Sondheim's "A Little Night Music' at the Arden (1st review)

Isn't it rich?

Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music rises or falls with its leading lady, Desiree Armfeldt. In the Arden's current production, the graceful and alluring Grace Gonglewski is more than up to the task.

Steve Cohen

Jun 02, 2013 · Articles · 5 minute read

"Lend Me a Tenor' in Ambler

The show must go on

Lend Me a Tenor is one of the best-constructed farces ever written by an American, but its intricacies present a challenge to actors and directors. The current production at Act II Playhouse does justice to Ken Ludwig's backstage comedy and even expands on its opportunities.

Steve Cohen

Jun 01, 2013 · Articles · 3 minute read

Alan Cumming does "Macbeth' on Broadway

The ultimate modern man: A paranoid delusional Macbeth

This insightful conception sets Macbeth in a mental hospital, with a single patient— the remarkable Alan Cumming— playing all the roles. His Macbeth comes across as a modern man driven mad by his inability to cope in a frightening, out-of-control world.

Carol Rocamora

Jun 01, 2013 · Articles · 6 minute read

David Ives's "Venus In Fur' at Philadelphia Theatre Co, (2nd review)

I am woman, hear me roar

Do women's liberation and sadomasochism go hand in hand? The father of S & M thought so, but what do men know about women? In David Ives's Venus in Fur, a modern-day wonder woman bites back.

Marshall A. Ledger

Jun 01, 2013 · Articles · 6 minute read

David Ives's "Venus In Fur' at Philadelphia Theatre Co. (1st review)

Man smart, woman smarter, or: Aphrodite rides again

David Ives's Venus In Fur is an intense, perceptive, provocative, often very funny, sometimes brilliant one-act comedy-drama by an incisive playwright who perceives the dance of seduction between the sexes as the ultimate dramatic conflict. But its process is more important than its product.

Dan Rottenberg

May 30, 2013 · Articles · 5 minute read

"Spring Awakening' in Norristown

The difficult years

Frank Wedekind's gripping 1891 drama of adolescents coping with a repressive society and unsupportive parents seemed an unlikely idea for a Broadway musical. Horizon's production has gone a long way toward salvaging it.

Steve Cohen

May 28, 2013 · Articles · 2 minute read

"Pinocchio' at the Arden

How Pinocchio's nose grew (and other Arden flights of imagination)

At the Arden Children's Theatre, literalness always takes a back seat to the imagination, and talented actors enlist their child audiences as co-conspirators in their deceptions.

Dan Rottenberg

May 28, 2013 · Articles · 2 minute read

Stoppard's "Heroes' at the Lantern (2nd review)

Waiting for Godot, or for Stoppard?

The audience was in stitches throughout much of Heroes. But the intellectual fireworks that accompany most Tom Stoppard scripts are largely absent here.

Jake Blumgart

May 27, 2013 · Articles · 3 minute read

Richard Foreman's "Old-Fashioned Prostitutes' in New York

Errant thoughts in the mind's field of vision

As with so many of Richard Foreman's experimental plays, what's on stage is a dramatization of the mind— his or ours— slipping and darting this way and that, propelled by desire and the dazzle of possibly actually knowing or grasping something.

May 27, 2013 · Articles · 5 minute read

Stoppard's "Heroes' at the Lantern (1st review)

Take that, Godot! Or: Band of brothers, refusing to go gently

Beckett's Waiting for Godot argued that life is absurd but suicide is no solution; there is only waiting. In Heroes, Tom Stoppard offers a new twist: Even in a world without purpose, he suggests, heroics are possible.

Marshall A. Ledger

May 26, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read