Boston

A BITTER TRUTH WRAPPED IN A SWEET TITLE Fresh Ink’s absorbing production of Sugar, by playwright Tara Moses, is anything but saccharine. Under the sure direction of Audrey Seraphin, Sugar is deeply satisfying. At the center is Brooke (a forceful Tiffany Santiago), a woman juggling three jobs and still unable to pay her bills or…

SIT BACK AND LET THIS CAST TAKE YOU TO CHURCH Aptly described as a powerful mix of gospel music and “hattitude,” Moonbox Production’s Crowns—which opened last night at Arrow Street Arts—indeed hits on many levels. Regina Taylor’s adaptation of the eponymous coffee table book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry flows easily between music and…

HALCYON AND ON AND ON Director Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s vibrant, pulsing production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream transforms the woods outside Athens into a 1990s dance floor. With throbbing club beats (sound design by Mackenzie Adamick), fairies dressed in glitter and leather (costumes by Seth Bodie), and a gender-fluid aesthetic of hedonism, this Dream…

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED The fourth episode in Mfoniso Udofia’s ambitious nine-episode Ufot Family Cycle, Her Portmanteau, takes us deeper into the fascinating story of a very specific Nigerian-American family whose struggles remain universal. Gripping performances by Patrice Jean-Baptiste, Jade Guerra, and Lorraine Victoria Kanyike create an immersive and emotionally charged one-act play that kept…

GOING WRONG NEVER FELT SO RIGHT Like any great farce, the success of The Play That Goes Wrong depends on the utmost precision and skill of the actors, crew, and design team to make everything go right while simultaneously making it all appear to the audience to be going woefully wrong. It’s all in the…

A SPIRITED REVIVAL WITH DEPTH AND DISSONANCE Eighty years after Carousel had its final pre-Broadway preview at Boston’s Colonial Theatre, Boston Lyric Opera revives Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 classic with both nostalgia and an edge. Under the thoughtful direction of Anne Bogart and the sure baton of David Angus, this production revisits a golden-age musical…

MURDER BY MANGO Ricardo Pérez González’s Don’t Eat the Mangos—a tragicomedy brimming with revelation, rage, and retribution—transforms the Calderwood stage into a site of reckoning. Directed by David Mendizábel, this gripping family drama unfurls within the walls of a Puerto Rican home, where three adult sisters contend with the burdens of caregiving, long-held grievances, and…

THE TRIUMPH OF ALLISON ALTMAN There are many reasons to see The Triumph of Love, director Loretta Greco’s gender-bending comedy that channels equal parts Shakespeare, Billy Wilder, and a dash of John Cleese. But at the heart of its success is Allison Altman’s dazzling turn as Princess Léonide. Vincent Randazzo, Avanthika Srinivasan Patrick Kerr, Vincent…

UNTYING THE SPELL Tongva and Mescalero Apache actor GiGi Buddie delivers a spellbinding performance in Where We Belong, an autobiographical one-woman show by Madeline Sayet, who weaves a deeply personal narrative about the intersection of her Native identity and her love of Shakespeare. The Umbrella Stage production, directed by Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma),…

IT’S NOT SO MUCH HOW IRISH BECAME AMERICANS — IT’S HOW AMERICA BECAME IRISH Greater Boston Stage Company’s lively production of Frank McCourt’s The Irish and How They Got That Way ennobles often painful history with music, physical comedy, and funny tales. Directed by A. Nora Long, the show is set in a realistically appointed…

THE REDEEMING POWER OF ART Picture this. A white wall—or is it gray? or a blank canvas?—and a pale tile floor. Are we in an austere modern art museum or gallery? The lights go out and when they come up again, a man stands at the edge of the stage and begins to complain about…

A MAN OF GRAVE IMPORTANCE Each of us is both a man of no importance and of grave importance, which is why A Man of No Importance—crafted by musical theatre’s top-tier triumvirate of Terrence McNally (book), Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), and Stephen Flaherty (music)—feels so universally appealing, touching, topical and urgent. This intimate musical becomes even…

OUT OF THE WOODS AND INTO THE GROVE The second in Mfoniso Udofia’s ambitious nine-play Ufot Family Cycle, The Grove, directed by Awoye Timpo, picks up the story of the Ufot family over three decades after the first play, Sojourners, introduced us to Abasiama Ufot, a Nigerian woman who comes to the United States to…

BEAUTIFUL, BORED, AND BENT ON DESTRUCTION For a taut psychological drama fraught with sexual tension, Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler remains unrivaled, and Parker Jennings delivers a mesmerizing performance as the title character—a woman simmering with rage beneath a veneer of poise, trapped in a world that offers her no escape. With astute director Danielle Fauteux…

A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON A FAMILIAR JOURNEY Playwright Kate Hamill takes Homer’s Odyssey and gives it a sharp, contemporary spin, transforming the tale of wily and deceitful Odysseus (Wayne T. Carr) into a meditation on PTSD, accountability, and the shifting tides of power. In this bold reimagining at American Repertory Theater, Odysseus isn’t just a…

TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO WOMAN HAS GONE BEFORE After seeing SPACE at Central Square Theater, the line that haunted me came from Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to travel into space: “Rockets leave behind the thing that got them up there—their fuel tanks.” Like those fuel tanks, the first group of courageous and…

A SEARCH FOR MEANING BROUGHT TO GLORIOUS LIFE BY A PUPPET Based on the Booker-prize winning novel by Nobel-laureate South African J.M. Coetzee and adapted and directed by Lara Foot in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company, Life and Times of Michael K tells a simple story: a man born with a cleft lip who was…