Performances
Murder on the Orient Express Reimagined as Comic Trip
Do not go to Actors’ Playhouse’s Murder on the Orient Express expecting the grim locked-room mystery at the heart of the films or the novel. This 2017 edition is penned by the playwright of Lend Me A Tenor. If you can wipe the tone of those earlier efforts from your mind, you will likely find yourself chuckling much of the night at these theater veterans turn the Christie classic into a cute, often quite funny two-hour comedy sketch.
Vero Beach’s Riverside Reopens With John Denver Bio-Musical
After its January re-opening production of Carousel was cut short by Covid, the Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach re-re-opened its season on May 10 with a splendid production of Almost Heaven: John Denver’s America. This show’s Opening Night audience was clearly stoked to be back in the theatre after so long and embraced the performance with heartfelt affection.
Report From New York: Stagecraft is, Indeed, Magical In Revamped Harry Potter Play
In the theatrical world when the tired complaint persists about reliance on chandeliers and helicopters, the revamped Harry Potter and the Cursed Child isn’t going to please those folks much. But you simply have to admit that while the script is just adequate and the acting is workmanlike, good grief, the stagecraft and the choreographed staging are breath-taking.
Report From New York: ‘American Buffalo’ Again Dives Into the Nation’s Lower Depths
In a cold analysis, nothing much actually happens in the narrative sense during David Mamet’s 1975 dive into the social gutter of the 20th Century United States, the classic American Buffalo. But there is more tension, more multi-level relationships, more vibrant characterizations in this 83rd revival at Circle in the Square than in several recent epics on Broadway.
FGO’s Unique Vision Of Handel’s Agrippina Is Humorous
It’s unlikely that Handel imagined his Baroque opera Agrippina, rooted in the Roman transfer of power from Claudius to Nero, quite like this: Set in Regency England, staged with laughter as a 1930s Black movie company films the event.
M Ensemble Sings the Harlem Blues for an Alabama Sky
If it’s possible to capture the depth and breadth of a tumultuous vibrant time and place by just focusing on the intersecting lives of five ordinary people, in this case Harlem in 1930, then Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky comes close, notably in this production by the M Ensemble Company.
Report From New York: Pitch Black Comedy ‘Hangmen’ Is Classic McDonough
Report From New York: When the playwright is Martin McDonough, it is a given that there will be pitch black darkness inside the drama and copious gallows humor (cheap pun intended in this Broadway production of Hangmen). Count the months before someone locally picks it up.
Report From New York: How I Learned to Drive Remains a Harrowing Trip 25 Years Later
The horror in the revival of How I Learned to Drive is only in the audience. The characters in this drama about child abuse almost never raise their voice, least of all the middle-aged victim/narrator recalling the arc Emotions of fear, guilt and regret remain buried inside their everyday existence. But they are discernible in superb performances.
Kim Ostrenko Gifts Benchmark Performance in The Sound Inside
Kim Ostrenko’s performance under the direction of Keith Garsson in Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside at Boca Stage is simply one of the most outstanding we’ve seen in this banner year of excellent theater.
Dark, Funny Rollercoaster Ride Through Adolescence In Zoetic’s Our Dear Dead Drug Lord
Miami native Alexis Scheer’s Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, a stygian dark and terribly funny play about modern day adolescence executed by Zoetic Stage, is a stunning – a carefully chosen word – piece of pure theater. A scene can be downright hilarious then suddenly blood-chilling, and then, as the blood is still chilling, there are laugh lines.
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