Richard Rodgers was an astonishing musical talent, and for decades the soul of that entirely American creation the musical comedy. To some extent, he revolutionized the hitherto fluff-filled form by taking on such themes as racism (South Pacific), wife-beating (Carousel), the abuses of monarchical power (The King and I), and…
We are one of the last Western nations to retain the death penalty, but you don’t hear much about it these days. Where executions were once front-page news, they’re now relegated to single paragraphs far back in the paper — if they’re mentioned at all. Most of us go about…
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This is one ugly family that’s gathered in Big Daddy’s Mississippi Delta home to celebrate the patriarch’s 65th birthday. What almost everyone except Big Daddy himself knows is that he’s dying of cancer. There’s Big Mama, operating in an acute state of denial; son…
Most fictional characters in mental institutions struggle to get out, but when Dana Fielding, the artist-protagonist of The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, arrives in one after a suicide attempt, she settles right in. Battered by the response to her latest exhibit, a couple of negative reviews and a general sense…
This is one ugly family gathered in Big Daddy’s Mississippi Delta home to celebrate the patriarch’s 65th birthday, and almost everyone in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof but Big Daddy himself knows that he’s dying. There’s Big Mama, operating in an acute state of denial; son Gooper, accompanied by…
A House With No Walls. There’s a special category of pundit: the black conservative, those darlings of the Republican Party who profit hugely by attacking other African-Americans. The protagonist of Thomas Gibbons’s play is a more thoughtful and credible version of this kind of talker, a brilliant historian named Cadance…
One of the perils of an English education is that it leaves gaps. While I and any of my old school friends could discuss Shaw, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, George Orwell and Virginia Woolf at some length — and on a more contemporary note, I’d be happy to talk your ear…
Though it has sad and even bitter undertones, Pure Confidence is essentially a comedy. The central figure is one we recognize from myth and folklore: the trickster — in this case, a jockey named Simon Cato who has an almost magical ability with horses. Small in stature, he’s big in…
House With No Walls. There’s a special category of pundit: the black conservative, those darlings of the Republican Party who profit hugely by attacking other African-Americans. The protagonist of Thomas Gibbons’s play is a more thoughtful and credible version of this kind of talker, a brilliant historian named Cadance who…
As I watched The Light in the Piazza, I momentarily stopped being a critic. I didn’t try to assess what I was seeing; I just sat back agog — and yes, that funny old word fits exactly — and entranced, letting this marvelous musical happen to me. There’s so much…
Although it’s filled with George Bernard Shaw’s usual spot-on analysis, as well as a fair share of his parody and wit, Mrs. Warren¹s Profession is an early and far-from-perfect piece of theater. It’s talky — that goes without saying — and peopled by characters who seem intended more to illustrate…
A House With No Walls. There’s a special category of pundit: the black conservative, those darlings of the Republican Party who profit hugely by attacking other African-Americans. The protagonist of Thomas Gibbons’s play is a more thoughtful and credible version of this kind of talker, a brilliant historian named Cadance…
It feels as if Boulder’s Dinner Theatre has opened the doors and let in a great whoosh of invigorating air. Sure, the blocky old interior is the same, and the food hasn’t changed in decades. And yes, many of the cast members are familiar, because BDT is perhaps the last…
The premise of Frame 312 should be fascinating. Playwright Keith Reddin postulates that the 22-second Abraham Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy’s assassination that was minutely examined by the Warren Commission had been edited, and that an excised frame — frame 312 — shows the president’s head slamming backward, indicating…
Issues of race in America are so intensely fraught, convoluted, personalized and wrapped in ego, self-righteousness, guilt, rage, self-pity, anger, class and confusion that it’s a wonder black and white can even talk to each other anymore — and in many important ways, they can’t. A white professor uses the…
The Perfect Party. Tony, the protagonist, is a middle-aged professor, steeped in American history and literature. He has quit his job in pursuit of a single overwhelming passion — to host the perfect party — and has invited Lois, a critic from a “major New York newspaper,” to witness and…
Realism doesn’t work with Tennessee Williams, nor do most kinds of stylization. His work requires a passionate, heightened, over-the-top romanticism from both cast and director. Unless you’re swept away by the magic of the language, by the hyper-inflated and hugely sexualized emotion, these plays can seem hyperbolic and dated –…
I’ve been worrying about Frankie and Johnny all day, trying to figure out whether or not they’ll stay together. Which is odd, because they’re a fictitious couple dreamed up by playwright Terrence McNally in his Frankie and Johnny at the Clair de Lune and brought to life by Emily Paton…
I know that August Wilson is a great playwright in the same way I know that Notre Dame is a majestic cathedral, but whenever I re-encounter his work, I find myself trying to figure out exactly why it’s so great. In past reviews, I’ve used words like “rich” and “multi-layered”…
Clue: the Musical. The pleasure of this Country Dinner Playhouse production of Clue: the Musical is that it boasts a truly outstanding cast. Which is good, since the music is serviceable rather than clever or melodious, and this is less a show than a big, cheerful game. Cutouts of the…
In Diversions and Delights, Germinal Stage actor-director Ed Baierlein gives us a broken Oscar Wilde. The man who delighted in shocking London, the poseur who walked along the Strand holding a flower, the writer who told an American customs official that he had nothing to declare but his genius, the…
A.R. Gurney is both a gentle man and a gentleman. He’s the product of an upper-crust WASP family, an echelon of society he’s delineated with irony, wistfulness and affection in many early plays, including The Dining Room. But he’s also interested in politics, as is clear in 1992’s The Fourth…
