Eurydice
Whitehall Theatre

 Jean Anouilh drew on ancient literature several times in his career, most notably in his wonderful Antigone of 1942. He had also conveyed his disillusion the year before with Eurydice, in which he updated the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Set in a French provincial railway-station snack bar in the 1930s, the play introduces us to itinerant fiddler Orpheus (Orlando Seale) and his over-the-hill, boozy dad (Edward de Souza). Members of a third-rate acting troupe arrive, including Eurydice (Amy Marston).

Caldwell Titcomb
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
Fallout
Royal Court - Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

 Black theater in Britain has received a big boost with the production of Fallout by Roy Williams. The writer, now 35, has several awards to his credit for previous plays. The new work is a stunner, both in the writing and the acting.

Caldwell Titcomb
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Feast Of Snails, The
Lyric Theatre

 Though it's a dreary, rainy Icelandic night, in the great room of Karl Johnson's ancestral mansion, the high, white, modern art-laden walls reflect abundant artificial light. More comes from the fireplace flanked by antique spears. Candles on the long down-front dining table reflect the silver and gleaming wine glasses, set up for just one.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2002
Festen
Lyric Theatre

 Once again, a classic film gets transferred to the stage. Accordingly, everything on it, in it is black and white. Yet the aura of a posh resort, where a 60th birthday party will be held for Helga, is colored by mystery. Why wasn't son Michael invited? Could it be because of his tough mouth, his violent yet sexy relationship with wife Meta, his egotistic bullying? Doesn't sister Helene appear to be still spooked by the death of their other sister? Don't the others hear a child singing, crying? Mostly, why should successful (and invited) son Christian act so remote?

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2004
Fight Among Angels
Parco dei Pini

 (See Criticopia International review(s) under "Lotta degli angeli")
http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/2762

Floyd Collins
Bridewell Theatre

This musical surfaced off-Broadway in 1996, winning a Lucille Lortel Award, and is now having its British premiere at the small enterprising Bridewell Theatre. The work deals with a piece of real history: spelunker Floyd Collins (Nigel Richards) in the winter of 1925 is exploring Sand Cave in Kentucky when a falling boulder pins his leg 150 feet below ground. Some 30,000 people flood the site and the press turns the situation into a nationwide story while futile attempts are made over two weeks to free the victim.

Caldwell Titcomb
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
Foggy Day, A
Shaw Festival

 This appealing souffle exotically combines British high society with American showbiz. The Gershwins musicalized this lively romance using its original title as a movie vehicle for Fred Astaire, then a rising star at RKO. George's sudden death from a brain tumor at 38 saw the project finished by other writers. Festival artistic director Christopher Newton rescued "A Damsel In Distress" from obscurity and had it reworked into A Foggy Day. It became the 1998 Festival's sellout.

Alan Raeburn
Date Reviewed:
May 1999
Fragments de theatre
Theatre Le Proscenium

 The tiny black box of Theatre Le Proscenium admirably suits the claustrophobic atmosphere of two theater pieces, both two handers, so typically Beckett. Life is painful for the blind man and the cripple in Fragment I. Unrelated to the world around them, they have only each other...or do they? In a world where the human voice is no longer listened to, they heed each other. One tries to make music, but the violin he scratches on is fake. The other purrs; he farts, therefore he is. Billy uses a stick to guide the unseeing companion.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Frattellini
Galleria Toledo

 With Frattellini, Galleria Toledo presented a powerful AIDS drama, one based on traditional Catholic imagery that cut through hypocrisy surrounding the conditions victims of the disease must endure. Gildo (Francesco Silvestri) tells his mother every day that he is going to mass but instead goes to care for his brother (Walter Del Gaiso) in an antiquated, run-down hospital room.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
April 1997
Frou-Frou les Bains
Theatre Daunou

 It's season-opening time in the supposedly chic thermal spa where complications become more plentiful than mineral water. From a balcony, four musicians seem to bounce melodies off the colorful mosaic-tiled walls, while staff dance with mops and buckets and the Site Master (Urbain Cancelier, properly self-important) screams orders. Bellman Batistin (author Patrick Haudecoeur, acting like Chaplin but looking like the old Phillip Morris page) must double as a repairman.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2003
Golda's Balcony
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

 A magnificent performance about a magnificent person distinguishes a vehicle that, despite author William Gibson's attempts at an innovative structure, falls somewhat short as a play. Indeed, what is basically a narrative goes all over the map, both literally and figuratively. The "action" is likely to confuse anyone unaware of the history involved, perhaps also people who are.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2006
Golden Boy
Lamplighters Community Theater

Playwright Clifford Odets championed the underprivileged. He even joined the Communist party for eight months in 1935, eventually to be investigated by Joseph McCarthy. Golden Boy, currently at Lamplighters under the direction of E. Duane Weekly, was his most famous play. It led to a screenwriting career in Hollywood, which didn't hinder him writing for the stage. He went on to become an artist and an art collector.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Golden Boy
Long Wharf Theater

