Gaslight
Stage Door Theater

 Patrick Hamilton's classic 1939 potboiler receives a first-rate, Broadway-quality production at American Conservatory's Stage Door Theater. The talky thriller, made into a popular movie with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, became the prototype for our contemporary psychological drama, paving the way for such saw-horse vehicles as The Shrike, The Little Foxes and, of course, The Heiress. The term "gaslighting" was coined after the original production, meaning "convincing someone what they see isn't there."

Larry Myers
Date Reviewed:
January 1996
Gaugin
Chopin Theater - Mainstage

 If Gauguin goes to New York -- and it has all the makings of doing so--it will require a powerhouse tenor, since only seven of the score's twenty-two songs do not have the title character singing, and composer Grant Robbin is very fond of elongated final notes delivered at soar-to-the-rafters volume.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Gem of the Ocean
Goodman Theater

 We're all on an adventure declares Aunt Ester, keeper of a Safe House for fugitive slaves. The adventure in this chapter of August Wilson's epic play cycle centers on water -- the Pittsburgh reservoir in which an accused thief drowns, the mighty Mississippi up which Negroes flee in secret (even though it is now 31 years after the Emancipation Proclamation), and the vast Atlantic, in whose stygian depths lie the souls of the captives who died crossing -- or committed suicide upon landing.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Gem of the Ocean
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

 Life is an adventure, proclaims Aunt Ester, the elderly monarch of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. "Elderly" may be putting it mildly. Wise and sassy, this 285-year-old, white-haired woman carries the history of the African-American experience in America. Ester was brought to this country in chains as a scared, 12-year-old girl. She lived through slavery, emancipation and the troubled times still surrounding the supposedly "free" blacks.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2006
Well
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

How often do you launch into something, only to find out that things don't turn out exactly the way you had imagined they would? That, in essence, is the experience faced by Lisa, the lead character in Well. She's a hip and respected performance artist, wearing skin-tight jeans and sporting a short, edgy haircut. As is often the case, her mother, Ann, is none of these things. She is a pudgy, self-absorbed, middle-aged mom. She obviously dresses for comfort, not style.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Fiddler On The Roof
Minskoff Theater

The current Fiddler On The Roof, directed by David Leveaux, is a great spectacle with an imaginative set by Tom Pye, good lighting by Brian MacDevitt, and a mixture of good costumes and anachronisms (village men in 1905 didn't wear Hassidic black and white) by Vicki Mortimer, with terrific (the original) choreography by Jerome Robbins. The great songs all work well, all the women sing beautifully, and, all in all, it's a pretty good Fiddler, and since Zero Mostel or Hershel Bernardi are not doing their versions across the street, it's worth seeing. However...

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2004
Stuff Happens
Olney Theater Center - Muletz-Gudelsky Theater Lab

It's good to see that Olney Theater, a small, country theater in Maryland, 12 miles north of D.C. and 23 miles south of Baltimore, is still doing first rate professional work almost 60 years since I first drove there to see famous actors in straw-hat summer stock and more than 40 years since I later saw fine repertory work there after Catholic University's Theatre Department took it over. Olney has expanded to four stages but still has the old wooden actors' residence and a charming rural setting. And its production of Stuff Happens was stunning.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2008
Misanthrope, The
Boulevard Theater

What could be more perfect than staging Moliere's comedy, The Misanthrope, during an election year? The Boulevard Theater hits the target with a production that scores on almost every level.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Summerfest 2008
La Mesa Women's Club

Lamplighters Community Theater's "Summerfest 2008" features six short plays with a variety from the serious to the silly to the romantic.

I was 12 years old when my middle-aged parents bought twin beds. I thought that was the end of their marriage. They were married 57 years. Watching Robert Anderson's The Footsteps of Doves, under Mark Loveless' direction, brought back those ancient memories.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
George M!
Players of Sarasota

 Look at me! George M. Cohan is supposed to have commanded. So, too, says Steve Dawson, recreating the man who once "owned Broadway" on his road there, through vaudeville and road shows with his family act and finally as star and producer. Unfortunately, one has to look for too long at Steve surrounded by much lesser talents (notably excepting sweet Cassie Abate as sister Josie and practiced Vicki Kite as George's second wife). His "parents" would be too weak for anything but an amateur production like The Players'. There's hardly a pretense of a book and little character development.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2001
Gershwin's Gold, Rodgers' Riches
La Jolla Stage

