Reviews
Funny But Baffling Body Awareness Bows At Island City/Empire Stages
This observer had trouble sussing out the cerebral depths that playwright Annie Baker intended in her quite funny meditation Body Awareness at the Island City Stage/Empire Stage production. Fortunately, witty dialogue, intriguing performances and insightful guidance from director Michael Leeds make for an entertaining evening if not a completely comprehensible or cohesive one.
Joy In The ‘Hood; Dreaming In The Heights
It’s been a long, long time since a locally-produced musical has thrust inside an audience’s collective chest to touch its heart like Actors’ Playhouse’s triumphant production of In The Heights. Several shows this season have produced near raves among critics and audiences, but this production is cause once again for recalibrating your standards.
Maltz Theatre’s Millie Is Thoroughly Frothy Fun
If it’s about as substantial as cotton candy that doesn’t stick to your ribs very long, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s co-production with the Papermill Playhouse of Throughly Modern Millie is a delightfully sweet confection whipped up by some very talented folks.
Flashdance’s Skill And Energy Trumps Formula And Material
With hardbodies gyrating in knife-sharp choreography to infectious music, Flashdance The Musical is a happy surprise in which undeniable skill, energy and talent trump material about as subtle as sledgehammers bashing steel plates into shape.
BRTG’s Chicago Is Entertaining But Needs More Razzle Dazzle
A muted clarinet makes beautiful music, but sometimes what’s called for is the blare of a clarion trumpet and the insolent snap of a snare drum. That’s the problem facing the almost but never quite satisfying Boca Raton Theatre Guild production of the Kander & Ebb musical Chicago.
Powerful, Fresh Reimagining Of Les Miz Is Ready For Broadway
This Broadway Across America edition of Les Miserables is not some cynical attempt to wring just one more quart of milk from the cash cow. Instead, this is a legitimate revival in the deepest sense of the word that is as vibrant, passionate and new-born as a world premiere.
AAPACT’s Amen Corner Is Flawed But Passionate Look at Faith And Organized Religion
AAPACT’S ambitious The Amen Corner is earnest and heartfelt although most of the time, the characters and their tragic spiral simply don’t feel genuine or organic. But every 20 minutes or so in this 2 ½-hour evening, the actors dig into their marrow and slingshot the play from pedestrian performances into an affecting truth that clutches the audience’s heart.
Plaza’s WaistWatchers Ready Made For Ladies Who Lunch
There’s certainly an appetite for WaistWatchers: The Musical — a show for the ladies who lunch as a girl’s day (or night) out, which would account for one-quarter of Sunday’s audience being made up of women’s groups at the Plaza Theatre in Manalapan. (The Grove Women’s Club and Lexington Ladies were in the house at this particular Sunday matinee.)
Thinking Cap’s The Rover Is Ambitious, Smart & Delightful
There’s more to Thinking Cap Theatre’s inventive The Rover than staging a 300-year-old play with oomph enough to keep a 21st century audience interested. What director Nicole Stodard (who is also the artistic director of Thinking Cap Theatre) has done is to craft an inventive, ambitious and quite delicious offering of England’s first professional female playwright’s navel gazing study of the dating games people play. And watching Stodard’s adaptation of Aphra Behn’s The Rover proves that the battle of the sexes hasn’t changed much since 1677.
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