Recent Reviews
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 …
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 after …
Review: Messenger No. 4 by Cambiare Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 05, 2012
It's high spirited foolery, and you can almost hear Snider exclaiming, "Yeah, and wouldn't it be neat if -- ??" There are plenty of funny but extraneous bits.
And here's the other fraternal twin of the Paper Moon Rep/Cambiare collaboration. ALT always regrets writing 'after the fact' pieces. There's something laudable about setting things down for the historical record, but a theatre friend used regularly to disparage such essays as 'useless reviews.' Perhaps less so in this case. These compatible personalities and theatre companies carried out a new and successful strategy of production. At a time when others are talking about cooperation -- …
Review: The 21 Would-Be Lives of Phineas Hamm by Paper Moon Repertory
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 01, 2012
Phineas learns that by pulling a lever he can arbitrarily enter into a completely new reality, finding himself in new circumstances with new relationships.
Nurtured together, produced in tandem and presented as a double bill at the Blue Theatre, Paper Moon's Phineas Hamm and Cambiare's Messenger No. 4 have surprisingly little in common. They appear the same evening in another of Ia Instera's intricately imagined sets but otherwise they're different in style, in concept, costuming and cast. Fraternal twins couldn't be more different. What they do share, however, is a wistful belief in the power of the stage to …
Review: Civilization (All You Can Eat) by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by Catherine Dribb
Published on February 28, 2012
The audience meets the first character, a hog, played by the talented Jude Hickey. And the rest is, well, an unveiling not only of hogs but also of porn stars, bigots, directors, hippies, self-help-book authors and (of course) actors.
It’s strange. The concept is great, but the play is strange. Just a warning. The show opens with actors engaged in movement who quickly scatter when the initial dialogue begins, and the audience meets the first character, a hog, played by the talented Jude Hickey. And the rest is, well, an unveiling not only of hogs but also of porn stars, bigots, directors, hippies, self-help-book authors and (of course) actors. It’s a strange show. But …
Review: Proof by Trinity Street Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 27, 2012
'Proof' only hints at mathematical proofs. More importantly, it offers us the search for proof in a more judicial sense -- the messy accumulation of facts, testimony and human interactions to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, a version of reality.
David Auburn's Proof plays with the audience, cannily withholding elements essential to the story taking place before our eyes in a back garden, adjacent to the University of Chicago. The first of those elements arrives after a lengthy gentle conversation between a relaxed, reassuring professor of mathematics and his earnest, worried daughter. Similar to an instruction to divide by the square root of -1, it obliges new rules upon us, sending us off into the …