Gibson Girl
Diversionary Theater

 Seeing a world premiere of a new play is exciting. A play goes through many iterations before it is brought to the public. It begins in the mind of the playwright, who eventually commits it to paper. Then begin the readings, which become readings to selected audiences, followed by a series of rewrites. At some point, the playwright and a director feel the play is ready to be staged in front of a general audience. The director and writer, the parents, pace, fidget, and watch the audience for anticipated reactions to their progeny. Alas, most often, more rewrites.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Gift, The
Tiffany Theater

 Backed by Hollywood and recording-industry money, it's obvious that The Gift has its sights set on a commercial triumph far exceeding its Equity-waiver origins. The producers have assembled a top notch cast, many of whom worked with the show's director on his previous outing, the camp musical Reefer Madness whose local success is taking it to New York this fall. But with everything it has going for it, The Gift has some major problems which might just keep it from becoming another Reefer.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Gilligan's Island
TheatrX

 The storm-tossed survivors who were swept onto "Gilligan's Island" will never, never be the same. TheatrX repertory company has launched Gilligan's Island - A New Musical. The Skipper, alas, is forced to spend the entire production indisposed and confined to the outhouse. The rest of the cast, however, make up for his lack of mobility. There have been a few changes from the original sixties television show. Of course it is a musical. Characters now represent the deadly sins, but didn't they always? Mr. Howell is greed, Mrs. Howell is sloth – well, you get the idea.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2001
Giulio Cesare
Rich Forum

 Now in its fifth year, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas is spread over three Connecticut cities this time. Artistic Director Paul Collard picks from far and wide to bring together presentations ranging from the popular to the challenging, just as the festival's title promises. The lone Italian entry comes from the Societas Raffaello Sanzio, an experimental theater group based in Cesena, near the Adriatic coast south of Venice. Romeo Castellucci presents a combination deconstruction and sensual exploration of the Julius Caesar theme.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Glass Menagerie, The
Hartford Stage Company

 Glimmering crystal figurines floating high above the stage, lit shiningly by Howell Binkley, reflect the lucid beauty of the language and meaning in Tennessee Williams' autobiographical work. I've seen many incarnations of this great memory play, but this magical production of The Glass Menagerie is far and away the most rewarding. Artistic Director Michael Wilson's cleanly authentic direction focuses on the sheer loneliness of the characters and their isolation in the mean world of the Depression Years.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Glass Menagerie, The
Glenridge Performing Arts Center

 In Tenessee Williams' classic "memory play," narrator Tom recalls that his mother Amanda Wingfield is a faded, jilted Southern belle, desperate to assure a future for her lame, plain, obsessively shy daughter, Laura. Half living in a Blue-Mountain past where she entertained myriad "gentlemen callers," Amanda ceaselessly nags her son to better himself and contribute more to the family. Aspiring writer Tom can't help but identify with his father, a telephone repair man who "fell in love with long distance" yet remains prominent in a picture on the shabby apartment wall. Grinning.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Glass Menagerie, The
Court Theater

 Updating an old classic, Court Theater's The Glass Menagerie is a refreshing but ultimately unsatisfying production. There's a lot to like and dislike, and it's likely to be a crowd splitter. But shows that have this effect tend to because they introduce something bold or unusual to us, and whether we like them or not, they often are the types of plays that remain in our memories much longer than shows that more or less play it safe.

Kevin Henely
Date Reviewed:
March 2006
Glass Menagerie, The
Rudyard Kipling

 For its 55th anniversary, The Glass Menagerie is being offered by two different local companies. In February, the play will be done by the Louisville Repertory Company, but first out of the starting gate is the Roundtable Theater at the Rudyard Kipling in an earnest, workmanlike production that occasionally catches fire. Peter Howard's strong performance as Tom -- more angry young man than wistful dreamer -- shifts the balance of Tennessee Williams' play to him rather than to his clinging, bossy mother Amanda, who usually carries the show.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Glass Menagerie, The
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

 The Milwaukee Repertory Theater's smaller stage, the Stiemke, is typically reserved for works that 1) provoke the audience's imagination, 2) have a risque‚ or unconventional theme or 3) are more likely to pack a dramatic punch in an intimate space.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2007
Glengarry Glen Ross
6th at Penn Theater

 Rarely is the power of the word executed with such exacting precision as in 6th@Penn's production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. Each actor, under the deft hand of director Jerry Pilato, develops the uniqueness of his character both in Mamet's words and his own physicality.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2007
Glimmer, Glimmer And Shine
Mark Taper Forum

