Reviews for Capital T Theatre Performances
Review: Hand to God by Capital T Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 22, 2016
Jason’s friend Tyrone, orange, big-eyed, and suspiciously Muppet-like, eventually takes over entirely, like the voice of addiction promising wholeness if you just follow the plan of action. This breaks out in a steaming milieu of exploding lust and throwdown sex.
Just when the community thought Mark Pickell's Capital T Theatre had reached a plateau with the spectacular Trevor, it tops itself with Robert Askins' play Hand to God, playing now at the Hyde Park Theatre. The work defies categorization, having components of horror, comedy, and tragedy. It involves a church youth group and a peculiar hand puppet made in the group that starts speaking with a scatological mind of its own. Demon possession is …
You’ve Got to Behave: An Analysis of Capital T’s production of TREVOR
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on June 02, 2016
Trevor has hope and faith and keeps dealing with the simple-minded humans because he knows his day will come. Because America loves an underdog.
“Humor is tragedy plus time,” or is it “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” or is it “Tragedy plus time equals Comedy?” This old witticism has been attributed to many different personalities including Carol Burnett, Steve Allen and Mark Twain. I suspect, however, that the basic truth behind this observation is much older than all three of these potential sources. Trevor by Nick Jones is a comedic adaptation of a tragic event that occurred on …
Review: Trevor by Capital T Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 22, 2016
TREVOR takes the audience on a wild ride piloted by a four-star cast that makes no promise of setting them down gently. It's for anyone who likes to scream on roller-coaster rides.
Trevor by Nick Jones is the fictionalization of the story of Travis the Chimp, raised and lived with a human family in Stamford, Connecticut. The family trained Travis for roles in petty media, largely TV public service announcements and local commercials. Travis became a celebrity in his town. Travis grew up, as members of every species do, and became a surly and aggressive adult, also like every species. At this point, Travis’s story morphs into the story of the …
Review: Marie Antoinette by Capital T Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on March 11, 2016
Playwright Adjmi examines history's great irony: the fact that revolutionary France tried to build on rationality to fulfill human potential, but its only dynamic was the raving irrationality of the murderous mob.
Marie Antoinette by David Adjmi presents the events of the title character's life with historical accuracy. The play is not what anyone would call a historical play, however. It is a biographical work focusing on almost exclusively for the French queen's death, not on her life. Capital T Theatre’s extremely well-designed and performed production at the Off-Center treats Adjmi’s play well and brings some literary justice to Marie Antoinette. The show provides …
Review: Marie Antoinette by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 09, 2016
Marie sails with instructed indifference even through horrors, and the circumstances of her death remain opaque and unexplained to her.
Aristotle wouldn't have liked it. His rules for tragedy in Poetics, the earliest surviving work of literary theory, insist that the protagonist of a tragedy should be a great or heroic individual, and misfortune should result from a mistake or misjudgement of the protagonist. And don't forget hubris -- the canny old fellow liked to point the finger at overweening pride as preparing the way for a fall. David Adjmi isn't headed that way. Indigo …
Review: The Dumbwaiter by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 12, 2015
The Capital T production capitalizes on the acumen and presence of Webster and Phelps, who with director/set designer Mark Pickell constitute a sort of Three Musketeers of edgy comedy.
Thin and yet deep, apparently superficial but disturbingly suggestive, Harold Pinter's The Dumbwaiter was his second play, a one-act written in 1957. The production by Capital T Theatre is accomplished, eerie and aggravating -- all of which are qualities that marked Pinter's works throughout a fifty-year career recognized by the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature. Ill at the time and unable to travel, Pinter videotaped his Nobel lecture. In the opening passage he said, …