On The Razzle At The Shaw Festival – A Review
On The Razzle At The Shaw Festival If you are one of those people who subscribe to the mistaken notion that Tom Stoppard plays are dense, philosophically abstruse, and difficult to follow, you can check your apprehensions at the entrance to the Royal George Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake and simply enjoy the Feydeau-esque farce that is […]
The Prom At Drayton – A Review
The Prom At Drayton The slight but sprightly musical comedy The Prom, a modest succès d’estime on Broadway in 2018, rests on an odd premise. Dee Dee Allen (Blythe Wilson) and Barry Glickman (Andrew Scanlon), two stars with solid Broadway cred (two Tonys and a Drama Desk Award) are headlining a musical based on Eleanor […]
Gypsy At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review
Gypsy at Goodspeed Musicals Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Connecticut, known to us old-timers as the Goodspeed Opera House, is mounting a workmanlike production of the Arthur Laurents/Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim classic, Gypsy, directed by Jenn Thompson. The production tries mightily to do justice to what many critics and historians of the genre consider the greatest […]
A New Slings and Arrows Podcast Debuts
A New Slings and Arrows Podcast Debuts Slings and Arrows fans rejoice. A “kind of official” podcast devoted to the cult favorite is now available and it’s a great way to mark the show’s twentieth anniversary year. Outrageous Fortune, as the podcast is dubbed, promises to be a gold mine for fans who can’t get […]
The Ripple The Wave At Yale Rep – A Review
The Ripple, The Wave At Yale Rep Playwright Christina Anderson’s earnest The Ripple, The Wave That Carried Me Home makes great use of water as metaphor. The 90-minute play, performed without intermission at the Yale Rep, strives for poetry as it tells the tale of segregated swimming pools in the fictional town of Beacon, Kansas, […]
Ain’t Misbehavin’ At Westport Country Playhouse – A Review
Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Westport Country Playhouse The Westport Country Playhouse is presenting a middling revival of Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show. Conceived by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz, it wowed Broadway (and me) back in 1978. For this outing, a co-production with Barrington Stage and Geva Theatre Center, director Jeffrey L. Page […]
The Real Poems Returns
The Real Poems Returns To Stratford One of the highlights of last season was Here For Now Theatre‘s production of The Real Poems, a superb one-man show written and performed by Robert McQueen. Here is the opening paragraph of my review: With its closing production of Robert McQueen’s beautifully written, magnificently performed, and quietly devastating […]
Mojada At Yale Rep – A Review
Mojada At Yale Rep The play’s title is Mojada, which literally means “wet” in Spanish, the feminine form of the Mexican slur for “wetback.” The play’s subtitle is A Medea in Los Angeles, so you know things aren’t going to end well. And I’m not talking about the traffic on the 101, which runs through […]
Mahabharata At The Shaw Festival – A Review
Mahabharata At The Shaw Festival Mahabharata, a joint production of the Shaw Festival and Toronto’s Why Not Theatre, has major event written all over it. A sumptuous physical production, spell-binding original music, a splendid operatic interlude, a feverish dance number by an actor representing Shiva, the god of destruction, a five-and-a-half-hour running time (divided into […]
The Gig At Theatre Aquarius – A Review
The Gig at Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton Playwright Mark Crawford has always mixed social commentary with his deceptively light comedies. Bed and Breakfast explored changing attitudes toward the love that dare not speak its name in the strange, straight world outside Toronto; The New Canadian Curling Club dealt with anti-immigrant prejudice. His latest play, The Gig, […]