Recent Reviews
Review: Adam Sultan by Physical Plant Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on March 30, 2012
The Adam Sultan puppeteers pushed this envelope or bent this frame in several ways. First and most fundamentally, the puppeteers manipulated and changed the human actors throughout the play; they did so subtly as they reshaped postures and stances of the living to reflect advancing age.
For the committed theatergoer, this was a long-awaited premiere. The blended live-action and puppet play previewed at the 2012 Fusebox Festival. The preview tantalized audiences with its potential for taking many different directions. The premiere at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre on March 28 satisfied our aroused curiosity with a long sequence of wise story choices. They took us through some surprising ways yet never strayed from its emotional heart. Sure, it was about death, and innovative …
Review: The Aliens by Hyde Park Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 26, 2012
Yes, these losers are geniuses -- once you accept Baker's premise that living in this world and making any artistic effort, however ineptly, gives one a glowing human dignity.
The Aliens by young play writing genius Annie Baker is a dazzling, offbeat oratorio of inarticulate thought and emotion. Out back of a Vermont coffee shop there's a dingy employee break area. K.J. and Jasper, guys from nowhere of consequence, have appropriated it as their own hang-out space, like a couple of raccoons nesting under a deck. K.J. sits motionless for long periods, lost in vague thought, surfacing from time to time to renew contact. Jude …
Review: Wit by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 24, 2012
Edson's creation Vivian Bearing has subsisted almost entirely in the rarefaction of the mind -- a childless, essentially friendless Vestal at the altar of academia. We live with her as she belatedly discovers and experiences the failing of the body that has carried that spirit.
It helps to have someone holding your hand when you look over the edge of the precipice. Even if you've always lived alone, felt self-sufficient and devoted yourself to the life of the mind. Margaret Edson's Wit is the portrait of literature professor Vivian Bearing, a devotee of 17th century English literature renowned for her publications on the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. At the age of 50 this scholar has been discovered to be the …
Review: Wit by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 24, 2012
Edson's creation Vivian Bearing has subsisted almost entirely in the rarefaction of the mind -- a childless, essentially friendless Vestal at the altar of academia. We live with her as she belatedly discovers and experiences the failing of the body that has carried that spirit.
It helps to have someone holding your hand when you look over the edge of the precipice. Even if you've always lived alone, felt self-sufficient and devoted yourself to the life of the mind. Margaret Edson's Wit is the portrait of literature professor Vivian Bearing, a devotee of 17th century English literature renowned for her publications on the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. At the age of 50 this scholar has been discovered to be the …
Review: The Schooling of Bento Bonchev by Breaking String Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 22, 2012
Kurochkin's piece is an assemblage of trivialities, but I'm the first to suggest that my reaction might be because I'm closer to the disabused age and attitude of Frank the TV celebrity than to that of the trim and devoted young members of the cast.
A style begins to manifest itself in Graham Schmidt's staging of contemporary Russian drama, distinct from his graceful voyages through Chekhov. As in last year's Flying by Olga Mukhina, The Schooling of Bento Bonchev by Maxsym Kurochkin features an ensemble of attractive young persons. Schmidt and choreographer/fightmaster Sergio Alvarado move them smartly about Ia Ensterä's starkly functional set at a lively, balletic pace. Props are minimal and suggestive -- for example, some bicycles are suggested solely by front …
Review: Singin' in the Rain by Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 07, 2012
Watson's casting at the Palace has produced an exhilarating variation. Here the athlete is Kevin Oliver in the role of Cosmo. Jim Lindsay as Don Lockwood is smaller of frame and light on his feet; with such a natural grace he's a grown-up edition of one of those balletic Sharks from West Side Story
Gotta sing! Gotta dance! Those could be the rallying cries for the Georgetown Palace Theatre. Under the years of Mary Ellen Butler's artistic direction, this community institution in the elegantly refurbished movie house off the courthouse square has seen very little down time, given its eight-show season and its classes for adults and for young people. The staff and the unpaid actors and tech folk send familiar musicals and plays down the chutes one …