A NEW ERA is a new play that uncovers old layers of Black history hiding in plain sight. This world premiere presented by COMPANY ONE THEATRE opens with its cast in modern dress at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester. The ensemble then pivots to the stage where we find them shedding their contemporary duds to reveal themselves as some of the most influential Black Women Leaders shaping political thought around civil rights, identity, and suffrage at the turn of the last century.

Photo: Ken Yotsukura

The setting is the well-appointed Beacon Hill parlor (Janie E. Howland’s beautiful set) of activist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (an elegant Patrice Jean-Baptiste) editor/publisher of the “Woman’s Era newspaper” who organized the first-ever National Conference of Colored Women which was held in Boston.

If her name is unknown to you, it’s a shame and no surprise. Most conversations around these issues focused on the voices of men. A NEW ERA by fourth generation Bostonian Miranda Austen ADEkoje centers women’s voices and excavates the vibrant intellectual, political, and professional lives of a cohort of influential female leaders who influenced reform as Reconstruction wound down, and Jim Crow geared up. Attention to these figures and their perspectives are long overdue — but the playwright has not yet brought them to life onstage.

The play’s central conflict revolves around the intersection of Black civil rights and women’s rights. Ruffin who supported suffrage, opposed segregation and called out the white suffrage movement because it either marginalized or flat out excluded Black women for reasons of political expediency and deference to the white south. Various strategies are debated amongst these thought leaders about how to organize politically and what issues to take on– from education, to violence and anti-lynching.

Patrice Jean-Baptiste and MaConnia Chesser. Photo : Ken Yotsukura.

The cast is excellent–especially Regine Vital as Chicago activist Fannie Barrier Williams, and MaConnia Chesser as Gertrude Sampson a vivid composite character representing Boston’s Black elite. But in trying to make up for lost time the play covers a lot of historical ground and diffuses dramatic impact with too many characters who do a LOT of talking. Associate Artistic director Summer L. Williams had her work cut out for her, shaping these cluttered scenes and hewing to a cohesive vision as the play finally circles back to the current moment: the 250th anniversary of these United States underscoring –literally with music (Allyssa Jones, Music Director) by Chaka Khan, Lauryn Hill, Beyonce among others– how divided we still are.

Despite the trappings, A NEW ERA remains a history lesson incubating a fully fleshed-out piece of theater. I await a newer version.  Meanwhile, you can see A NEW ERA now through August 8 at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester!

PHOTO Nile Scott Studios

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM directed by Steven Maler is this summer’s 30th Anniversary Season of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s FREE Shakespeare on the Common through August 9. I am sorry to say it is less than dreamy and the approach feels like a rehash.

Shakespeare’s tale of lovers fleeing disapproving parents or pursuing those who don’t love them back, all escape to a magical forest where fairies in the midst of their own domestic strife cavort at the expense of these foolish mortals (especially PUCK who has a singsong way with the bard’s verse) while bumpkin thespians put on a play about lovers and a little of Paul Melendy as Bottom goes a very long way.

I perked up after intermission when the first scene between these bewitched lovers (Meghan Carey as Hermia, Jaime José Hernández as Lysander, Annika Burley as Helena, Jack Greenberg as Demetrius) have a riotous knockdown drag out over who loves whom. It’s an extended well-acted and choreographed scene where the actors go beyond declaiming to claiming our attention. But this first rate cast– Nora Eschenheimer as Hippolyta/Titania, De’Lon Grant as Theseus/Oberon, Karen MacDonald as the imperious Petra Quince, the exasperated and funny Brooks Reeves as Egeus/Robin Starveling– are mired in this sluggish, uninventive production.

The songs have no music– a pre-requisite for a tune in my world. Costumes are drab, gray, and shapeless in scene one;  once they hit the forest, they’re decked out in what looks like Madonna’s 80’s get-ups tossed into a blender. The “magical”  forest resembles a sad, passé neon-lit disco where dancers move to the funky beat of Zumba routines.  How about taking me somewhere cool and modern?  How about a little K-POP?  If not, then transport me to a shimmering fairy tale by moonlight with gauzy gowns, flowing locks, and twinkly ethereal tunes to make me fall in love with love….

I will take Puck’s parting words below to heart since “we be friends,” and imagine this but an idle dream on a midsummer night. But I hold out hope for magic when next we meet in our common woods:

While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends

MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL has just completed its NORTH AMERICAN tour here in Boston where it all began. This time it dazzled at THE OPERA HOUSE presented by Broadway in Boston where it was as voluptuous I remembered. The heroine coughs in Act I and is dead of consumption in Act II. In between there are voices to die for.  You may remember that the world premiere production of this musical melodrama kicked open the doors of the renovated COLONIAL THEATRE in 2018. The show went on to win copious theatrical awards and has returned in full regalia!

Based on the Baz Luhrmann film starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, MOULIN ROUGE! is a triumph onstage, an over the top jukebox musical packed with songs from every style and era– Bowie to Beyonce, Brick House to The Sound of Music, opera to disco. These impossible musical mashups are matched by sets, costumes, and lighting to dazzle, as beautiful cabaret singer Satine and lovesick songwriter Christian carry on a love affair under the evil eye of Satine’s patron, the Duke of Monroth (Aaron C. Finley) who threatens to destroy the Moulin Rouge if our heroine does not give him not just her body– but also her heart! The cad.

As Satine, Gabriella Carrillo may not be as alluring as Kidman, but this woman can belt out a song on key. Luke Monday as Christian has an aching tenor which curdles into mawkishness as Act II winds to its doom. No matter. The ultimate stars of the show are the ensemble of dancers. Genius choreographer Sonya Tayeh winds them up in Act I and they never stop– through can cans and cartwheels, splits and lifts, transforming the Police’s mournful ROXANNE into a hotblooded tango.

Yes. MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL is an extravagant, over the top, more is more kind of show– a cautionary tale for these decadent days and another reason to go to the theater…