Reviews
Gay Marriage Looks At Shared Values With Hetero Unions In Standing On Ceremony
By Bill Hirschman As the two men eloquently pledge their lives and their loves to each other in the moving vows that close Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays, theater reasserts its power to underscore the common humanity that …
Theater Shelf: Reviews of New Phantom CD/DVD, New Godspell and Cleopatra the Ballet
Theater Shelf, a recurring feature by our reviewer Brad Hathaway, reviews recently-released books, CDs and DVDs of interest to theater lovers. This week: the new Phantom of the Opera CD/DVD, Cleopatra and the new Godspell
This Bird Flies: Touring Show of La Cage aux Folles Perches at Broward Center
Coinciding with Gay Pride celebrations here in South Florida, La Cage Aux Folles, the musical about a charming nightclub owner and his flamboyant partner, has landed at Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale with a likable production containing a don’t-miss performance.
Movie Take On Rock Of Ages Is Enjoyable Goof, But Lacks Energy Of The Stage Musical
The gloriously over-the-top film incarnation of Rock of Ages is just as silly and stupid and surprisingly fun as the Broadway musical it’s drawn from.What the film is missing, and its absence in noticeable, is that ever-present wink in the eye of the musical’s cast as they strutted around the stage. They were in on the joke so you were laughing with them, not at them. It imbued the stage show with an extra frisson of anarchic thumb-nosing joy.
New Theatre & Nilo Cruz’s Bicycle Country Is Moving Gem
The quality of New Theatre’s work is famously variable, but every season or so, they deliver a moving, finely crafted gem of theater to be unreservedly proud about. In this case, it’s the production of Nilo Cruz’s, A Bicycle Country, a lyrical tragedy about three friends who escape Cuba on a raft.
Mosaic’s Edge Of Our Bodies Is Provocative If Confusing Drama
Playwright Adam Rapp shares Beckett’s indifference to whether audiences comprehend his idiosyncratic depiction of his dark vision. But in Mosaic Theatre’s The Edge of Our Bodies, he also is writing something of weight and worth, even if you’re not at all certain what it is.
Which brings us to Rapp’s The Edge of Our Bodies closing out Mosaic Theatre’s season. This extended monologue by a high school girl reading from her journal and acting out what she has written is by turns illuminating and opaque, precise and equivocal, comprehensible and incomprehensible.
Report From New York: Lithgow’s Turn As The Columnist Is A Report From 1963
How do handle an era which is vibrantly alive in the memories of older audience members yet only an antiseptic chapter in a textbook to younger audiences? David Auburn’s play The Columnist does not mean to deal directly with those issues. But they nag at audiences for whom Auburn’s recreation of the pre- and post-Camelot Era of politics either needs nothing but a few passing references for some patrons or an entire dramaturg’s background essay for others.
Summer Shorts More Consistently Funny This Year
City Theatre’s annual rite of the season Summer Shorts has developed a well-earned reputation for being the dictionary definition of “uneven.” So it’s a relief that this 17th edition is the most consistently funny and entertaining in quite some time.
Small Membership Is A Bit Flawed But Well Worth A Peek
The pleasant, intriguing comedy bowing at the Alliance Theatre Lab is not an overwhelming triumph; something about it doesn’t quite land as solidly as you’re rooting for it to do. But the script and performance by Mark Della Ventura deliver plenty of chuckles and just as many winces of painful recognition when he utters razor-sharp truths.
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