Front Page, The
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

 The Milwaukee Repertory Theater opened its 2001-2002 season with a solid production of the chestnut The Front Page, offering a look back at life in the 1920s. The play is set in the press room of a Chicago criminal courts building. It's late at night, and a cluster of "newspapermen" (women reporters were rare or nonexistent) await a hanging scheduled for the following morning. There's virtually no action in the sleepy first act, so characters have plenty of time to loaf, play cards and muse about life.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Yank
Diversionary Theater

Today, the military's policy is "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." 65 years ago, at the height of WWII, the official policy was a Dishonorable Discharge and the vindictiveness of some homophobes. Diversionary Theater is presenting the West Coast premiere of David and Joseph Zellnik's Yank, the story of gays in the army in WWII.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2008
Finian's Rainbow (OCR Review)

 It's sad, confounding, and kind of scary that the recent Broadway revival of the evergreen Burton Lane/E.Y. Harburg musical, Finian's Rainbow, had such a brief run despite receiving almost universal acclaim from the critics. But the pot of gold at the end of this evanescent rainbow is the recently released cast recording from P.S. Classics.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
March 2010
Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswoman's Guild Dramatic Society's Production Of Macbeth, The
Patio Playhouse Community Theater

This is by far the very worst Macbeth ever performed. It doesn't help that The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society produced this fiasco. This group of women even brought in theater expert George Peach (Jim Clevenger) to give his expert opinion. Not only that, they made him perform in drag. Good grief! Being a woman's club, they're short of men, so they cast goateed Henry (Steve Stetak) in a prominent female role.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2008
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Shaw Festival - Festival Theater

One of G. B. Shaw's earliest and most controversial plays, Mrs. Warren's Profession is also one of his "talk-plays" wherein the action-less long speeches crackle with argument and confrontation so inherently dramatic that they are spellbinding. The final scene indulges in some excessive preaching, but – if played as well as the Shaw Festival's four successive productions have been – this more than a century-old play still seems timely, engrossing and surprising.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
July 2008
Little Night Music, A
Shaw Festival - Court House Theater

The Shaw Festival has a tradition of offering cut-down musicals staged very handsomely but with the orchestra and cast adapted to a smaller scale in the Royal George Theater. Their musicals performed on the open, smaller stage of the intimate Court House Theater have been modest, more experimental works, a description that does not fit Sondheim's A Little Night Music.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
July 2008
Mystery of Irma Vep, The
Florida Studio Theater

The right way to do Theater of the Ridiculous is to play it straight. Proper directing means forbidding the actors to mug or thrust self-designed vaudeville or revue "bits" into the activity. Happily, the required two-of-the-same-sex players under Jim Helsinger's direction get everything as Charles Ludlam specified. Having recently seen the play at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., I was worried FST would duplicate a production that, while spirited and lavish, kept laughing at itself more than the audience did.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2008
Southern Comforts
Florida Studio Theater

If ever a play and players sought a perfect venue and audience, all could not find a better fit than at summer's end at FST. Since late life romances aren't new to Sarasota playgoers, a fictional version must be authentic. Southern Comforts aces that requirement.

Amanda Cross, helping out her daughter who has married and moved to New Jersey from their native Tennessee, delivers church donation envelopes to Gus Klingman. They may as well have contained letters of intent, for she's quickly flirting and soon watching a televised ballgame with him.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2008
Paradise
Compass Theater

My first thought upon leaving Compass Theater tonight was that Glyn O'Malley's Paradise should be immediately followed by a talk-back session. It would have been stimulating to hear from people who lived through the Intifada in Israel in 2002.

The story is based on a Palestinian, Ayat al-Akhrase, and an Israeli, Rachel Levy, two 17-year-old girls caught in the terror of the time. Director Alice Cash, herself 17, chose a most difficult task of bringing a hard-driving play to the Resilience of the Spirit Festival. The story parallels the lives of two teenagers.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Bets and Blue Notes
Lyceum Space

It was like meeting an old friend.

