AN INCREDIBLE SCORE; A FINE PRODUCTION; A FUNNY AND POIGNANT FRACTURED FAMILY PORTRAIT; WHY, THEN, DOES THIS REVIVAL NOT EMOTIONALLY RESONATE? Court Theatre and Timeline Theatre's joint prod…
NOISES OFF, LAUGHS ON Just in time for the holiday season, Lyric Stage Company of Boston has something for audiences eager for some silly fun. Written by Michael Frayn the quintessential far…
THE PORTERS SHARE WITH US IN GLORY HENRY IV There is a danger of critical indulgence when considering a company like the Porters of Hellsgate; their ambition to produce all of Shakespeare's …
GALILEO'S THEORIES WOULD PROVE THAT THE SUN DOESN'T MOVE " GALILEO'S DAUGHTER ALSO DOESN'T MOVE It's an intriguing notion: the ground-breaking scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, who d…
A QUILT BLANKETED BY PREDICTABLE STITCHING Quilts always intrigued me; for millennia, women took scraps of fabric from discarded items and made quilts to be used for warmth or decorative pur…
LITTLE WOMEN WITH A BIG PRESENCE Allen Knee took on a daunting task in creating a play from Louise Mae Alcott's hefty 1868"69 two-volume novel, but he also cuts back the narrative for the mu…
DEATH BECOMES HER BECOMES BROADWAY I had opposite opinions this week between the opening of the film version of Wicked and the new Broadway musical comedy Death Becomes Her. Wicked outsoared…
GET READY TO CRACK SOME NUTS WIDE OPEN Christmas can be very sexy if you step into the sumptuous world of Théâtre XIV in trendy Bushwick, and catch Company XIV's neo-Baroque classic Nutc…
THE BEST HOLIDAY GIFT ISN'T UNDER THE TREE, IT'S ELF AT THE MARQUIS Elf, the charming story of Buddy, the orphan who crawled into Santa's sack one Christmas Eve and was raised at the North P…
CONFRONTING THE CURSE It is a signal accomplishment to produce 70 minutes of solo theater which are all the things Hexen manages to be: solemn, playful, enchanting, insightful, and finally, …
MAX VON ESSEN HAS A KNOCKOUT CARNEGIE HALL DEBUT Max von Essen is no spring chicken, having made his Broadway debut in the 2000 revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. Nevertheless, when he bounc…
PREPARE TO BE SWEPT AWAY What happens when we are faced with extreme necessity? The 1884 tragic wreck of the yacht Mignonette was a cause célèbre in late 19th-century Britain, but not beca…
A POIGNANT LOOK AT FEMALE FRIENDSHIP What are the makings of female friendships? What holds them together and what causes them to shift off course? These are just two of the philosophical qu…
A LIVING PORTRAIT Regular patrons of the theatre are accustomed to passively sitting back, letting the story flow off the stage and course through them. Life & Times Of Michael K is not …
DEAD ON ARRIVAL The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, adapted for the stage by Mark Shanahan from Agatha Christie's 1926 novel, premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas in 2023. It's no surpr…
A PLAY THAT RAISES THE ESCOBAR Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and corrupt politician who founded and ran the deadly MedellÃn Cartel. Known as "the king of cocain…
MASQUERS KNOWS THE STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL, MAGICAL COMEDY Alfred Hitchcock gets a good-natured but thorough pummeling in The 39 Steps at Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond, through December…
DEATH BECOMES HER IS NOT FOR PURITANS OR VICTORIAN GRANDMOTHERS. BUT HOW MANY OF THEM ARE AROUND TODAY? Death Becomes Her, the new musical based on the eponymous 1992 black comedy/fantasy an…
A GENERATIONAL GAP AND A PLAYWRITING GAP As a result of the #MeToo movement, there has been much brought to light about women working in America. But here's a note to the younger generations…
WHAT'S YOUR STORY? In the "It's Not the Story, It's in How You Tell It" Department, an incredible number of shows I saw in the last month have incredible tales to tell, but falter in their c…
THE REAL TRAGEDY WOULD BE MISSING THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET Legendary director Robert Lepage and dancer/choreographer Guillaume Côté reunite to re-imagine theatre's most timeless, persistent…
LA CAGE: STRIPPED OF ITS FEATHERS In Sam Pinkleton's well-intentioned but ultimately discordant revival of La Cage aux Folles at the Pasadena Playhouse, that old showbiz maxim about the show…
THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE OF POLITICS When you hear the name Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton there are three visceral reactions that may occur. The first is deep respect for a woman who gave her e…
LOOT IS A HOOT Loot is Joe Orton's darkly comic masterpiece that eviscerates societal norms and exposes the hypocrisies of authority figures with razor-sharp wit. Two young men, Hal and Denn…
A TIME-TRAVELING JANE AUSTEN What if Jane Austen had managed to read The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan's groundbreaking 1963 exploration of why well-educated and prosperous women were so …