Working
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Like spaces for nine of TV's old "Hollywood Squares," Beowulf Boritt's three-tiered set is a backstage scene. Before the performance, audiences can see actors putting on make-up, sound and stage manager going over cues, and musicians warming up. Clearly, they are exemplifying the title of this "Reimagined Musical," most of the action of which will happen downstage. The backstage wall will often contain projections connected with the work being described or sung about (e.g., fast food pix for the delivery boy of same).

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2008
Visit, The
Signature Theater

The Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia recently did some major damage to its own good name by sending to Broadway the painfully amateurish Glory Days, which closed on opening night. An excellent way for the company to fully restore its reputation in the eyes of New Yorkers would be to bring its superb production of the John Kander-Fred Ebb-Terrence McNally musical The Visit, to town.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
June 2008
Another Midsummer Night McGivern
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

The world may have its Tom Hanks, but only Milwaukee can lay claim to John McGivern. Although he looks nothing like the famous Hanks, McGivern evokes the same "everyman" character audiences can easily identify with.
Although John McGivern is best-known locally for his work in the comedy Shear Madness and, more recently, The Mystery of Irma Vep, he seems more at home with these 90-minutes monologues that tell familiar tales of his youth. McGivern grew up in a small house on Milwaukee's East Side, with five brothers and sisters, two parents and one bathroom.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2008
Ensemble Studio Theater One-Act Marathon 2008
Ensemble Studio Theater

Ensemble Studio Theater's annual One-Act Festival is now on, and, as usual, it's a major treat of the year; they select a variety of good plays, and the level of acting is always high.
Series A of Marathon 2008 had two surprises- a musical, A Little Soul Searching by Willie Reale, a humorous sketch lightly skewering Earth customs, with the outstanding Karen Trott, and a well-directed (by Kathleen Dimmick) play with no words, Wedding Pictures by Quincy Long.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2008
Ensemble Studio Theater One-Act Marathon 2008
Ensemble Studio Theater

 Ensemble Studio Theater's annual One-Act Festival is now on, and, as usual, it's a major treat of the year; they select a variety of good plays, and the level of acting is always high.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2008
Passing Strange
Belasco Theater

Passing Strange, with book and lyrics by Stew and music by Heidi Rodewald and Stew, starring Stew and directed by Annie Dorsen, is basically an engaging music concert with the four-piece band on stage. The show starts with a few chairs and elevator pits as its set.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2008
Crucible, The
OnStage Playhouse

 Originally written in 1953 as a satire on the witch hunts of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), The Crucible stands out as one of Arthur Miller's greatest plays. He was convicted by HUAC of contempt, which was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. The play, well researched, fictionalizes the terrible time of 1692 in Salem.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2005
Crucible, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 Arthur Miller's play about Salem women accused of casting spells on young girls and its consequent hysteria and injustice still has the power that marked its debut during the McCarthy era. Today's major parallels concern 9/11 and the Justice Department and Patriot Act in a society vigilant against terrorism. The story begins after Reverend Parris (ever sterner David Breitbarth) has found his niece dancing naked, led by pretty young Abigail (Merideth Maddox, duly controlling) and abetted by Tituba, a servant from Barbados (Gale Fulton Ross, scary even when acting scared).

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2003
Crucible, The
F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater

 The mass hysteria the Salem witch-hunt provoked in the 17th century was no more or less insidious an epidemic than the one McCarthyism fostered during the 1950s. America need never forget the political, moral and ethical issues on trial, in either century, thanks to Arthur Miller's arresting drama of intolerance The Crucible. It is the play he wrote specifically to denounce the too-often-rampant inequities of so-called justice.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Crucible, The
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

 Arthur Miller's The Crucible chronicles the events that led to the real-life Salem witch trials of 1692. The play, written in the 1950s, is generally considered to be a commentary on the McCarthy era and the country's anti-communist atmosphere. Although this production remains faithful to the original text (without direct references to the current political climate), one can easily make associations to today's election-year backbiting.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2004
Crumbs From The Table Of Joy
Old Globe Theaters

 Sometimes good acting is not enough. Sometimes interesting directing is not enough. Not enough, that is, to mask slow, ponderous writing. Crumbs From The Table of Joy, on the Cassius Carter Centre Stage, depicts widower Godfrey Crump's (Bryan Hicks) move from Florida to Brooklyn with his two daughters Ernestine (Melany Bell) and Ermina (Audra Alise Polk). It is 1950, and blacks don't "belong" in white neighborhoods – a feeling strongly held in many large-city neighborhoods. This established, playwright Lynn Nottage burdens the tale with too many sub-plots.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2001
Cryptogram, The
Studio Theater

