OFF AND ON Once again, I talk to a troupe of foreign artists, and once again, apart from the art, there’s an utter lack of coherent understanding between their world and mine. It&#…
NOISE IS OFF It is 1944 in a field near a watering hole in Kent, England. A strapping, fine-looking, and masculine young man purveys the view and strips off his shirt. Another young man ente…
REAL TERROR IN THE AIR AND IN THE THEATER If this play doesn't make you want to travel by train instead of by air, nothing will. Here's a performance project (credited to creators Bob Be…
HAUNTED BY EXPOSITION Last October, Hollywood stuntman Jon Braver put up Delusion, a much-celebrated high-end haunted house. One of Mr. Braver’s purposes with this project, which h…
THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A DANE The Globe Theater of London brings its touring production of Shakespeare's tale of the Melancholy Great Dane to the Michael Schimmel Center, and one is tempted t…
GARY GRIFFIN CREATES A TRIUMPHANT MASTERPIECE AT CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE Rare is the theatrical experience that is so haunting and so achingly beautiful that your soul actually feels caressed an…
THIS ODD INTERPRETATION, AS WITH ORPHEUS HIMSELF, FAILS TO LEAD US TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING Sarah Ruhl is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright known for creating poetic, non-linear contem…
MEMORIES MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH Freshly Fallen Snow, by Chicago Dramatists' resident playwright M. E. H. Lewis, builds its plot upon a recent scientific advancement:Â the possibi…
COSPLAYING WITH THE BARD A delightful dash through Shakespearean tropes is now the two hours' traffic of The Connelly Theater stage. Siblings separated in a tempest, long lost lovers, conjoi…
MAID IN HOLLYWOOD The history of people of color on the screen is complicated, to say the least. The great Hattie McDaniel was hurt and bewildered by criticism from some in her own community…
IN LOVE OR IN LOVE WITH BEING IN LOVE Playwright Kristen Vangsness' intriguing, but ultimately frustrating comedy features as its center a gal who makes the mistake of confusing love with, w…
GIVE UP THE GHOST AND GIVE US WHAT'S REAL The multi-hyphenate J.B. Priestley (Author-Novelist-Playwright-Critic-Essayist-Political Commentator) commented, "Comedy, we may say, is society pro…
SHOUTING FOR THE MAJORITY In the wake of Occupy Wall Street and the rise of the 99%, Henrik Ibsen's 1882 political drama An Enemy of the People crackles with contemporary relevance. Manhatta…
PASSION IN A POOL It took Ovidius Naso, a 1st century Roman poet, to do full justice to Greek myths. Metamorphoses assembled a panoply of gods, heroes and mortals into 15 books of Latin hexa…
KIDS KILL THE DARNEDEST THINGS Much has been made recently of the physical and psychological dangers of bullying and hazing. Less is said of their value as a teaching element that makes …
WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLDFISH As a rising star in San Diego’s theater scene, Cygnet put a lot of eggs in one basket in producing Mistakes Were Made. Fortunately, they invested in the ri…
A PUB CRAWL FROM FOLKLORE INTO FANTASY The black-box stage on the sixth floor of Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Navy Pier complex is now a Scottish pub. In these still-dark confines beneath t…
“SINCERE EFFORT” BY A NOSE IN THE FIFTH Sam Shepard's Geography of a Horse Dreamer offers the lyric combination of the rough and ridiculous we expect of Shepard, with eponymous t…
TRAGEDY FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY If you have ever wanted to introduce teenagers to Hamlet, the production directed by Leisl Tommy at California Shakespeare is the one to take them to. Staged on …
CHILLING BUTÂ MADDENING We are bunkered down in a ratty East Village apartment: blood stains smeared across the walls and newspapers plastered over the windows so the sunlight seeps in wit…
THE PUZZLE BOX OF THE SOUL Critics should avoid discussing plot in their reviews, but playwright Sharr White has unintentionally placed a challenge before me: because the play is a labyrinth…
BYRNE THIS Grammy®, Oscar® and Golden Globe winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honoree David Byrne along with St. Vincent make their Segerstrom Center debuts in An Evening with Davi…
NOTHING EQUIVOCAL ABOUT IT In Bill Cain's entertaining, stimulating Equivocation, William Shakespeare (spelled Shagspeare in the play) doesn't radiate awe-inspiring genius. Instead, he's a r…
GODS AND MONSTERS Oedipus gets all the attention, what with his Freudian mixture of patricide and mommy love, but an arguably much more influential character in the Greek pantheon is the dee…
THE LONG MEET CUTE If you're inclined to think in terms of film noir, you could very easily give playwright Jenelle Riley's quite charming romantic comedy the subtitle "The Long Meet Cute":�…