Near the end of Josefina Lopez’s Real Women Have Curves, an aspiring young writer tells us that as she grew up, she wanted to teach her Chicana elders how to live a better, more liberated life. “But in their own way,” Anna says in retrospect of her mother’s friends and…
To dismiss Cervantes’s epic novel about the quintessential dreamer Don Quixote as an insubstantial story about chivalry is like saying that King Lear is just a grumpy old man’s four-hour rant. Or that Chekhov’s four comic masterpieces are simply boring talky dramas in which nothing ever really happens. And even…
Despite an encouraging beginning, several refreshing portrayals and a few side-splitting moments, the Mirror Image’s evening of three one-act plays starts to run out of steam after the second offering. That’s understandable, given that two and a half hours is about as long as most people are willing to watch…
Can a performing artist, whether it be legendary opera diva Maria Callas or veteran New York actress Gordana Rashovich, subjugate herself to a writer’s intent while imbuing his work with her own unforgettable charisma? Is it possible to be at once transparent and luminous, reflecting a dramatic composer’s fleeting brilliance…
Infused with more theatricality–and more songs–than any other play in the Shakespearean canon, yet lacking a plot substantial enough to undergird the work’s inlaid histrionics, The Tempest has for centuries fascinated, confounded and inspired directors charged with making sense of the Bard’s valedictory. At times a philosophical discourse about reality…
Somewhere in the mad rush to ensure that our children will know more than we did at their age–even if they don’t yet have a clue what to do with all that knowledge–what often gets overlooked is an idea as old as humanity itself: The encouragement of a child’s creative…
You’d think that plays about dysfunctional families and “personal identity issues” would have run their course by now. Well, think again, Oprah fans. Just when it seemed as if America’s collective navel-picking and self-pity-partying were headed for the theatrical graveyard, along come a couple of local productions that resurrect our…
Like any good tragedy, the Broadway musical Titanic begins by introducing us to characters who yearn, Icarus-like, to “fabricate great works” that will confer a larger sense of meaning on their day-to-day lives. Citing such manmade marvels as the Parthenon, the Great Wall of China and the Egyptian pyramids, Thomas…
As the majestic strains of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” play in the background prior to the start of The Complete History of America (Abridged), you can hear some devilish laughter as the audience anticipates a sharply satirical take on our nation’s checkered past. But when three grinning…
If it’s true that the supreme test of any classic play lies in its adaptability to a modern director’s radical vision, then it’s also true that the playwright’s unique insight into the human condition is what made the play a classic in the first place. In fact, contemporary adaptations of…
When the time comes to pay final respects to a loved one, we’re usually compelled to talk about our loss–which means that in order for the cathartic experience to be complete, someone must listen to what we say. That’s the essential concept underlying Jeffrey Hatcher’s Three Viewings, a collection of…
Infused with fantastical characters, references to Freemasonry and enchanting music, Mozart’s The Magic Flute lends itself to far-flung interpretation while embracing audiences of all tastes. You can set the two-act opera on the moon, against a blighted urban landscape or, as is the case with Opera Colorado’s enjoyable production, amid…
You can sense the anticipation building in the audience about fifteen minutes before the Country Dinner Playhouse’s production of Clue the Musical begins. Armed with tally sheets that list the suspects, weapons and rooms familiar to anyone who has played the board game of the musical’s title, most theatergoers seem…
Everything an artist produces is, to varying degrees, a manifestation of his or her own experience. In the case of playwright Henrik Ibsen, scholars have long speculated that The Master Builder was the great Norwegian’s attempt to channel a few of his personal demons through a series of fascinating characters…
When Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace opened in January 1941, stiff competition from radio and film was fueling talk of the theater’s imminent demise. That idea permeates Kesselring’s only Broadway success. Fifty-eight years and several entertainment conglomerates later, though, the playwright’s old chestnut–filled with antiquated references, stock characters and…
Nearly a year before a rat’s nest of tape recordings and a Pandora’s box of kitschy souvenirs became props for the interminable Bill and Monica show, Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde had already earned kudos as the surprise hit of the off-Broadway season. A year’s…
After having paid double the price of admission to a movie, it’s a wonder that some of the Denver Victorian Playhouse’s patrons don’t object to their view of the stage being blocked by a large metal support pole or the night’s entertainment being compromised by a series of clearly amateur…
The greatest comic playwright to grace the English stage in the less-than-fertile period between Shakespeare’s fantastical exit and Shaw’s boisterous entrance, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was a dramatist of great-hearted humanity, sharp insight and exquisite wit. A gifted orator whose political opinions were prohibited full dramatic expression–Britain’s Licensing Act of 1737…
Learning from past mistakes isn’t always enough to prevent them from happening again. The 1978 murders of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and gay-rights activist Harvey Milk, for instance, nearly crippled a city still reeling from the news that former housing-authority chairman Jim Jones had committed suicide along with 900…
After slogging through the two hours of aimless conversation and mildly entertaining lounge tunes that permeate Rick Lawson’s Incident at the Blue Parrot Cafe, it comes as welcome relief when one character finally says something that’s been on every theatergoer’s mind since the play began. Seemingly investing his remarks with…
Begging forgiveness from God and anyone else who will listen, a mortally wounded policeman staggers through the West Indian jungle and bemoans the “Africa of my mind” and “glories of my race.” The mulatto corporal, ever aware that his mixed-blood origins effectively brand him an outcast among his fellow islanders…
As an undergraduate at University College in Dublin, James Joyce once published an 8,000-word article on Henrik Ibsen’s final play, When We Dead Awaken, that prompted the father of modern drama to dash off a sincere letter of thanks to his ardent admirer. Moved and humbled by his literary hero’s…
