Boston

WOMEN ON THE VERGE Central Square Theater’s lovely production of playwright David Auburn’s (Proof) Summer, 1976 offers a story of two women who find an unexpected friendship at a tipping point in both their lives. It’s an especially fitting choice for Central Square Theater, the oldest female-led theater company in Boston. Central Square’s mission includes…

GUNNING FOR PUERTO RICO Stephen Sondheim chose an unlikely topic for his 1990 Assassins, a musical that portrays assassinating or attempting to assassinate a president is as American as popular music. I can’t say whether or not playwright Matthew Barbot was inspired by Sondheim’s musical, but Barbot certainly fills a hole in Sondheim’s line-up of…

THINGS THAT GO BOOM AND JUST RIGHT It’s impossible to see a production of Jonathan Larson’s Tick, Tick … Boom! without seeing it as a precursor to his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent. All the elements are there—aspiring creatives living in lower Manhattan squalor, the lethal creep of AIDS, anxiety about “selling out” and abandoning dreams….

GREEN SCALES AND SHAM I generally count on SpeakEasy Stage for stellar productions of innovative and ground-breaking plays and musicals. But that history, along with fine performances and charming musicianship from Keiji Ishiguri as Lizard Boy Trevor, Peter DiMaggio as his friend Cary, and Chelsie Nectow as Siren are not enough to rescue this production…

CLOTHES MIGHT MAKE THE MAN, BUT NOT THIS SHOW Costumes were essential to the success of superstar Cher. She and her singing partner and husband Sonny Bono first burst on the music scene in the 1960s in the brightly colored bell-bottoms and fur vests of California’s emerging hippie culture. Madeline Hudelson (Babe) and Frankie Marasa…

LOVE IN UNEXPECTED PLACES Two women, from quite different backgrounds, meet in Boston in 1968, a time and a place where ancient grudges and present-day conflicts seem sure to keep them apart. And yet, their very differences bring them together. Adriana Alvarez (Jo) and Tara Forseth (Mary) convincingly portray a transformation from friendly kindness to…

MISERY LOVES COMPANY… AND A GOOD PLOT Karen MacDonald and Tom Coiner do a wonderful job of animating William Goldman’s stage adaptation of Stephen King’s intriguing, twisty novel by the same title. Best-selling novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by Annie Wilkes, his self-described number 1 fan, following a car accident during a Colorado blizzard. In…

TWO LONG HOURS WITH THE FORMER MAN OF THE HOUR There is no question that Churchill was a hero who played a major role in saving the world from Hitler’s fascism (though perhaps not as big a role as Stalin, but let’s not go down that road). Nor is there any doubt that David Payne,…

SOMETHING WICKED GOOD THIS WAY COMES You’ve probably seen one or more productions of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth before, but you’ve likely never seen one like this Christopher V. Edwards-directed production by Actors’ Shakespeare Project. Despite the spooky-month run, the emphasis here is not on ghostly apparitions or the “weird sisters,” but on political corruption and…

STANDING UP FOR HUMANITY Here are my criteria for a good night of comedy: 1) It needs to be surprising. 2) It needs to make me think. 3) It needs to promote values that make us better human beings. 4) Oh, it needs to be funny. Chris Grace Both Sardines (a comedy about death) at…

A STRONG BREW OF CHARACTER AND STORY The Counter is the latest in a series of plays in greater Boston featuring a character who pours drinks. In recent months we’ve had Primary Trust, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), Spitfire Grill, and Waitress. Spitfire Grill, Two Strangers, and The Counter all feature a…

LEGACY MEETS MORTALITY IN THE MOUNTAINTOP This superb production of Katori Hall‘s The Mountaintop, a surprise-filled two-hander depicting King’s last night before his assassination, is not just history. Director Maurice Emmanuel Parent works with two excellent actors—Dominic Carter and Kiera Prusmack—to lead us to understand that King’s concerns and work are still relevant. It’s at…

OUR TOWN, AND YOURS Thorton Wilder’s 1938 Pulitzer Prize winning play Our Town is a masterpiece, drawing on inspiration from the likes of Bertholt Brecht and traditional Chinese theatre. With touches of feminism ahead of his time, and a celebration of the connections between the everyday and the cosmic dimensions of human experience, Wilder constructed…

MULTILINGUAL PRE-WEDDING JITTERS The sixth play in Mfoniso Udofia’s nine-play Ufot Family Cycle brings us the adorable couple Ekong Ufot (Kadahj Bennett) and Lumanti Shrestha (Mahima Saigal) as they struggle with Ekong’s deeply damaged father (Adrian Roberts as Nsikan Disciple Ufot) in the final weeks of what should be happy preparations for their wedding. The…

SLEUTHING FOR LAUGHS? YOU’LL FIND THEM HERE It’s elementary! A clever script, thanks to the prolific and popular playwright Kate Hamill, and superb physical and verbal comedy, thanks to a great quartet of actors, make Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson — Apt. 2B the perfect solution to the puzzle of how to find a satisfying…