On stage at the Lyceum Space, Kevin Armento's Bets & Blue Notes opened the Fritz Blitz 2008, which features the best plays presented in the festival over the last 15 years. Also, it was almost the same cast under the same director and choreographer (Don Loper and Hernando Gomez) as I had seen previously. It was not a tired redo, but an exciting, dynamic production.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Lady of Larkspur Lotion, The / Hello from Bertha
Bath House Cultural Center

The 10th annual Festival of Independent Theaters (FIT) opened a four-week run at the Bath House Cultural Center on White Rock Lake on July 17. One Thirty Productions, new to FIT this year, presents two early Tennessee Williams one-acts: The Lady of Larkspur Lotion and Hello From Bertha. The former is set in the bedroom of a squalid rooming house in New Orleans' French Quarter. The boarder, Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore (Marty Van Kleek) channels Blanche duBois as she complains to her landlady, Mrs.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Ghost Sonata, The
Bath House Cultural Center

The Drama Club presents August Strindberg's 1907 surreal one-act play, The Ghost Sonata. It is one of his five Chamber Plays first produced in Stockholm from 1907-09. They are so named due to their lyrical qualities and similarities to chamber music.

The Ghost Sonata is set in 1907 North Dakota and depicts the good and evil in humanity. We learn that a student, Arkenholtz (Eric Archilla) has just saved a child from being crushed in front of a crumbling building. He represents the good in humanity and possesses psychic powers.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Coco and Gigi
Bath House Cultural Center

Echo Theater's Coco and Gigi by local playwright Isabella Russell-Ides could easily be subtitled Gogo and Didi. For thirty minutes, Gigi (Ellen Locy) and Cosmo (John Davies) sit on a park bench waiting, not for Godot, but for enlightenment. It never arrives.

This same scene is repeated on an adjacent park bench with virtually the same dialogue by two young, African-American actresses, Ashley Wilkerson as Gigi and Jeanette Scott as Cosima.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Permanent Signal, A
Bath House Cultural Center

 WingSpan Theater Company's staging of Sherry Kramer's new play, A Permanent Signal, is a U.S. premiere. It features two of Dallas' most gifted comedic actors, Beverly Jacob Daniel and Lulu Ward, and a talented, up-and-coming Jennifer Youle.

The Siren sisters, Betty (Daniel) and Noreen (Ward) planted sweetness in Mary (Youle) several millennia ago. They have returned to Earth to reap what they sowed, but it seems their "crop" has morphed into something not quite as sweet as they planted.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Sailor's Song
New Village Arts Theater

This has been the weekend to visit old friends. First was the Fritz Blitz's rerun of Bets and Blue Notes. Now, admittedly one of my favorites, John Patrick Stanley's charming blend of romance, dark comedy, music, and dance in New Village Arts' production of Sailor's Song.

Director Kristine Kurner is again at the helm with repeats Amanda Morrow, Amanda Sitton, Robin Christ, and Manny Fernandes (but in a new role) being joined by Joshua Everett Johnson on stage. Much of the same design people joined in this new production.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Receptionist, The
Cygnet Theater

What a great outer office with its very expensive paneled walls and elegant reception desk. The receptionist is busy fielding calls, routing them to voice mail, and, when not busy, talking to her errant husband and girlfriends. Everything is so normal. We soon find that all this opulence supports a branch office of only three people.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Fritz Blitz 2008: Week 2
Lyceum Space Theater

Week two of Fritz Blitz 2008 opens with Tim West's Charade directed by Duane Daniels with Caitlin Finch assisting. It's a fitting play in this season leading up to the national elections. Politics in the 21st century is all about just one thing: winning. That, too, is what the play is about.

This absurdist (my thoughts) play is about two teams attempting to create the winning campaign for their candidates. While professed to be Republicans, they could be any political party, anytime.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Fritz Blitz 2008: Week 1

 See Criticopia review under "Bets and Blue Notes"

Frozen
Biltmore Hotel

 GableStage begins its new season with the Florida premiere of Frozen, a play that opened Off-Broadway last winter and transferred to Broadway in the spring. In South Florida's autumn, it's a too-often overheated enterprise. Production values reflect what the playwright hints at, but Joseph Adler directs not at a cool remove but at a gallop. This leaves the audience struggling to catch up -- an unfortunate situatiion, given the efforts of the actors.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
October 2004
Frozen
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

 In the award-winning play, Frozen, the lives of three people swirl around the horror of pedophile serial killings. It's not a play you really want to get involved with, but excellent writing, acting and directing pull you into its subject. Surprisingly, the juiciest of the three roles is Ralph, the serial killer. In a number of monologues, he reveals some -- but not all -- of the experiences which may/or may not have led to his despicable crimes.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2007
Fruitcakes
Patio Playhouse