 Warren Leight, author of the successful Side Man, returns to the jazz world in his new play, which depicts the age-old war between artistic and bourgeois values. Martin and Daniel are twin brothers who once teamed up with Edddie Shine to form a hot horn section in a popular 50s swing band. The play opens up forty years later, when time and fate have conspired to shatter the bonds that knit these men together.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
January 2001
Glorious!
Theater Three

 Glorious! by Peter Quilter opened November 9, 2006 at Theater Three. From start to finish, this show belongs to Connie Coit. She takes the audience on a roller-coaster ride through the career of Florence Foster Jenkins, the self-styled chanteuse who defined bad singing. She was a grande dame of New York society in the 1930s and 40s who fancied herself a great singer. She founded her own club, the Verdi Club, for whose events she created outlandish costumes for herself to wear while performing for the club's events.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2006
Gnadiges Fraulein, The
Bath House Cultural Center

 WingSpan Theater's production of The Gnadiges Fraulein by Tennessee Williams proved that exceptional talent can transform manure into fertilizer. This off-the-wall tragi-comedy wrapped in a Theater-of-the-Absurd blanket with a sado-masochistic binding (yes, it really is a comedy) is set in Cocaloony Key, the southernmost key in the country -- think Key West with attitude.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
October 2006
Go Back for Murder
Lamplighters Community Theater

 Classic Christie. That describes Lamplighters' current offering, Go Back For Murder. The set-up, in this seldom-produced play based on her 1942 novel, "Five Little Pigs," Agatha Christie's heroine, Carla Crale (Katharine Tremblay), is intent on clearing her mother, Caroline Crale, of the murder of her husband, Amyas Crale, 16 years ago, when Carla was six years old.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Goat, The
FST - Gompertz Theater

 Celebrated architect Martin is in a position similar to Proteus, Shakespeare's gentleman of Verona, who's betraying the woman who loves him and whom he's promised to, by falling for his best friend's love, Silvia. The difference is that Martin and his wife Stevie supposedly have an ideal marriage and "who is Sylvia?" - a goat! When his randy best friend Ross interviews him for the TV show, "People Who Matter," Martin, a grand prize-winner for his World City, confesses to his commitment in the country. (Note: love vs. honor and city vs.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2005
Goat, The
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

 Only a playwright of Edward Albee's stature (and reputation) could get away with a play such as The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? Known for his preoccupation for "pushing the envelope" with previous efforts such as The Zoo Story and, of course, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Albee focuses here on the subject of love. What are the limits of forbidden love?, he seems to ask in this riveting drama.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
God's Favorite
Central Piedmont Community College - Pease Auditorium

 Churches are thinking about cutting their losses and closing down a couple of days each week. Synagogues are merchandising the High Holy Days, selling tickets at a discount. Welcome to the new Neil Simon apocalypse. In the King of Broadway's 1974 comedy, God's Favorite, the trials of Job are transported from the land of Uz in the era of the Old Testament patriarchs to the edge of Long Island in the age of Carvel franchises and 800 numbers.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
God's Man In Texas
Florida Studio Theater - mainstage

 It's no accident that God's Man in Texas premiered at Actors Theater of Louisville's Humana Festival. Theatrically, it demands dynamic interpreters; FST is blessed with all three. Dramatically, could the title not apply to any of them? At Rock Baptist Church, Dr. Philip Gottschall (sharp-spoken, spiffy William Metzo) stars in pulpit, on TV, and among Houston's power elite as mesmerizing preacher and builder of a mega church cum community.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
August 2001
God's Man In Texas
Horse Cave Theater

 Since it premiered in 1999 at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, David Rambo's God's Man in Texas has been seen and lauded at seven -- now eight -- other theaters. And 14 more productions are scheduled around the country for this compelling work. Warren Hammack, artistic/producing director at Kentucky's Horse Cave Theater (celebrating its 25th anniversary this year) was acclaimed for his role in the three-man play -- where all three parts are strong ones -- last winter at the Hippodrome State Theaters in Gainesville, Florida.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
July 2001
Godspell
OnStage Playhouse

