right now, they’re SpeakEasy’s The Motherfucker with the Hat and the Huntington’s Good People. That said, I think SpeakEasy’s show is vastly superior in just about every way that matters, particularly in how it balances its comedy with its seriousness. But really these plays are a lot […]

Theater

Off with Her Head: The A.R.T.’s “Marie Antoinette”

September 17, 2012

Reading over the reviews of the ART’s Marie Antoinette, the consensus seems to be that it’s just not that good. I think there was a lot of pent up anticipation for the play based on the success, and quality, of last season’s smash hit at the Huntington, Candide. The ART here, of course, feigns to […]

Theater

Wilde on Trial: Bad Habit’s “Gross Indecency”

August 21, 2012

As Boston’s larger theaters ramp up for their season openers next month, there’s a fantastic fringe gem to be seen on a backstage in the round setup at the BCA. And the word is out on Bad Habit Productions’, whose output just seems to be getting better & better, production of Gross Indecency: The Three […]

Theater

In the Garden of the Imaginary Beasts

June 20, 2012

There are just a few more days to catch one of the most original productions I’ve seen from the fringe scene in a long time. For their show Cruel Botany, Imaginary Beasts (known for their winter pantos) has paired two short and imaginative one acts that meditate on love and magic into a wonderfully unique […]

Theater

True Oklahoma Story: “Woody Sez” at the A.R.T.

May 20, 2012

In a seamless blend of song, narration, and brief vignettes, Woody Sez (at the ART through June 3rd) brings the life and politics of America’s greatest folk hero to the stage. A cast of four performs 28 songs that survey the Guthrie songbook and essay his life. As much as Woody Sez is about what […]

Art

red, black & GREEN: a blues

May 14, 2012

Iam not going to write too much about red, black & GREEN: a blues, since the show has already left town after a 2-night stint at the ICA, even though I really couldn’t say enough about how remarkably good it was. That said, it’s always difficult to write about the kind of experimental performance pieces […]

Theater

The A.R.T.’s Indie Rock Musical “Futurity”

April 8, 2012

The ART’s indie-rock musical, Futurity (runs through next weekend), is indicative of one trend at the Loeb/Oberon that I’m happy about. And that’s putting the ART Institute (the ART’s graduate school for theater) students on mainstage, rather than keeping them tucked away doing unpublicized shows in the Loeb blackbox, when HRDC isn’t using it. It’s […]

Theater

“Recent Tragic Events” at the Factory Theatre

March 16, 2012

Whistler in the Dark brings us a blind date on 9/12 that’s crashed by Joyce Carol Oates and a debate on the nature of free will.

Theater

“What’s a Jackson Pollock?”: The New Rep’s “Bakersfield Mist”

March 12, 2012

Questions of authenticity and social status come up at the New Rep’s blackbox.

Theater

Wild Swans at the ART: Parodying Propaganda with a Little Tragedy

February 28, 2012

Jung Chang’s memoir about growing up during the Cultural Revolution is adapted inside of a propaganda play satire.