 Julian Wiles' Fruitcakes, staged by Dirk Jasperse, is currently on the boards at Patio Theater in Escondido. The show has been a favorite throughout the nation for a few years.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
November 2006
Fuddy Meers
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 Despite the often-hilarious twists and behaviors of its characters, there is as much sinister as there is comic about Fuddy Meers. What makes it also mysterious is that we find out who is who and what is what just as does heroine Claire. (Nimble Jennifer Plants relives and relearns with catching enthusiasm.) A victim of psychogenic amnesia, she loses her memory in sleep and awakes each morning to husband Richard's explanations (including a photo album with captions).

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Fuddy Meers
Oregon Shakespeare Festival

 What kind of a name is "Fuddy Meers," anyway? My computer spell check rejects it over and over (seeking out fuzzy-minded, perhaps?), but after seeing this most unusual drama, comedy, farce, melodrama, slice of dysfunctional family life, I won't reject this most unusual production. On the boards until season's close, Fuddy Meers is a "Swan Song" presentation at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's soon-to-be scrapped Black Swan Theater. But back to the question of what is Fuddy Meers?

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
August 2001
Fula From America
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz Stage III

 You can go home again but, as Carlyle Brown tells us, journey's end may be a different destination than you'd expected.

With his backpack and hardcover suitcase, in his cargo pants and tee shirt, barefoot Brown recounts his 1980s journey to find his African roots. A large screen at his back, earth-and-sand speckled matting at his feet, he uses only an oaken table and chair to one side of the stage, two stools on the other side to recreate stops through West Africa.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2007
Full Circle
Oregon Cabaret Theater

 For the millennium, Oregon Cabaret Theatre offers a premiere of an original production, Full Circle. Like most Oregon Cabaret shows, this is a musical. But it isn't like other OCT musicals. It's a mix of fable, parable, myth, dream and hyper-reality in the metaphor of satire. Giancarlo draws principally from Native American myths, bringing them into circular transitions with modern life: civilization and its discontents. The show opens with a visually satiric prologue, a dance by "Modern Persons" who bridge time.

Al Reiss
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Full Gallop
Renaissance Theaterworks

 Full Gallop is a fitting description for the life of the late fashion arbiter Diana Vreeland. From this one-woman show, one gets a full-blown picture of this sassy, opinionated woman who lived at full tilt and whose temperament was often as outrageous as haute couture. Diana spent most of her professional life as fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar and editor of Vogue. However, she is probably best remembered as a consultant for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Full Gallop
Off-Broadway Theater

 Rennaisance Theaterworks, Milwaukee's only women-founded, women-run theater company, is in its full glory with a rerun of its 1999 hit, Full Gallop. This one-woman show again pairs actor Angela Iannone and the character Diana Vreeland. It is a match made in heaven.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Full Monty, The
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 Kyle Ennis Turoff begins The Full Monty with a blast as Georgie Bukatinsky, wife of longtime unemployed steel worker Dave, leads her gal pals in Buffalo, NY, to "appreciate" the swinging strip of Buddy "Keno" Walsh. And Jared E. Walker certainly doesn't skimp in his show either, with his smooth -- um -- professionalism. Just what the women need, with their men so down (in every way) since they've been out of work. Especially Dave (whose obsession with being fat and not being financially fit is perfectly expressed by Berry Ayers) and his best friend Jerry.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
September 2006
Full Monty, The
Marcus Center For The Performing Arts

 An enthusiastic but unseasoned cast can't seem to rescue a cheaply mounted tour of The Full Monty. The musical doesn't stray far from its cinematic source (the show was adapted from a 1997 British film). A group of unemployed steelworkers hit on the unlikely idea of staging a strip show to rake in big cash and reclaim their manhood. Trouble is, the Chippendale's have already beaten them to it. So the locals reluctantly agree to show the ladies "everything" that God gave them (i.e., the full monty).
 

