Now that OSCAR has "officially" put last year's movie season to bed, here's what's kept me woke lately on stage: ORLANDO: This attractive, jam-packed production bursts from the compact LYRIC STAGE. Sets and costumes are stripped down, beautiful, and efficient-- allowing for the fleet passage of time! Sara Ruhl's play is adapted from Virginia Woolf's satiric, [...]
A fierce and fiery production of "OLEANNA" is now onstage at New Rep Theatre, written by David Mamet and directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue. I remember seeing this explosive kernel of a play in its world premiere in Cambridge in 1992; it starred William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet's wife) and was the first [...]
Photo by Andrew Brilliant / Brilliant Pictures. Take a deep breath and get ready for the season opener at the New Repertory Theatre: BROKEN GLASS. It's a potent dose of Arthur Miller, 1994, and a play that has never been performed in the Boston area before. It's set in 1938 and in Germany [...]
The best theatre I've seen lately was a rambunctious KING LEAR presented by ARTS EMERSON and SHAKEPEARE's GLOBE ON TOUR over at the Paramount. Shakespeare's tragedy of a father who is blind to himself and the truth about his daughters-- twin vipers Goneril and Regan (wily performances by Gwendolen Chatfield and Shanaya Rafaat)-- and the true blue [...]
The FALL theater season is on-- with mostly winning productions! This is what I've seen so far--in order of "shelf-life."And so I begin with the first to expire: THE ELEPHANT MAN-- which is dead on arrival at New Rep Theatre in Watertown. It's a plodding play based on the true story of John Merrick born [...]
Two shows on stage right now with a cast of two each, are both winners-- so for me it's two for two! LUNGS at the New Rep and STONES IN HIS POCKETS at the Lyric, convey a world of ideas and a world of characters with a simplicity of means. LUNGS begins and ends with [...]
