Boston

LIVES OF NOT-SO-QUIET DESPERATION The premise is simple: Each of nine people who have tried to kill or who actually have killed an American president is given a chance to persuade us of his or her higher purpose. Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins  is an entertainment’”in the bygone sense of revues and follies built around…

ONE PLAGUE OR ANOTHER What happens when you put eight actors on a stage with a script that includes the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the Mormon Visitors Center, the Jewish mysticism of philosopher Walter Benjamin, and Roy Cohn’”one of the slimiest lawyers who ever lived? If that script happens to be Angels in America…

WELCOME TO THE WEST WING, WHERE THE WOMEN ARE FUCKED AND THE MAN IS FECKLESS Seven women propping up one man’”that’s the premise behind Selena Fillinger’s POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. The widely produced play, which had its Broadway debut just a little over a year…

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE KATRINA? What to do about The Taming of the Shrew, a play that seems to glorify the subjugation of women? Actors’ Shakespeare Project offers an intriguing and very entertaining answer. Under the direction of ASP Artistic Director Christopher V. Edwards, this cast — with only one male performer,…

A PRAYER FOR ALL OF US Should they stay or should they go? That is the question that haunts the characters of this brilliant play by Joshua Harmon (Bad Jews, Skintight).  It is directed by Loretta Greco, the new artistic director of The Huntington. As a long-time Boston-area theater fan, I can only say that if…

A SHOWER OF CREATIVE INNOVATION The A.R.T. production of the stunningly staged and audaciously acted The Half-God of Rainfall is an act of creative destruction. It begins with the seven actors crashing through the fourth wall by appearing on the stage and introducing themselves by name and then listing their role or roles. This places…

DOWN AND UP IN HARLEM Barrington Stage Company’s riveting production of Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky, directed by Candis C. Jones, opens with a fast-paced scene in which Guy Jacobs (Brandon Alvión) drags a seriously drunk Angel Allen (Tsilala Brock) up to his apartment with help from a stranger, Leland Cunningham (DeLeon Dallas)….

A FENCES THAT KEEPS US IN Actors “ranney” and Ella Joyce bring a fresh and warm humanity to Shakespeare and Company‘s excellent and very satisfying production of August Wilson’s Fences, which opened this week at the Tina Packer Playhouse in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. Troy Maxson  is a character not often included in our representations…

FASCINATING, FUN AND FEEL-GOOD RHYTHM With stellar performances on two baby grands, a few silly props, and creative use of audience participation, Kirsten Salpini (sometimes wearing a tie to indicate Gershwin) and Jared Troilo (sometimes in bushy white wig to indicate Bernstein) pay energetic and loving tribute to the music of George Gershwin and Leonard…

A DUAL DUARTE DE PERí“N Understudy Isabella Lopez won a heartfelt standing ovation for her captivating portrayal of Eva Perón, the spiritual leader of Argentina last night in this A.R.T. revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics) classic Evita (Tony Award Best Musical). Director Sammi Cannold, who visited Argentina repeatedly to…

AMAZING THEATER? BANK ON IT Steven Skybell (Henry Lehman), Joshua David Robinson (Emanuel Lehman), and Firdous Bamji (Mayer Lehman) absolutely stunned in the the first American-made production of The Lehman Trilogy, which opened at The Huntington last week. They slipped in and out of multiple roles, including babies, toddlers, men of diverse ethnic and regional…

AS WE LOVE IT Talk about chemistry! The amazing Genevieve Simon, who wowed us with a riveting performance in the title role of Coriolanus earlier this year, flirts and schemes into our hearts in the very different role of Rosalind in Actors Shakespeare Project‘s As You Like it — in collaboration with Theater Offensive, whose…

THE MILLENNIUM HAS COME AND GONE, BUT THE THEMES REMAIN THE SAME Central Square Theater’s collaboration with Bedlam of Tony Kushner’s still-relevant masterpiece Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is thrilling. Despite the three-hour run time, the intensity of Part One: Millennium Approaches  is inspiring and moving. The acting is terrific. Eddie Shields…

FAITH, HOPE AND SCIENCE I found myself thinking of Henrik Ibsen and Lucille Ball as I watched this world premiere of acclaimed playwright and performance artist Taylor Mac. Ibsen and Ball are not two names normally associated in my mind, but the early twentieth-century interior setting (Philadelphia, not Norway) — in which the commanding figure…

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE WHITE SUPREMACIST MEETING If you’re looking for great night of humor about white supremacy and anti-Semitism (and who isn’t?), this is the show for you. Alex Edelman, Boston-born and -bred but now located in New York, brings his one-man show to the Calderwood Pavilion at the…