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2004
Fully Committed
Coronet Theater

 Here is a true slice-of-life play -- and not only because it's set in the basement of a trendy, up-market New York restaurant. What Fully Committed (trade euphemism for "all tables booked") does is encapsulate, through the vehicle of a one-man show, a big chunk of American life, the portion that is obsessed with money, power, ego and celebrity.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Fully Committed
Cygnet Theater

 You need to be committed to see Fully Committed. Fully committed to 70 minutes of non-stop laughter. Fully committed to 70 minutes of the vagaries of a up-scale Manhattan restaurant and the turmoil facing the reservationist. Fully committed to 70 minutes of pure pleasure! Cygnet Theater Company has given a joyous gift to San Diego.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Fully Committed
Cygnet Theater

 Two and a half years ago, I wrote a rave review for David McBean's performance in the absolutely hilarious Becky Mode play, fully committed [sic]. It would be just too easy to go into my files and lift that earlier review. McBean stars as Sam, a reservation operator for a trendy Manhattan restaurant. Often these restaurants give one the impressing they are doing you a favor to reserve a table for you and then relieve you of $150 to $500 per person.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2006
Fully Committed
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 An actor's nightmare must surely have him struggling to audition for a role while supporting himself taking reservations for a trendy, top-rated Manhattan restaurant. In its equivalent of The Lower Depths, abandoned by the head and assistant reservationist, Sam must handle intercom and outside phone calls from over 30 people. Except for his lonely widowed father and a brother who can't help get himself or Sam home for Christmas, the callers prove self-important, threatening, bribing, silly, cheating, stupid, timid, clueless, haughty, misunderstanding, abusive, criminal.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Fully Committed
Horse Cave Theater

It's ironic, I tell you, that while Horse Cave Theater is offering Fully Committed, that delightfully barbed look at the workings of a trendy New York restaurant, the small Kentucky town's funky and far-from-trendy restaurant called The Bookstore no longer serves meals at its main square location near the theater. The owner, who still has books to sell, says he can't afford higher insurance rates. Reservations never seemed to be needed at The Bookstore, as they most definitely are at the unnamed Manhattan restaurant where aspiring actor Sam Peliczowski, dexterously played by C. W.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Fully Committed
Kalita Humphreys Theater

 When Ethan Sandler steps onto the stage at Dallas Theater Center he is "Fully Committed" for 75 minutes of non-stop laughter, as he plays 30-odd (literally) characters. Based on author Becky Mode's experiences working in the restaurant business, Sandler uses his brush to draw his characters with a broad comedic stroke across the canvas of his life as Sam, the hapless reservationist at a posh New York restaurant where a reservation does not come easily.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Fully Committed
Vogel Hall at Marcus Center For The Performing Arts

 Every town seems to have its local clown, and in Milwaukee, there's no competition for this honor. It belongs to John McGivern, a crew cut-wearing, gap-toothed, 50ish-looking guy that everyone seems to love. Although he's a Milwaukee favorite, McGivern is no slouch on the national scene. He has been featured in the film, "The Princess Diaries" and has appeared on TV's "Comedy Central" and an HBO special. All this matters little to his Milwaukee fans, who'd love him even if he never left the neighborhood.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Funny Money
Venice Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 McBean's Sam is, like many restaurant employees, an aspiring thespian. An Indiana boy, whose father would like him to be home for Christmas, he auditions every chance he can get. All he needs is one break. He has the talent, but it's often who you know that leads to the right audition and the right time with the absolutely right person. He is currently waiting for a call back on an important role.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2001
Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, A
Stage Right Theater

 In a perfect world, all musical comedies would begin with a song like "Comedy Tonight" (second choice, "Another Opening, Another Show"). And they'd all be performed in big-stage, small-house spaces like that at Stage Right, where the increased suspension of disbelief demanded by close-up viewing is more than redeemed by the infectious excitement traversing ]the fourth wall at such close range.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, A
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

 Skylight Opera Theater has enriched Milwaukee's theater scene twice this year, with a landmark production of the rarely performed musical, Floyd Collins, and now with a fresh and lively version of the chestnut, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To The Forum. The strength of any production of Forum rests on the ability of the leading actor, who portrays Pseudolus the slave. The role was originally created as a star turn for the late Zero Mostel, who led the Broadway cast.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
December 2000
G.I. Holiday Jukebox!
Poway Performing Arts Company

It's the early 1940s, the years of World War II. Hollywood notables are entertaining our troops. We are members of a military audience for G. I. Holiday Jukebox!, at PowPAC, being treated to a very good Stagedoor Canteen production. Our entertainers, our celebrities, are Chrissy Burns, Debbie David, Frank Remiatte and Erick Sundquist backed up on the piano by director Rick Shaffer. They are as good as their counterparts 60 years ago.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2005

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