All right, I’ll confess: I really didn’t want to see the PHAMALy (Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League, Incorporated) production of Guys and Dolls. In principle, I’m all for the idea of a troupe of handicapped actors putting on a show, and I had no doubt such a project would…
I suppose if I’d done my homework, I’d have been less disappointed by Central City Opera’s production of The Student Prince. Other than a vague memory of some infectiously rousing drinking songs, I knew nothing about the operetta. I thought it would have the dizzy, stylish melodiousness of Johann Strauss…
Antony and Cleopatra. Director Robert Benedetti states in the program notes that he has brought a Hollywood sensibility to this text, but the CU production remains stagnant and difficult to follow, perhaps because so many of the actors garble their lines. Antony has been neglecting his duties in Rome for…
I’d like to write one of those judicious “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” reviews of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Antony and Cleopatra. I’d like to draw attention to sparks of life and ingenuity, fine moments in the major performances and interpretations of the smaller roles…
Cabaret. Cabaret is grim and distressing, and there’s not a hint of redemption anywhere in it. Quite the contrary. But this is a bloody good production, the kind of production that could — and should — attract all kinds of people who might never think of setting foot in a…
Joel Fink’s Romeo and Juliet at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival could have been called The Nurse and Mercutio Show, because those two characters almost romped off with the play. Okay, that’s a bit reductive. The production had other strengths and floated a few good ideas, but the climax wasn’t heart-wrenching,…
There’s the occasional salacious gesture in Cabaret, a vanishing flash of naked butt, a blurring of sexual “isms” — homo, tran, pan, hetero, who cares? — a lost and libidinous leading lady who has an abortion. But I don’t think that’s what is keeping much of the regular Boulder Dinner…
Born to Be Loud. Born to Be Loud consists of a string of songs from the late ’50s to the ’80s. Some are sung straight, some satirized, some clearly intended as an homage to a particular band or performer; they’re stitched together with all kinds of humor and hokum, and…
South Pacific is so filled with terrific music — beautiful love songs like “Some Enchanted Evening,” “This Nearly Was Mine” and the haunting “Bali Ha’i,” lively comic songs like “A Cockeyed Optimist,” “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” — that…
There are a lot of people who wouldn’t dream of attending an opera. They think of operas as outdated, frequented by the old, rich and pretentious, and featuring incomprehensible plots, elaborate costumes and scenery, great washes of sentiment, fat people pouring out endless arias, and dead people who inexplicably get…
Circe. “Circe” — Chapter Fifteen evokes a stream of ideas and images that flow by faster than they can be absorbed, although on one level they’re very familiar — all that grotesque and hilarious stuff dealing with sex, shame, religion, transsexuality, myth, politics, food, lust, greed, shame, sex, religion, dirt,…
My reaction to Germinal Stage’s “Circe” — Chapter Fifteen was a lot like my reaction to James Joyce’s Ulysses in general. It began with impatience and drifting attention. Then I found myself fascinated and riveted as the play evoked a stream of ideas and emotions that flowed by faster than…
George Burns, having just died, finds himself in limbo. To enter heaven and reunite with his professional partner and beloved wife, Gracie Allen, he has to audition for God. The audition is a recounting of his life. Burns was born Nathan Birnbaum on the New York’s Lower East Side. The…
Born to Be Loud. Born to Be Loud consists of a string of songs from the late ’50s to the ’80s. Some are sung straight, some satirized, some clearly intended as an homage to a particular band or performer; they’re stitched together with all kinds of humor and hokum, and…
Robert Dubac is currently workshopping Inside the Male Intellect (TV. 10.0) at Rattlebrain Theater because he’s about to tape it for cable. This show is an updated version of The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron, an engaging monologue that began in Denver almost a decade ago and has since traveled the…
Racism is a common topic in theater, but before attending Dael Orlandersmith’s lacerating Yellowman, I had never seen a play that explored racism within the black community itself — that is, the contempt felt by some lighter-skinned African-Americans toward their darker-skinned brethren and the reciprocal rage it engenders. Some analysts…
Alarms & Excursions. Alarms & Excursions is minor Michael Frayn, a series of comic finger pieces, but it can’t help bearing the master’s stamp. A group of eight playlets examines the role of technology in our lives and its impact on human communication. In the first, a friendly dinner is…
Again and again, Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai puts you in that state of enjoyment where you’re not even capable of thought; you’re just watching, breath suspended, wanting what you’re seeing to go on forever. Everything one associates with Cirque du Soleil is here — the artful settings and costumes, the…
I used to evoke a lot of laughter and derision from erudite friends and from my writing students by telling them about my passion for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there was a lot more to the show than met the eye. The ghouls, monsters and vampires Buffy faced almost…
Alarms & Excursions. Alarms & Excursions is minor Michael Frayn, a series of comic finger pieces, but it can’t help bearing the master’s stamp. A group of eight playlets examines the role of technology in our lives and its impact on human communication. In the first, a friendly dinner is…
I enjoyed Tracy Shaffer Witherspoon’s Saints and Hysterics, currently being presented by the Paragon Theatre Company; I found myself for the most part interested and sometimes moved. But I’m not sure it holds together as a play. Genuinely original images alternate with a lot of picked-over feminist ideas, and the…
I was worried as I settled down to watch Born to Be Loud. I’d invited a 26-year-old friend along, and I couldn’t help noticing that the audience was rather, well, elderly. On weekends, the Heritage Square Music Hall audience includes people of many types and ages — young couples, families…
