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Theater Review: WHERE WE BELONG (Umbrella Stage)
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),…
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Theater Review: 44: THE OBAMA MUSICAL (Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City)
A SKETCHY, SPREAD OUT SEND-UP SAGS WITH SLUGGISH SATIRE I like to go into shows completely blind. Sometimes that backfires, but usually not before the show even starts. On Thursday, I walked into the opening-night performance of 44: The Obama Musical—a show framed as Joe Biden’s hazy recollection of Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency….
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Theater Review: THE IRISH AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY (Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham, MA)
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…
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Theater Review: GRAND CONCOURSE (Dezart Performs)
IS IT REALLY HUMAN TO FORGIVE? Dezart Performs’ Grand Concourse—which opened on Friday—is a stunning interpretation of Heidi Schreck’s (What the Constitution Means to Me) introspective, emotionally rich drama about faith, service, and the limits of forgiveness. Set in a Bronx church’s soup kitchen, the play follows Shelley, a nun grappling with a crisis of…
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Theater Review: WEST SIDE STORY (The Nocturne Theatre)
The Nocturne Theatre’s West Side Story proves that “professional community theatre” can still hit you in the gut like a Broadway-caliber production. With a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, this reimagined staging of the 1957 classic was innovation on steroids, making full use of its in-the-round setup,…
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Theater Review: I LOVE YOU BECAUSE (Chromolume Theatre at the Zephyr Theatre)
I COULD’VE LOVED YOU BECAUSE Chromolume Theatre’s production of I Love You Because at the Zephyr Theatre tries to charm, but struggles under the weight of a broad acting style and a perplexingly monotonous book. A modern musical twist on Pride and Prejudice set in New York City, this 2006 show boasts delightfully bouncy 1980s-style…
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Theater Review: ART (Lyric Stage of Boston)
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…
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Theater Review: MARY SAID WHAT SHE SAID (Robert Wilson and Isabelle Huppert at NYU Skirball)
HAIL MARY “Based on the letters of Mary Queen of Scots, Mary… is the testimony of Mary Stuart as she awaits martyrdom, accused of involvement in the most notorious plots of the time. On the eve of her execution, after nineteen years in captivity, she tells her passions and torments.” At NYU Skirball, the great…
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Theater Review: A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (SpeakEasy Stage Company at Calderwood Pavilion in Boston)
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…
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Theater Review: ALABASTER (Fountain Theatre)
RUMINATING ON RUMINANTS As a way to heal from recent tragedies, Alice (Erin Pineda), a big-city photographer, visits June (Virginia Newcomb), a reclusive artist on a small farm in Alabaster, Alabama. June has answered Alice’s call for externally scarred women willing to be photographed for an upcoming project (not a coffee table book, she insists)….
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Theater Review: TARANTINO LIVE: PULP ROCK (CineVita)
THE SHOW WITH A BEAT TO A PULP You walk in, and boom! You’re hit with this electric vibe, like stepping into a Tarantino flick—one minute, you’re feeling cool, the next minute, you’re questioning if you’ve just stepped into a fever dream. It’s sleek, it’s gritty, and it’s dripping with style. The show you’re gonna…
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Theater Review: TWELFTH NIGHT (Antaeus Theatre in Glendale)
WHAT PRODUCTION, FRIENDS, IS THIS? After a ship wreck, Viola and her twin, Sebastian, land on different shores, each fearing the other has perished (consider them separated at surf). And by the time they are reunited, love, pranks and much romantic confusion will have played out in Shakespeare’s fleet comedy about passions, mistaken identities and…
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Theater Review: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (Berkeley Playhouse at Julia Morgan Theater)
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR RISES AGAIN. ROCK ON. Rock operas don’t come much more iconic than Jesus Christ Superstar, and Berkeley Playhouse’s electric new production makes it feel as urgent and incendiary as ever. With a timeless score by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, this show has been rattling the rafters of theaters since its…
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Theater Review: AVENUE Q (Wisteria Theatre, North Hollywood)
FURFECT Peter Pan never grew up. Likewise Alice in Wonderland, the Hardy Boys, Freddy the Pig, Nancy Drew, or Huck Finn. It’s a pity that people do: Why must grown-ups leave behind innocence and imagination after we mistakenly blunder into adulthood? You can take it with you—when it’s Avenue Q. This 2003 musical is, of…
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Theater Review: JERSEY BOYS (Musical Theatre West)
GET READY TO ENBOY YOURSELF Jersey Boys has been around long enough that you might assume it’s just another jukebox musical, cranking out hits for an easy nostalgia trip. But that’s never been the case. Since its Broadway debut in 2005, the show has stood out by weaving a real, sometimes messy, behind-the-music story into…
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Theater Review: WE ARE CONTINUOUS (Diversionary Theatre)
CONTINUOUSLY ENTERTAINING What’s most striking about the excellent we are continuous by Harrison David Rivers (The Bandaged Place, This Bitter Earth) is that it doesn’t just break the fourth wall occasionally—it shatters it entirely. The writing style is unlike anything I’ve seen in a multi-actor staging. It’s more akin to three-person storytelling, where the other two characters…
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Theater Review: IN THE HEIGHTS (Signature Theatre in VA)
MORE THAN JUST A REVIVAL, THIS INTIMATE IN THE HEIGHTS IS A JOYFUL TRIBUTE TO COMMUNITY AND DREAMS Before Hamilton changed the face of Broadway, there was In the Heights—Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first revolution. Bursting onto the scene in 2008, it infused hip-hop, salsa, merengue, Broadway, and street-smart storytelling into a genre that never saw it…
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Theater Review: DESPERATE MEASURES (International City Theatre in Long Beach)
A SHAKESPEAREAN WESTERN MUSICAL? DON’T WORRY, IT MEASURES UP The wild west sizzles with song and chaos in Desperate Measures, the rootin’-tootin’ Wild West musical shinin’ bright at International City Theatre in Long Beach. Peter Kellogg (book and lyrics) and David Friedman (music) convert a Shakespearean problem play into a hootenanny of moral quandaries, mistaken…
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Theater Review: THE GROVE (Huntington Theatre Company)
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…
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Theater Review: HEDDA GABLER (Apollinaire Theatre Company)
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…
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