Seeing "SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical" at the Colonial Theatre this week made me long for six more weeks of WINTER. The show which attempts to tell the story of Boston's own LaDonna Adrian Gaines who became the Queen of Disco, is a fiasco from beginning to end. In addition to limp direction and limper choreography, [...]
If anyone doubted that Chekhov could be funny and tragic at the same time, keep your eyes on Marianna Bassham in the opening scene-within-a-scene of "The Seagull" and the actress's hilarious, out of her mind, dazed and confused, wounded deer-in-the-headlights mashup of her character Nina's dialogue before knocking over sets and collapsing on the floor. [...]
The title alone--THE BLUEST EYE--suggests the shards of an iris, a lens on a deep dark sea of meaning. Now, the depth and richness of the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's language and vision is profoundly illuminated by Lydia R. Diamond's sleek 2005 adaptation of Morrison's first novel and The Huntington's graceful and penetrating production-- [...]
I recently went to the theater, vaxxed and masked, and saw two productions which couldn't have been more diametrically opposed. One was an honest, affecting, reality-based memoir that shed light on one of the most crucial and challenging issues of our times. The other was a repackaged bundle of cliched claptrap, an embarrassment in motion. [...]
There are stories that remain forever at the heart of the human experience and WITNESS, the latest virtual theater piece by Arlekin Players Theatre and Zero Gravity Virtual Theater Lab, is one of them. This world premiere and startlingly innovative work is based on an historical saga which began in 1939 when more than 900 [...]
There's holiday entertainment still to be had ONLINE this holiday week and here are two that encompass the dynamics and traditions of the season-- which this year feels more fraught than most. Take comfort and joy in the following offerings which dust off the past, dive into the complexities of the present, and emerge with [...]
MUST SEES: Two plays now onstage in Boston: one a gloss on a Shakespearean historical tragedy, the other a clarion call to avert an historical tragedy! Playwright Mike Lew's TEENAGE DICK now onstage at THE HUNTINGTON exploded the pile of preconceptions I was sitting on, confounded my expectations, and expanded my world. THIS [...]
It's the kind of show that doesn't blow the roof off the house; rather it seeps into your soul and reverberates through your psyche, shedding light and grace on what it is to be human in a less than perfect world. HADESTOWN which won 8 Tony Awards in 2019 including Best Musical, is now onstage [...]
In the last two weeks I have seen three productions--the most challenging of which I saw less than 24 hours ago and has left me reeling. BLKS which is making its New England premiere at SpeakEasy Stage has tested the limits of my personal boundaries around what I find funny, and what is just too [...]
Theater is back up and on its feet on big stages in and around Boston with a couple of crowd-pleasing musical theater classics through this weekend! MAMMA MIA at North Shore Music Theatre shut down on press opening night after IATSE (International Alliance of Theater and Stage Employees) staged a walkout. (I managed [...]