 Once upon a time, circa late 60s and early 70s, a phenomenon literally rocked the nation. With titles such as Hair, Jesus Christ Super Star, Oh! Calcutta!, Tommy and Godspell, the genre of rock opera came into being. John-Michael Tebelak was just 22 when his Godspell rocked New York. This Master's thesis project based on the writings of apostles Matthew and Luke is alive and wonderfully well. As the program states; "the time is now and the place is here." Godspell is truly ageless.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Color Purple, The
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

When The Color Purple opened its short run in Milwaukee, it had two strikes against it on opening night. One: Jeannette Bayardelle, who plays the main character, Celie, was replaced by her understudy. Two: Sound balancing problems made some of the lyrics and dialogue difficult to hear.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Big Bang, The
Theater Three

Theater Three's revival of last season's hilarious hit musical, The Big Bang, by Boyd Graham and Jed Feuer, is every bit as riotous as it was last season. Two of Dallas' top talents, Gary Floyd and K. Doug Miller, reprise their roles as Boyd and Jed, respectively.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

Soon after the overly-miked opening number, "A Hundred Million Miracles," Flower Drum Song settles into its quieter storyline, and we soon agree with heroine Mei-Li in thinking, "I'm going to like it here." That we're never really bowled over by this Rodgers & Hammerstein revival has as much to do with the pleasurable but not extraordinary score ("You Are Beautiful" excepted), and the rather mild romantic conflict in the original book as it does with David Henry Hwang's occasionally too-revisionist, too-spoofy, yet still contrived new version.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 Get used to it. This is not the fragile little Flower of the past; this is a brand-new version, and any comparisons with the lightweight production of 1958 and its subsequent Hollywood version will only confuse the issue. Purists may object to the revamped version, but there was little heft in the original, which was less honest than this production about the assimilation of the Chinese into American culture.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 There's only one Flower Drum Song now playing on Broadway. Somehow, the reviewer for the New York Times seems more concerned with a production 40 years ago than the one now on the boards. Maybe he has a time machine, and that's why he persists in advising us to see a show that no longer exists. The new production is a terrific show about a Chinese girl's try at becoming an American, with spectacular staging by Robert Longbottom and flashy, inventive, humorous costuming by Gregg Barnes.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 It's no wonder this version of Flower Drum Song had a short life on Broadway. When someone first suggested that all these great Asian actors around town (from Miss Saigon) could easily populate a production of Flower Drum Song, it must have seemed like an inspired idea. In fact, some moments in the show are inspired. First off, it's nice to see an Asian musical composed of 90 percent Asian actors.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2003
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 David Henry Hwang has totally rewritten the book for the revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein's abortive San Francisco treat of 1958. PC pulsewatchers will be glad to find our heroine Mei-Li has been upgraded from an illegally immigrating mail-order bride to a political refugee whose father was martyred back in Red China. But there's no rehab performed on the R&H score, which pales next to the oriental splendors of the team's South Pacific.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Follies
Belasco Theater

 Though many other critics have done so, I'm not going to start in on why Follies has never been properly staged because of how tough the material ultimately is (though it's a damn good point to argue and probably true). Better to comment on the show at hand (which critics have already sharpened their claws on), which is a big `ol mess in so many ways but single-handedly rescued by Stephen Sondheim's impeccable gift of making magic even after so many years.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Footloose
Richard Rodgers Theater

 When many of your colleagues are calling Footloose one of the worst musicals ever staged, it's difficult to pipe up and say, "hey, I liked it," but that's my duty the day after catching Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie's stage-musical adaptation of the 1984 hit flick. Hating Footloose would have been easy, since there was no reason on God's green earth to do this show, except to make money, to offer yet another amusement park-ish entertainment on Broadway, rather than a legitimate attempt to do something new, interesting or meaningful.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 1998
Forever Tango
Walter Kerr Theater

 In the case of Luis Bravo's Forever Tango at the Walter Kerr Theater, it takes 16 to tango. And, boy, can they! One might think, if you've seen one tango, you've seen them all. Well, you ain't seen nothing yet (as they say, down Argentine way); there are vibrant surprises in store at Forever Tango. The tango is a traditional dance, dominated by specific steps and moves (always below the waist), and there are many traditional elements in Forever Tango. It's the not so traditional ones that bring shouts of the show's creator's name -- Bravo!

