Reviews
Seeking A Path Through The Past In Redwood Curtain
Lanford Wilson’s wistful and whimsical play Redwood Curtain postulates that the past we stock our psyche with becomes something integral to our being that has to be faced down if we are to move beyond it. It gets a well-meaning outing from the fledgling Primal Forces Production. It’s an intriguing evening that starts the brain cogitating about the themes, but as theater it doesn’t land solidly.
Satire Skewers Pursuit Of Celebrity In The Little Dog Laughed At Island City
Can a meaningful relationship blossom in a world where cynicism and self-interest seem to trump integrity and burgeoning affection? Island City Stage’s production of Douglas Carter Beane’s hilarious and touching The Little Dog Laughed explores the conundrum set amid the pragmatism of 21st Century seekers of fortune and fame in the shallows of a celebrity-centric culture.
Evening Star’s The Addams Family Gamely Delivers The Goofy Giggles In A Flawed Script
There’s enough giggles and grins in Evening Star Productions’ The Addams Family delivered by these game, committed thespians to keep this production mildly diverting, but they still are finding their artistic chops and they still are chained to a script and score that devolves from the strychnine into the saccharine.
Slow Burn Theatre’s Ambitious Rent Pays Off In Spectacle
Slow Burn Theatre Company’s Rent is ambitious, daring, electric and 2 1/2 hours of non-stop rock ‘n’ roll — a no-holds barred, take chances, go-out-on-a-limb spectacle. But when stripped of the spectacle, the characters, some facing death, with others living in the shadows of HIV/AIDs, lack life.
Where’s Whoopi? Sister Act Is Button-Pushing Mediocrity
Sister Act is not a terrible musical; it even has amusing and mildly entertaining passages. But the national tour at the Arsht Center is also a head-shaking mediocrity that begs an answer to why talented theater veterans wasted their time – and ours – on it.
The Magnificents Is Old Fashioned Entertainment
The Magnificents, The House Theatre of Chicago’s production that’s playing inside the intimate Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center, is pure and simple and classic entertainment.
Wick’s O-o-o-o-o-klahoma! Is Tuneful Mainstream Fairy Tale
The Wick Theatre’s Oklahoma! is an apple cheek fairy tale , a broad musical comedy sprightly painted with bright vibrant colors that will not fail to entertain if you let it. Not only will this decidedly mainstream production not annoy most pre-Sondheim patrons, they will embrace it with a joyous “this is what we want to see” reaction.
Intriguing Thought-Provoking Look At The Nature Of God On GableStage’s New Jerusalem
The central tenets of Baruch de Spinoza’s rationalist ethos are explored exhaustively and exhaustingly in GableStage’s intriguing production of David Ives’ New Jerusalem which surely counts as the textbook definition of “thought-provoking theater.
A PaperStreet Web Design
