Theater today impresses audiences with the extravagant; the more authentic and intricate, the better. To keep up with television and movies, sets and props have to be so lifelike that willingly suspending disbelief is no chore at all for the audience. In these shows, the work is done for you. Such productions are impressive spectacles, […]
Poet Emily Dickinson, who was more than a little odd herself, noted that madness is what society ascribes to those who do not conform: “Assent, and you are sane ;/Demur, — you’re straightway dangerous,/And handled with a chain.” There are, I would argue, three great novels that better than any others captured this theme for […]
Billy Elliot: The Musical makes its professional RI debut kicking-off Ocean State Theatre Company’s fifth season. Winner of 10 Tony Awards, this production, under OSTC’s artistic director Amiee Turner, shows some flashes of the brilliance that has earned it so much critical acclaim, but ultimately falls short of delivering a knock-out punch. During its final preview […]
I have a confession to make, mes amies. I am a sucker for a good bedroom comedy. Yes, a deconstructed think-piece is good now and then and Lord knows, I can get behind a good musical, but no matter how tough times are, all you have to do to is mention the words — […]
There’s a lot going on in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, currently opening the season at The Gamm. A viewer unfamiliar with the play might expect the poetry or the landscape design history from a story set in a country house in the early 19th century, but they might not expect it to contain quite so much […]
Brown University’s theater department has launched its new season with By The Way, Meet Vera Stark – a truly brilliant work with some first-rate performances. The subject matter, which deals with racial stereotyping in films, couldn’t be more timely. In the 1930s, African-American maid Vera works for the glamorous actress Gloria Mitchell (Eleonora Saravale). Gloria […]
“If you’ve never seen the world then how would you know?” the titular character says to Emilia in Desdemona: A Play About A Handkerchief, at Burbage Theatre Company. “Women are clad in purdah, we decent, respectable matrons, from the cradle to the altar to the shroud … bridled with linen, blinded with lace …. […]
Some reviews write themselves, and this is one of them. Wicked has flown into the Providence Performing Arts Center for their season opener, and it is every bit as captivating and magical as you would expect it to be. I knew I would enjoy myself because I am very familiar with this show, I know the […]
Newport Playhouse has opened their season this year with Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. This charming show is a bit different from the farces I’ve grown accustomed to seeing at the Playhouse, but the switch is welcome as they put on a solidly funny show. Plaza Suite is a bit of a switch for Simon as […]
In Wilbury’s “Fascist Mash-Up” of three plays – although really two plays and an epilogue – director Josh Short deserves praise for conceiving a radical experiment well carried out. Interweaving scenes from The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht and from Party Time by Harold Pinter, the result is surprisingly more palatable than […]