 The Cryptogram was Artistic Director Zinoman's non-sugar plum entry into the Christmas season. I'm not certain which I found more depressing - the flu that kept me from attending opening night, or this tragic story of family dysfunction.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
January 1997
Culture Clash - Zorro in Hell
La Jolla Playhouse - Mandell Weiss Forum

 If you weren't offended by Culture Clash's Zorro in Hell, you were either not listening or not looking. The show is very funny and very profane. The F-word is used as a verb, noun, adjective, and adverb. The one-liners flow so fast as to make a stand-up comedian envious.

Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza) are supported by Joseph Kamal, Sharon Lockwood and Vincent Christopher Montoya. The latter Montoya also doubles quite effectively on the guitar.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2006
Curse of the Starving Class
Cygnet Theater

 Sam Shepard's 1977 Curse of the Starving Class is easily as strange as its setting. The set suggests quiet desperation; a sorta kitchen with a strange but near-empty fridge, a stove that barely works, a dining table that is used for many things, rarely dining, and a broken front door. One wall is red painted wood, another galvanized metal sheets reminiscent of roofs on dirt farms of yore, and more. This is the environment of mother Ella (Dana Case), Son Wesley (Joshua Everett Johnson), and daughter Emma (Rachael VanWormer) and it barely prepares you for a look into their lives.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Cymbeline
New Theater

 Pity poor Cymbeline, the late Shakespeare play without a single memorable speech to bolster it through the centuries. Oh, there are some good lines; "Falsehood is worse in kings than beggars" travels well, even though the story's set in pre-Christian Britain. Some situations and scenes evoke earlier, better plays: Romeo and Juliet (a secret potion and a parentally forbidden love), Macbeth (the scheming wife of a title character), Richard III (the last-act visitation of ghosts).

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
June 2007
Cymbeline
McCarter Theater

 Shakespeare's absurd and goofy Cymbeline doesn't show up very often. There was a commendably decent staging by the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival in 1981, and an amusingly indecent staging by JoAnne Akalaitis for the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1989. This production that Mark Lamos originally directed for the Hartford Stage and has modified for the larger McCarter stage, marks only the third time I've seen the play. As Cymbeline continues to prove itself too outrageous for its own good, I am grateful for the eight to nine-year intervals.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
January 1998
Cyrano
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

The Milwaukee Repertory Theater opens its 51st season with an ambitious but flawed interpretation of the classic French play, Cyrano de Bergerac. Joe Roets, renowned for his work with children's theater, creates this version, called Cyrano. Three actors (two men and a woman) portray all the characters. They switch from modern dress to partial and full costumes at various times during the course of the production. The quick costume changes -- often in full view of the audience -- do not detract from the proceedings.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2004
Cyrano de Bergerac
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

 Affairs of the heart take audiences on a magnificent journey in the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. Thanks to a brilliant translation by Brian Hooker and the talents of noted director Sanford Robbins, this Cyrano is certainly a highlight of the fall season. It has it all: a breathtakingly epic sweep that's set against a historical backdrop; a love triangle; gorgeous costumes; manly fight scenes and a three-hankie ending. Although many audience members will know this famous story, few can envision what is about to unfold before them.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2007
Da
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 Autobiographical "memory plays" weren't all that common when Hugh Leonard wrote his about his father and their relationship. Neither was the device of a mature person interacting with a remembered younger self. Now, however, Da's use of these dramatic devices seems less fresh, more contrived. Not that V Craig Heidenreich lacks conviction as successful Irish playwright Charlie, back from his English home to his childhood one, where he's just buried his Da but can't shake his presence.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Daddy's Dyin'...Who's Got The Will?
Poway Performing Arts Company

 Entering Poway Performing Arts Company's home, it's apparent this will be a different kind of theater experience. Mounted animal heads, antlers, Texas memorabilia, and much more adorn the walls and lobby. A second clue of things to come is the pre-show music. It's been a long time since I've seen an audience listening and reacting to pre-show and between-scene music. Sound Designer Lou Alliano's selection of country tunes enhance the jocular mood of the evening. The John Ivey set, dressed by Camel, Inc., has the perfect feel of a large country farmhouse.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Daddy's Dyin'...Who's Got The Will?
Sunshine Brooks Theater

