Boston

THE RHINOCEROSES ARE AMONG US; HERE COMES THE CRASH A.R.T.’s chillingly funny absurdist classic asks what happens when everyone else joins the herd Since its 1959 debut, Eugène Ionesco’s famed Rhinoceros has likely felt chillingly topical to every generation that has encountered it. Writing about American Repertory Theater’s new production from that angle may seem…

BEFORE SHE WAS MRS. DALLOWAY A beautifully written and well-performed prequel imagines the summer when Clarissa Perry begins choosing a life of her own Our first look at Dalloway: First Love is a magnificent thick-trunked tree full of nooks and crannies, gnarled and fissured with steadying footholds and reaching roots and seeking branches that dominates…

SOME ENCHANTMENT REQUIRED Thirty years on, Commonwealth Shakespeare still knows how to charm a crowd A lot is unknown about William Shakespeare, including the order and dates in which he wrote Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. What is clear, however, is that the two plays serve as mirrors to one another: in…

SHOPPING FOR LAUGHS Jonathan Tolins’ delicious one-man comedy turns retail therapy into theatrical therapy A special kind of theatre magic occurs when a comedic play can live in the perfect liminal landscape between outrageousness and being deeply grounded in reality and humanity. Hub Theatre Company’s one-man show Buyer and Cellar creates and occupies this terrain…

GREAT LOOKS, LITTLE GATSBY Too loud, too repetitive, and nowhere near the Jazz Age The touring production of The Great Gatsby, now at the Citizens Opera House in Boston, gives us Linda Cho‘s Tony Award-winning costumes and great sets by Paul Tate dePoo III, but neither the book by Kait Kerrigan nor the score by…

THE TIES THAT STRAIN A hurricane traps a family already under siege. S. Asher Gelman’s emotionally gripping new play, The Zionists: A Family Storm, now at Barrington Stage Company in Miami New Drama‘s world-premiere production, is full of the best kind of talk—talk that demands to be heard. Ruth (Joanna Glushak) and Mitchell (Adam Grupper),…

ABSURDLY EVER AFTER A turtle and a snail walk into a war… Igor Golyak, director of Arlekin Players Theatre‘s Delirium, has never seen a production of Eugène Ionesco’s Frenzy for Two (Délire à deux), one of his many challenging plays exploring the meaninglessness left in the wake of World War II—and, he says, few others…

SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE A “charming bulldozer” meets a wall of resistance Anyone who has had a home renovation knows the way a contractor can take over one’s life. Suddenly, strange men (usually men) clomp around in heavy boots in the early morning, tearing up floors and tearing down walls. There is noise and dust and…

TO BAN OR NOT TO BAN Who decides what children are allowed to read? Playwrights are among the many who are struggling to reconcile the escalating conflicts among different factions of our society. Huntington Theatre’s Eureka Day portrays the executive board of a progressive private school at odds with itself when a mumps outbreak pits…

HIGH ENERGY AND HIGH HOPES Rhythm, resilience, and a lot of heart On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan is far from groundbreaking theater, but it is certainly uplifting. Let’s face it: a jukebox musical about a successful female performer whose male partner is neither abusive, manipulative, nor adulterous is something worthy…

HOME IS WHERE THE PHO IS Looking for a real life amidst the demands of AI Directed by cara hinh and written by Minna Lee, this East Coast premiere is alternately hilarious and joyous and, at other times, a sobering and touching look at the effects of gentrification, the threats of AI, and the ongoing…

Oedipus El Rey, playwright Luis Alfaro’s reimagining of the Greek myth, transforms the familiar tale of fate and tragedy into an urban contemporary story about incarceration, identity, and the possibility of starting over. The premise remains the same—a child fated to kill his father and marry his mother—but Alfaro uses the myth to explore modern…

GREAT EXPECTATIONS, OR GREAT DECEPTIONS? Miranda Jonte and playwright John Minigan turn Dickens into the subject of a witty and compelling literary cold case Despite the broken air-conditioning on a hot and sticky night, Miranda Jonte kept me engaged and curious with her spirited portrayal of both a literary sleuth and one of literature’s iconic…

ADRIFT, AND MORALLY AT SEA A haunting, musically rich survival tale that probes faith, labor, and the cost of living on Directed by Jeremy Johnson and driven by the highly listenable roots-inflected songs from The Avett Brothers (music director Paul S. Katz), this engrossing SpeakEasy Stage production of Swept Away, a New England premiere, tells a…

HERE’S SOMETHING DECIDEDLY NOT ROTTEN A lively, joy-filled production wins over even the most reluctant musicalgoer I was not looking forward to Something Rotten. I’m not big into Shakespeare (gasp, sorry), and my taste in musicals is more Sondheim than shtick. A cousin who is half my age and au courant with new musicals (this…

TOO MANY HANDS ON DECK An inventive but overstuffed adaptation floods the narrative The world premiere of DNAWorks‘ adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer,” directed by Daniel Banks at Emerson Paramount Center offers a lot of intriguing approaches to this classic tale of two men who strongly resemble one another.  Regarded as a novella…