A HITCH IN THE BOURNE LEGACY It's a shame that Matthew Bourne's narrative began to fizzle out in the second act of his Sleeping Beauty, for up to then this extraordinarily imaginative and en…
MUSICAL THEATRE GUILD GOES TO TOWN "Charming" doesn't begin to describe Musical Theatre Guild's offering of the 1953 musical Wonderful Town. Even with a recent 2003 Broadway outing starring …
WHAT'S FUNNIER THAN MURDER? As a critic I'm embarrassed to gush but I must confess I gave my first standing ovation last night to honor Jefferson Mays who plays all nine unfortunate members …
EXPERIMENT SANS CONTROL GROUP In 2012, Tokyo-based company Faifai decided to bring its 2009 movement-and-language assembly Anton, Neko, Kuri to international audiences. In a move she rev…
LEGENDS OF THE HOMELESS As the title suggests, Naomi Iizuka’s uncompromising drama exposes snapshots of the urban underbelly. It focuses, so to speak, on homeless kids, prostitutes and…
GET THE HOOK The story of Peter Pan, about that mischievous little flying boy who doesn't want to grow up, has been told in numerous forms since J.M. Barrie's 1904 play and subsequent 1911 n…
TWEE OF KNOWLEDGE New York downtowner Young Jean Lee’s 2011 rock concert-with-monologues We’re Gonna Die begins very well " at Wednesday’s Los Angeles premiere, a horrifyin…
OVER THE MOON A big top with a 13-meter stage, despite its yawning spatial dimensions, hardly seemed big enough to contain the amount of sheer artistry, astounding gymnastic physicality, sla…
NOTHING IF NOT INTENSE The night their shelter burns down, two homeless Iraqi war veterans, Horace and Alicia, both suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, are given vouchers to stay …
CHEAPENED BY THIS DOZEN Words such a "tolerance" and "acceptance" are bandied about as America continues a national dialogue on race, oversimplifying the subject of prejudice. Sadly, politic…
STROP THE PRESSES! A NEW RAZOR-SHARP BARBER COMES TO TOWN Gioachino Rossini’s frolicsome 1816 comic opera The Barber of Seville is superbly realized with ebullience and verve in …
A BEAUTIFUL ADAPTATION The British indie My Beautiful Laundrette was praised when it came out for its multi-layered portrait of the immigrant experience, and is now best remembered for Danie…
FOR THE RECORD With only a matinee remaining today, it’s soon to be history, but this River North Dance Chicago is offering some stunning steps at the Harris Theater in their annual fa…
A NEST OF VIPERS Don't stop the presses. Yet another blatant spin-off (if not rip-off) of August: Osage County has splattered on the boards. What the world needs beyond peace and prosperity,…
LIKING THIS LIKENESS Writer/producer/director Daniel Rover Singer's A Perfect Likeness imagines a meeting between Charles Dickens and Charles Dodgson–better known by the alias, Lewis C…
THE HAM IN WINTER Here's a show that means well, but which somehow falls a little short of expectations. It's actually somewhat difficult to put one's finger on why: By rights, the p…
TWO PLAYS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE Many plays begin comically and end in tragedy. Rarely though does the trajectory go in the other direction, as it does with Fredrik Brattberg's fascinating, mu…
THE SHACKLES OF RADIO ARE LOOSENED A BIT FOR THE STAGE Michael Gambon is tremendous in Trevor Nunn's staging of Samuel Beckett's radio play All That Fall. The drama, first performed on BBC r…
SNUFFING OUT SNOBBERY Preferring acting over setting, Gale Childs Daly's joyously theatrical adaptation of Charles Dickens' coming-of-age masterpiece uses six actors to play almost 40 charac…
SIRRAH, NO Cyrano de Bergerac is the story of a fearless, witty, charismatic romantic whose grotesque nose prevents him from pursuing Roxanne, the woman he loves. Roxanne is smitten by Chris…
WAITING FOR GODYSSEUS Consider the last four suitors of Odysseus’s grass widow, Queen Penelope of Ithaca. Clad in Speedos, the men have gathered their dwindling numbers for the las…
ON A WING AND A PRAYER The original 1938 Broadway production of Rodgers and Hart's I Married an Angel (choreographed by George Balanchine and directed by newcomer Joshua Logan no less) ran a…
ROGUE MACHINE'S PRODUCTION KEEPS SCRIPT FROM FALLING In Deanna Jent's Falling, a mom is reaching burnout: Her 18-year-old autistic son is consuming her time, her marriage is shaky, her mothe…
SOUTHERN NOIR The narrative of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian orbits a murder in 1964 Jackson, Mississippi. Susan Perch (Amy Madigan) kicks her husband Bill (Ed Harris), a respected dentist, o…
ROCK AND ROLL DREAM (MAYBE, IF YOUR DREAM IS VERY SMALL) Becoming a rock star is a uniquely American dream. And who wouldn't want to live a life of rock and roll excess and decadence?Â�…