 Golden Boy began life as a drama, written by Clifford Odets for the Group Theater in the 1930s. It espoused a sense of gritty realism, which matched the philosophy of this new dynamic group. Made into a film with William Holden (making his debut) and Barbara Stanwyck in 1939, Golden Boy was rewritten as a musical in the 1960s, with a book by Odets, music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams, as a specific vehicle for Sammy Davis, Jr., who was already a star. Just before the first rehearsal, Odets died. After a delay, William Gibson helped to rewrite the book.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
November 2000
Golden Boy
Raven Theater

 I'd even settle for a lightweight! puffs exasperated manager Tom Moody, and in this classic American tale of an innocent violin-player chewed up in the brutal and corrupt world of pro boxing circa 1930s, that's what he gets. Jeremy Glickstein is a pale, skinny, almost boneless ferret of an actor, more often seen playing pasty-faced psychopaths, and the moment we see him, we know that Joe Bonaparte, the kid hungry for escape from poverty and squalor, hasn't a chance.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Golden Child
David Henry Hwang Theater

 David Henry Hwang's latest play, produced in an Asian-American theater named after him, measures the price that change exacts on family. Set largely in a village near Samoy, in southeast China, in 1918, Golden Child is an autobiographical work dealing with Eng Tien-Bin, a man patterned after Hwang's grandfather.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
Gone Missing
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Theatergoers who venture to Actors Theater of Louisville to catch the incredibly gifted, serio-comic New York troupe called The Civilians during its limited run are not likely soon to forget this dazzling experience. In Gone Missing, written and directed by Steven Cosson from interviews conducted by the company, the wide-ranging theme of loss -- innocence, jewelry, pets, cell phones, shoes, toys, husbands, eyeglasses, self-worth, life itself -- is treated with humor, poignancy, anger, and resignation in witty indelible sketches and song.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
September 2006
Good Body, The
Majestic Theater

Eve Ensler brought her one-woman show, The Good Body, to Dallas. Dallas did not reciprocate.

What is clearly lacking is a modicum of market research. Ensler's audience, from all indications, dwells on the university campus populated mostly by idealistic young people coming to terms with their identities. For those of us who have found it, for better or worse, The Good Body has minimal appeal. At a Saturday matinee at the elegant Majestic Theatre in downtown Dallas on a brisk, sunny afternoon, the house appeared to be only 25 percent occupied.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Good Doctor, The
Pasadena Playhouse

 Light summer fare is the best way to sum up this mixed bag of short comic playlets set in Chekhov's time but given an American gloss by Simon, who even contributes a sketch of his own which has nothing to do with Chekhov ("The Arrangement," about a father introducing his virginal young son to a prostitute). Simon frames the evening by introducing a Chekhov-like character called The Writer (the estimable Harry Groener) whose narration links the action. The Writer, when not confessing his problems with writer's block, steps into some of the stories and assumes other personae.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Good Doctor, The
North Park Vaudeville

 The 40-seat theater was packed on opening night for Neil Simon's homage to Anton Chekhov, The Good Doctor. Based on short stories by Chekhov, Neil Simon created a delightful collection of nine vignettes narrated by The Writer. Director Tisha Tumangan brings together an outstanding cast led by Anthony Hamm, who bridges each scene as the Narrator/Writer and Anton and Anton's father in the final selection.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Good Evening
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

 Red velvet curtains, footlights, off to one side a piano topped with a vase of scarlet roses - all set up a typical British music hall. But what follows is not typical. It's a series of hilarious sketches that are thirty years old yet mostly amazingly fresh. Though I've seen them before (at FST, in fact) and heard them often (in the full glory of their literacy) on their authors' recording, I still just laughed throughout a "Good Evening" indeed.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Good Person Of Szechuan, The
Oregon Shakespeare Festival

 Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechuan invites and receives an "un-Brechtian" produc tion at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, yet the playwright's ironic comments on human exploitation of one class by another come through clearly. Here, Brecht mixes his commentary with melodrama. The Oregon production puts broad comedy, even slapstick, into the mix.

Al Reiss
Date Reviewed:
February 1999
Good Thing
Taper, Too at the Actors' Gang

 Jessica Goldberg's portrait of the human condition in the USA is not a pretty one. In her short, taut, staccato-like drama, Good Thing, everybody is screwed-up and in pain. The two middle-aged folk, John and Nancy Roy (Francis Guinan and Shannon Holt, respectively), are school guidance counselors who can help everyone but themselves. Childless, damaged by an affair he had, they are on the verge of splitting up.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2001
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Park Square Theater

 Linda Kelsey, familiar from "The Lou Grant Show" and other television appearances, proves to be an engaging stage presence in playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald's comic, feminist take on a couple of classic heroines. As cloistered academic Constance Ledbelly (an unnecessarily oafish name), she travels back in time to find out the truth about the women who played opposite Othello and Romeo, and discovers some truths about herself as well.

