A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: TAKE A SEAT
It’s a pleasure to sit in the company of such a thematically, artistically, and emotionally large and ambitious work of art. Director Chris Lam’s mounting of A Streetcar Named Desire for the Ensemble Theatre Company isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly rich enough to...
THE LITTLE MERMAID: THE BIG SUCCESS
There you go. This is what we want from Theatre Under the Stars: an embraceable musical gorgeously produced. Unlike Sister Act, the other offering from TUTS this summer, The Little Mermaid has a score full of lyrically and rhythmically engaging songs, and a...
SISTER ACT: LIPSTICK ON A NUN
The music in Sister Act is a generic mix of disco, soul, and gospel, and the book is so thin you can see through it but, in this production for Theatre Under the Stars, director Peter Jorgensen has done an excellent job of shining up this inferior material. The 2006...
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG: ALL THINGS ARE RELATIVE
A big part of my job in this review will be to draw a line between my experience of this production and the experience I think you’ll be likely to have if you see it. The second part of that equation is simple: The Play That Goes Wrong is a farce and it’s being...
MACBETH: FAMILIAR CORRUPTION, RECONIZABLE TYRANNY
Corruption, ambition, willingness to cause and collude in suffering and death: Macbeth resonates. What sins are Trump, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg et al willing to commit to feed their appetites for money and power? What are the rest of us supposed to do with our...
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR: A HIT, A PALPABLE HIT
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a very silly play, so I didn’t have high expectations going into this production. But Bruce Horak and director Rebecca Northan have exploded the text, substantially reinventing it and making the silliness about AI influencers,...
SOPHIE’S SURPRISE 29TH: RSVP
The best thing about Sophie’s Surprise 29th — and there are many excellent things about this six-person circus— is the vibe. Pumping party hits, mostly from the early 2000s, teasing and chatting up the audience — and commandeering some of its members — the company...
COME FROM AWAY: DECENCY
With decency in such short supply, it’s good to be reminded of its existence — and Come From Away does a good job of doing that. The musical isn’t particularly musical or substantial, but it is uplifting, and within those terms, this production is both welcome and...
ARMS AND THE MAN: (HELPFULLY) HIT AND MISS
In the theatre, style is one of the trickiest things to get right. This United Players production of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man is hit and miss, which is a good thing in a way: it helps to clarify what works and what doesn’t when approaching Shavian...
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