 Texas playwright Del Shores' Daddy's Dyin' Who's Got The Will? is set on the Turnover Ranch outside of Lowake, Texas (pop. 40) in 1986. Daddy is about to come home from the hospital to die is his own bed. Daddy, Buford Turnover, is played by Kirk Duncan. Buford is being wasted by dementia. He watches imaginary television, talks to imaginary people, and plays imaginary games. His moments of clarity are limited. The power is held by Mama Wheelis (Dovey Goral). Goral handles her role with ease, being completely convincing in her character's ability to handle sibling rivalry.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2006
Dame Edna: The Royal Tour
Shubert Theater

Possums, please know that Dame Edna Everage has checked into "the tucked-away Shooooobert Theatre" for a two-week stay that everyone can enjoy, even the "cheapskates" (better known as "Les Miserables," or Les mizzies) up in the second balcony. Edna, who began life forty years ago as a Melbourne working-class woman (in a gallery of impersonations by then unknown actor/writer Humphries) has worked her way up the social scale to her present status as self-anointed royalty, hobnobbing with the likes of the Queen Mother.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2001
Dames At Sea
Lamplighters Community Theater

Some shows, like Dames At Sea, can only be described as joyous. The George Haimsohn and Robin Miller musical, with Jim Wise's music, began as a short piece in 1962 at the Cafe Cino in New York City. It starred a 17-year-old newbie, Bernadette Peters. The creators were determined to fashion a big musical with only nine actors and succeeded admirably.

Dames At Sea is an affectionate spoof on the Hollywood musicals of the 30s.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2006
Dames At Sea
Downtown Cabaret Theater

The Downtown Cabaret is presenting Dames At Sea, a 1930s spoofy musical with book & lyrics by George Haimsohn & Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise. It is billed as "a salute to a time when dance was all tap, all scenery silver and the only Berkeley we cared about was Busby." Trouble is that this is a second-rate musical; there's not a song among the 16 pleasant ditties that really captivates.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
March 2000
Damn Yankees
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 Helluva good show! Who wouldn't be tempted to fall for slick Faustian Gary Marachek, with his bewitching grin, and hope he wins a mid-1950s world series away from the Bronx Bombers? Certainly not the Washington Senators' biggest fan, middle-aged Joe Boyd (portly John F. Roberson, fitting his part like a well-worn glove)! A melodious "Six Months Out of Every Year" his lovely wife Meg (glorious soprano Melliss Kenworthy) can't pry him away from his rabbit-eared TV set. Still, he insists on an escape clause when he contracts with devilish Applegate to sell his soul to help D.C.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Damn Yankees
Walnut Street Theater

 Damn Yankees is a 1955 musical with a great premise and two spectacular roles, but, let's face it, the show has flaws. It is slow-moving, and the minor players are stick figures with corny dialogue. The most interesting character, Lola, appears to have been an afterthought. This quintessential Bad Girl doesn't show up until the latter half of Act One, at which time Gwen Verdon, in the original production, stole the show.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Damn Yankees
Kennedy Center

 I have never been a fan of Jerry Lewis, but as Applegate in Damn Yankees, he gives a devil of a performance. On opening night at the Kennedy Center, the audience gave him his due - a cheering, standing ovation. As with legend Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!, this was as much a tribute to the grit and determination of the artist (starring in his first Broadway role at the age of 70) as to his talent.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
December 1996
Dancing at Lughnasa
OnStage Playhouse

 Last night I was fortunate to observe the Mundy sisters and their older missionary brother Jack, recently returned from 25 years in Uganda. Their small house and garden in Northern Ireland is a typical example of homes I've visited in that country. This magic of transforming OnStage's stage into a wee bit of the ole sod is the result of the deft hand and eye of designer Brenda Leake. It is so authentic; I knew it would take a tremendous cast to shine as brightly.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2006
Danny And Sylvia
American Century Theater

 Every celebrity should be so lucky as to have his biography written if not by his mother, then by his publicist. Danny Kaye, entertainer extraordinaire, lucks out in "Danny and Sylvia: A Musical Love Story," with lyrics provided by Bob McElwaine, who between 1953-59 served as Kaye's personal manager, confidante and publicist. (McElwaine's previous theatrical credits include a commission to musicalize Herman Wouk's "Marjorie Morningstar," which effort was subsequently vetoed for production by the novelist.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Bath House Cultural Center

WingSpan Theater Company opened Danny and the Deep Blue Sea on October 27, 2005 at the Bath House Cultural Center. It is a mediocre early effort by John Patrick Shanley who went on five years later to win the Oscar in 1988 for his original screenplay of "Moonstruck."