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
June 1997
Forever Tango
Shubert Theater

 The dance is spectacular - smoldering sexuality, clean, elegant, amazingly intricate movements as the couples glide, smooth as silk, into effortless lifts and daring endings to the numbers. There is a beautiful, slow, adagio number with the woman in tights instead of the flashy slit skirts of the rest of the show, and there are two comic dances, one in each half. A great, thrilling dance show, in full Tango mystique, with emotionless faces and smoldering eyes, where men are men and women are women - and don't they know it.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2004
Fortune's Fool
Music Box Theater

 In the case of drunks, most people prefer to keep a safe distance. But the one on marvelous display in Mike Poulton's adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's 150-year-old, 19th-century play is a drunk of the highest order. Playing a rumpled, shabby Russian hanger-on named Vassily Semyonitch, Alan Bates gives a towering portrayal of a man whose world has crumbled on him, and in Fortune's Fool's penultimate scene, Bates performs an extended drunk bit that impresses by how un-technical Bates plays it.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Fortune's Fool
Music Box Theater

 A play the way they used to make `em, albeit 150 years ago in Russia. In classic theatrical fashion, nothing actually happens -- nothing, that is, except secrets revealed, emotions roiled, foundations shaken and compromises made. Alan Bates, as an impoverished member of the household who pays his rent by occasionally allowing himself to be humiliated, bumbles and apologizes, abases himself and then rises to dignity, and, in a memorable turn, fashions a drunken remembrance into a comedic aria.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Fortune's Fool
Music Box Theater

 Fortune's Fool, Turgenev's mid-nineteenth-century play is more of a valid drama for today than most plays written in the last decade. Its people have deep feelings and deep inner pain and find themselves in a moral dilemma. And how brilliant are two of today's finest actors: the great farceur Frank Langella and the amazing Alan Bates, who gives us long monologues without a moment that isn't fascinating. What a privilege to see a master like Bates play a character who declaims while getting progressively drunker -- it's one of the all-time great drunk scenes.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Forty-Five Seconds From Broadway
Richard Rodgers Theater

Following the Brighton Beach trilogy and Lost in Yonkers, it appeared Neil Simon was on the brink of creating a host of mature masterworks. Instead, he's moved backwards, papering over thin material with joke after joke (Laughter on the 23rd Floor) or caught between punchlines to build something more serious but frustratingly contrived (The Dinner Party, Proposals). 45 Seconds From Broadway, however, is the most disappointing to date.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Forty-Five Seconds From Broadway
Richard Rodgers Theater

 45 Seconds From Broadway is Neil Simon's valentine to the people in the orbit of Broadway, without whom it could not survive, who spin the threads that make up the rich fabric of theater. It is also a love song to that humble, hallowed haven for theater personages, the Edison Cafe, fondly nicknamed the "Polish Tea Room" (a take-off on the flashy Russian Tea Room, where Hollywood types mostly convene).

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Forty-Second Street
Ford Center for the Performing Arts

 Tap, glorious tap. You see it constantly in Mark Bramble's overproduced but charming revival of 42nd Street, and it makes you wonder how many shows have abandoned it altogether. These days, dancing onstage amounts to little more than overly literal gyrations, even in classic revivals, presumably because theater creators think that if you don't toss in a few sexual references, people will think it's old-hat. I, for one, am happy to report that this production never gets racier than Mary Testa powdering her own behind, and in this day and age, that seems positively original.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Forty-Second Street
Ford Center for the Performing Arts

 It's all about those dancing feet -- be they attached to the legs of literally dozens of young hoofers, or our own toes keeping time to Al Dubin and Harry Warren's evergreen tunes. Production values are handsome but not quite lavish, with Douglas W. Schmidt's settings running from grandly art-deco to too cartoony. Christine Ebersole, has both comic wattage and a singing voice to hush the house. Michael Cumpsty is an engagingly benign Julian Marsh - so much so that his hiring of goons to beat up a pest feels uncomfortably out of character.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Fosse
Broadhurst Theater

What are "Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries," "I Love A Piano" and "Mr. Bojangles" doing in a show about choreographer Bob Fosse -- the one who smoked and drank and worked himself to death? The one known for injecting darkly sexual overtones into every leg extension and finger curl?

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 1999
Fosse
Broadhurst Theater

 More than three years into its Broadway run, Fosse has lost none of its sizzle. Indeed, the recent infusion of star talent (in this case, Bebe Neuwirth) has breathed new fire into this razzle-dazzler. It has been about 13 years since Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse dropped dead of a heart attack, but Fosse allows his spirit to live on. The audience is treated to a retrospective of dances selected from Sweet Charity, Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2001

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