Theater
2727 results
Page 241
"First Day of School' by 1812 Productions
Sex and the married parent
What do parents do when they've packed the kids off to school? They fool around, yes, but Billy Aronson's sophisticated sex farce never loses its grasp on reality, and a first-rate cast of comic actors expertly builds a sense of cumulative ridiculousness.
Articles
4 minute read
"The History Boys' at the Arden (1st review)
Don't know much about history…
Beyond an exceptional acting ensemble, in The History Boys the Arden stages a sharp intellectual prep-school drama that cuts to the core of if, how and why a society should value art, culture, education and learning.
Articles
3 minute read
Beckett's "Happy Days' by the Lantern (2nd review)
The limits of human consciousness
The Lantern Theater's season is off to a good start with David O'Connor's production of Beckett's Happy Days, featuring Mary Elizabeth Scallen as Winnie. This inexhaustible role can never be fully realized in any performance, but Scallen projects her battered dignity and, in the play's second act, creates a memorable picture of human consciousness at the end of its tether.
Articles
6 minute read
"Two Unrelated Plays By Mamet' in New York
Staccato rhythms and male competition, or: David Mamet phones it in
Four plays by David Mamet open in New York this fall, three of them new. Of the first two, School is a lame skit about recycling, and Keep Your Pantheon offers dismaying evidence that the great Mamet isn't above recycling old material himself.
Articles
3 minute read
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Beckett's "Happy Days' by Lantern Theater (1st review)
When only words remain
In Lantern's production of Beckett's Happy Days, the remarkable Mary Elizabeth Scallen somehow manages to demonstrate simultaneously both the importance and the irrelevance of words. But what words!
Articles
4 minute read
Pisoni's "Humor Abuse' at PTC (1st review)
Son of Pagliacci
To win the love of his clown father— as well as the audience— Lorenzo Pisoni drives his body through every pratfall in the standard clowning handbook. The result is exhausting.
Articles
1 minute read
"Hermitage' at Philadelphia Fringe Festival
Life in an urban attic
New York's legendary Collyer brothers hoarded 180 tons of materials in their Harlem mansion by the time of their deaths in 1947. Frederick Anderson's Hermitage offers a sympathetic view of two men who withdraw psychologically as their urban neighborhood changes demographically.
Articles
2 minute read
"Microworld(s)' and "Digital Effects' at Fringe Festival.
Solo acts: Micro to magic
In Microworld(s), the last resident of a Tokyo apartment tower provides a metaphor for the ways our humanity survives within modernity's inhuman structures. In Digital Effects Steve Cuiffo takes the magician's art into the post-modern realm.
Microworld(s), Part 1. Written and performed by Thaddeus Phillips. Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental production for Philadelphia Fringe Festival. September 4-19, 2009 at Painted Bride, 230 Vine St. (215) 413.9006 or www.pafringe.com/details.cfm?id=9067.
Articles
2 minute read
"Annihilation Point' at Fringe Festival
The future is very funny
In The Annihilation Point, the lunatic crew from Time Mender productions offers a hectic array of fast-paced and unpredictable scenes of the future that generate almost continuous laughter.
Articles
2 minute read
Daisey's 'Last Cargo Cult' at Live Arts Festival
Preaching to the choir
Mike Daisey's humorous monologues offer therapeutic relief to the lefty mainstream. But as a performance artist, he lacks the stagecraft or imaginative language of Spalding Gray.
Articles
3 minute read