Theater
2746 results
Page 221
McDonagh's "The Lieutenant of Inishmore' (1st review)
When things get out of hand
Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore concerns what happens when a disagreement mushrooms into mindless violence beyond anyone's control. And it asks the audience an uncomfortable question: Why are we laughing?
Articles
3 minute read
Adam Rapp's "Hallway Trilogy' in New York
Grungy, grungier and grungiest
A Lower East Side hallway set in the past, present and future is the site of three plays by the allegedly daring Adam Rapp. The net result is five hours of sloppy, empty playwriting and schlock shock tactics, signifying nothing.
Articles
5 minute read
"Diary of a Madman' in Brooklyn
A genius for portraying madness
Geoffrey Rush, who seems to have cornered the market on inspired lunacy, has done it again. This time he's Aksenty Poprishchin, Gogol's immortal definitive urban "little man," driven mad by an uncaring world. Rush and director Neil Armfield have turned the story into a tragic vaudeville, both hilarious and harrowing, acted out with spectacular theatricality.
Articles
5 minute read
"The Last Five Years' at Media Theatre.
Anatomy of a breakup
The Last Five Years is a two-character musical about a couple's romance, based on its creator's own wrecked marriage. It's a triumph of style over substance, thanks especially to excellent performances by Jennie Eisenhower and Marcus Stevens.
Articles
3 minute read
Sara Kane's "Blasted' by Luna Theater
Seeing is believing
Sarah Kane's Blasted forces us to witness every conceivable type of psychological and physical violence. It requires tremendous fortitude to watch. But its sincere frankness hits home.
Articles
3 minute read
Boris Vian's "Empire Builders' at Walnut Studio 5 (1st review)
Downward mobility, or: For whom the noise tolls
In Boris Vian's creepy and intensive absurdist work from 1957, a Paris family is constantly moving upstairs to escape a mysterious noise downstairs. It's a dazzling metaphor for the fear currently pervading the world's economic frustrations.
Articles
3 minute read
"Moon for the Misbegotten' at the Arden (3rd review)
The poetry of unheeded expectations
In O'Neill's dramas, like those of Tennessee Williams, each character's mental state teeters on the brink of psychosis; poverty isn't necessarily financial; and the playwright's poetic language abets their condition.
Articles
4 minute read
McDonagh's "Skull in Connemara,' by the Lantern (2nd review)
Between art and insult
A dedicated production and a hard-working cast unfortunately couldn't raise Martin McDonagh's 1997 play about a sinister Irish gravedigger from the dead. Pinter did it all better.
Articles
3 minute read
"The Cherry Orchard' at Villanova
Comedy of the deadliest sort
In Harriet Power's fresh staging, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard reveals itself as a startlingly modernist text that is in many ways the matrix of 20th-Century theater.
Articles
7 minute read
Chris Braak's "Red Emma' by Iron Age
Her glass was always half-empty
The Philadelphia playwright Chris Braak packs loads of information about the fiery anarchist Emma Goldman into little more than an hour, and Mary Tuonamen in the title role is suitably youthful and passionate. Left unanswered is this question: What made Emma tick?
Red Emma. By Chris Braak; John Doyle directed. Iron Age Theatre production February 3-6, 2011 at Centre Theater, 208 DeKalb St., Norristown, Pa. To be performed again in Spring 2011 at an unannounced theater. (610) 279-1013 or ironagetheatre.org.
Articles
3 minute read