 Paula Pierson's opening monologue for each act of Gershwin's Gold, Rodger$' Riche$ [sic] gives a bit of history and insight into the lives of George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers. Both started their careers in their mid-teens, and sadly, both their lives ended early -- Gershwin in his thirties, Rogers in his forties. G. Scott Lacy's piano styling and arrangements showcase both the familiar and the not-so-well-know songs. It's delightful to hear the intro verses to the 35 songs that make up an evening of lush romantic melodies.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Get A Clue!
Lamplighters Community Theater

 No doubt that Joseph Grienenberger's Get A Clue! is funny. There are enough laugh lines for two plays, with humor running the gamut of styles from slapstick to satire. The arts, especially theater, are hit with a zillion one-liners. Isn't that what comedy is all about? Yes, but the audience needs a bit of relief.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Getting Any…?
National Black Theater Festival

 Well, this wasn't the Upfront Comedy production promised in the National Black Theater Festival brochure, but with most of the spotlight on the chameleonic British writer/character actor Marcus Powell, the last minute switch didn't seem to matter. Powell's characterizations skewed toward the drunken, dissolute dregs of the underclass and toward nerdy romantic flops or assholes -- with the occasional lout tossed in for good measure.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
August 1999
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
E Meno Male Che C'E' Maria
Teatro Sistina

 This musical adaptation of "Mrs. Doubtfire" provides an entertaining evening. The title, roughly, means, "Well, at least there's always Maria" -- the re-named protagonist. The plot concerns a man whose wife leaves him, winning full custody of their three children. The lonely husband impersonates a female nanny and gets the job of caring for his own kids while their mom works all day outside the home. It is, to mix the national source of my figure of speech, a tour de force for Enrico Montesano, who is a star of Italian films and night clubs.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
December 2000
Eastward Ho!
Royal Shakespeare Company - Gielgud Theatre

 A parade of merchant-class Jacobean Londonites, baskets of fruits and veggies on heads, begins this "city play" that settles down in Goldsmiths Row, where Touchstone has two apprentices: honest, hard-working Golding (proper but achromic James Tucker) and ambitious carouser Quicksilver (aptly silly Billy Carter). Likewise, the Touchstone daughters differ. Modest Mildred (lovely brunette Shelly Conn) is of fine character, a good match for her father to give Golding, whom he then releases from servitude.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2003
Easy Virtue
Shaw Festival - Festival Theater Stage

 As we have come to expect from The Shaw, this Canadian professional premiere of a Coward play demonstrates the definitive treatment of Britain's master of sharp repartee and elegant observer of high society. And what a society it was in 1925 when Coward, age 25, wrote Easy Virtue. The year before, Hay Fever made him a celebrity, and Easy Virtue was a natural follow-up. Like his contemporaries, Shaw and Granville-Barker, Coward tackled marital affairs and male-female relations. Unlike them however, he is not verbose.

Alan Raeburn
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Eighty-Four Charing Cross Road
Atelier de la Main d'Or

 Here's one for the books and in more ways than one: A play, production, and actors so good that one wishes it were longer. A struggling young writer working from her small apartment in New York, Helene Hanff hungers for classic literature of the ages but particularly Britain. She loves books others have loved or, at least, used. So in 1949 she gets in touch with Marks & Co., second-hand booksellers at 84 Charing Cross Road, London -- mailing a request and some dollar bills.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Embers
Duke of York's Theatre

 If you go to Embers, it should be to see Jeremy Irons' sustained, quite realistic performance of what is essentially a dramatic monologue. As Heinrik, a retired general from the Austro-Hungarian army, he "entertains" (with gun nearby) Konrad, who'd been his bosom friend since childhood. Now in his castle-like home, in the midst of the ravages of WW II, Heinrik dwells on the last time they were together, hunting. Konrad then fled Vienna, never contacting Heinrik or his wife Christina. Nor did she speak to her husband from then until her death eight years later.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2006
Enrico IV
Arena del Sole

 Noted Italian Shakespearean actor Glauco Mauri is the centerpiece of this beautifully realized production of Luigi Pirandello's cryptic look at madness premiered in 1922. The story concerns a man who suffers complete amnesia following a fall from a horse during a faux medieval tournament. He is condemned to live in an eternal present: for him, the year 1071. Those around him attempt to maintain his illusion of living in medieval times, even as his wife Matilde (Magda Mercatali) discerns glimmers of his lucidity.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
January 1999
Herod's Ring
Galleria Toledo

 (see Criticopia International listing(s) under "L'Anello di Erode")

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