First performed as a staged reading in 1983 at the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center, the play received its professional debut in February 1984 at Actors Theater of Louisville and moved to Circle in the Square in New York on June 6, 1984.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Dark Play Or Stories for Boys
Actors Theater of Louisville

Fourteen-year-old Nick (Matthew Stadelmann) in Carlos Murillo's stunning Dark Play, Or Stories for Boys, the second offering in this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, believes he can wriggle out of any sticky situation that arises from his Internet addiction. That's because he has "the dexterity of a sharp-thinking, comic-book hero," he boasts. But the online stories he concocts to manipulate the lives of others and satisfy his burgeoning sexual appetite lead him into dark and dangerous territory.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2007
Darker Face Of The Earth, The
American Renegade Theater

 Rita Dove, who won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987, is a gutsy writer who is unafraid to tackle the Oedipus myth, slavery, miscegenation and folk song all in one fell swoop. Working on a big canvas -- an 1820s plantation replete with swamps, cotton fields and nineteen characters -- Dove struggles to bring her impassioned but flawed text under control. She is at her strongest when dealing with African-American speech and song (eight spirituals are sung, movingly, by the plantation slaves), at her weakest in making the Oedipal love affair work in consistently believable fashion.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Darwin in Malibu
FSU Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 Except for huge sounds of waves, the flowery bamboo-furniture-filled beach house in Darwin in Malibu has the peaceful solitude conducive to Charles Darwin's reading. It's a novel as sexy as the young girl, Sarah, in cut-offs, serving him banana milk shakes. She (a langorous Leigh Ann Wolf) herself has been reading what he calls a "dangerous thing," a diary that makes her recall a boyfriend having a hot night with a "bitch" not far away in Bakersfield. Darwin (way-too-detached Stephen Temperley) would rather she didn't obsess about the "truth" in the diary.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2007
Das Barbecu
WaterTower Theater

 Das Barbecu, with book and lyrics by Jim Luigs and music by Scott Warrender, opened July 25, 2003 at the WaterTower Theatre in Addison, Texas. It represents one of their most egregious squandering of talent to date. Warrender's wonderful music is far better than Luigs' sophomoric script deserves.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Day After Yesterday, The
North Park Vaudeville

 In physics we learn that the fourth dimension is time and that it is a constant linear function. In the works of Einstein we learn that it is relative. In quantum physics we learn it may not even be linear, what with the possibility of parallel universes. From playwright Kristina Meek, in her The Day After Yesterday, we learn the potential effect of non-linear, non-constant, parallel universe time on the life of one very perceptive young lady.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2005
Joe Egg

(See reviews under "Day in the Death of Joe Egg, A")

Dead Monkey, The
Woolly Mammoth Theater

 How the fur flies in Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's reprise of Nick Darke's The Dead Monkey. Belligerent, lumbering Hank (David Marks) and wiry, talkative Dolores (Sarah Marshall) live in an idyllic California beach shack, envisioned by English playwright Darke years before he visited America in 1989 to attend the American premiere at Woolly Mammoth. (David Soul starred in the 1986 London premiere by the Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Brennan Street.) Darke's views of American life, as obtained through the media help create a skewed reality for the aging surfers.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Dear Esther
Off-Broadway Theater

 A young girl's long and torturous journey toward freedom is outlined in chilling detail in Dear Esther. The play opens Next Act Theater's 15th anniversary season, and it showcases how far this company has come over the years. The sensitive retelling of this true-life story is due mainly to artistic director David Cecsarini, who captures the main character's spitfire determination as well as her compassion. As the audience soon learns, both qualities are needed for a young Jewish girl to survive a Polish death camp called Sobibor.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2004
Dearly Departed
Westminster Theater

 In 1991 two Kentucky-born actors co-wrote Vanguard's current production, Dearly Departed, playing at the Westminster Theater. This piece of charmingly funny rural humor has been called "drop dead funny" -- an amusing pun.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Death And The Maiden
La Jolla Stage

What is it like to live under a repressive government? What are the long term effects of torture and rape? What would you do when face-to-face with your persecutor? Would you call for justice or vengeance or . . .?

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2002

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