Michael Sander
Date Reviewed:
May 1999
Gore More Years
Odyssey Theater Ensemble

 Washington DC-based comedy troupe Gross National Product has gone bi-coastal in order to ride the wave of public attention whipped up by the DNC. Politics and politicians are fair game for GNP's satirists, with not only Gore and Bush being ribbed, but Hillary and Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Jane Seymour, Charlton Heston, Ariana Huffington and William Buckley as well. Utilizing a sketch format sprinkled with songs and improv, Gore More Years or Son Of A Bush is more likable than memorable, with the humor rarely drawing blood.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Got Apathy?
Brave New Workshop Theater

 The Brave New Workshop, whose satirical revues are grounded in an improvisational process that evolves into scripted shows, has long specialized in political satire. Interestingly, perhaps because our current crop of politicians provides their own self-satirizing blunders, recent Workshop shows have been short on big comic payoffs. Got Apathy? skips the politics for a change, but mines a much more consistent vein of humor. The focus is as simple as the way we live today, with little emotional investment and willingness to go with the flow of whatever compels us at the moment.

Michael Sander
Date Reviewed:
June 1999
Graceland
Central Avenue Playhouse

 Ever since the palace of The King opened to the public in June 1982, the Memphis mansion of Elvis Presley has been the epicenter for the most outrageous celebrity worship that our outrageous nation can produce. So it's no wonder an American playwright would seek to probe the depth of the mania of two women vying for the honor of being the first to set foot on newly hallowed ground. What is somewhat surprising in Ellen Byron's Graceland, then, is the decorous modesty of the playwright's characterizations.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Graduate, The
Civic Theater

 The Graduate was a wonderful film in its time, but it fails as a play, even though the touring cast is generally well chosen. Jerry Hall, as Mrs. Robinson, is all right, with some good moments. She certainly is quite attractive, and, in shadows, accomplishes her nude scene. Devon Sorvari, as Elaine Robinson, ends up being totally "valley girl." The rest of the cast is there, but not too convincingly. Rider Strong never grasps the depths of Benjamin or understand his motivations. Dennis Parlato as Mr. Robinson has one excellent scene.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2003
Graduate, The
OnStage Playhouse

 About seven years ago, under the adapting pen of Terry Johnson, The Graduate, the Sixties hit film, entered the stage. Currently Chula Vista's OnStage offering, the production has many high points. The script has both high points and blunders.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2007
La Gran Scena Opera
Athenaeum Theater

 Under the artistic direction of Ira Siff (who plays diva Mme. Vera Galupe-Borszkh with hilarious aplomb), La Gran Scena Opera Co. really lovingly and cleverly spoofs the foibles and absurdities of opera. The divas in drag have real talent, and the scenes from well-known operas that they choose to excerpt are authentically parodied -- so it makes for a successful match. The ludicrously long death scenes are even more drawn out, the catty rivalry between divas is even more exaggerated, and the costumes and hairdos -- and appropriate accompanying behavior -- are even more flamboyant.

Effie Mihopoulos
Date Reviewed:
February 2000
La Gran Via
Thalia Theater

 For this year's excursion into the world of zarzuela, Thalia Spanish Theater's director Angel Gil Orrios turned to two works of genero chico (short variety). The first, La Gran Via (1886, with later modifications), satirized the delays and cost overruns in constructing Madrid's famous central grand boulevard in the 1880s. Eight women with icon-laden signboards extolled their architectural treasures on as many older streets and locales to a bemused Caballero (Rafael Lebron), who in reality has fathered the new street and a Passer-by (Fermin Suarez).

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Grand Hotel
Signature Theater

 Adapted for Signature Theater's intimate performing space by artistic director Eric D. Schaefer, this elegant, mostly well-cast production of Grand Hotel emphasizes relationships of the "ship of fools" docking at the darkly luxurious hotel in 1928 Berlin. Minus the exuberant dancing enlivening the 1989 Broadway adaptation, which under Tommy Tune's direction, garnered five Tony Awards, including Best Choreography, this Grand Hotel compensates with fine singing, ably accompanied by musical director Jon Kalbfleisch and his orchestra.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Grapes of Wrath, The
Tenth Avenue Theater

 An epic in literature becomes an epic onstage. Adapted by Frank Galati, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath retains its power on stage when directed by Claudio Raygoza for Ion Theater. It is currently playing a limited run at the Tenth Avenue Theater in downtown San Diego.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2006
Grapes of Wrath, The
Don Powell Theater

 The Grapes of Wrath has quite a heritage. John Steinbeck's classic depicts the "Oakies'" struggle in Los Gatos, California from May to October, 1938. The book won a Nobel Prize in 1962. John Ford's Oscar–winning film of 1940 was followed by the play in 1988 and a teleplay in 1991. Playwright Galati's script captures the essence of Steinbeck's hard–bitten story.

Starting with the anticipation of a California nirvana to a cruel taste of despair as reality sets in, The Grapes of Wrath is a difficult play to watch, and a fantastic play to act.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2007
Grease
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 From the opening "Alma Mater," it's clear that goings-on at Rydell High in 1959 will be as much spoofed as remembered. A very subdued teacher and two "guest star" entertainers in story and reality make appearances but take a back seat to Pink (slick-jacketed) Ladies (sort of) and Burger Palace (black-leather jacketed) Boys (greasers). More souped up than their not-so-hot rod, their "Greased Lightnin'" is really their high-voltage dancing.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Grease
Derby Dinner Playhouse

 All through Derby Dinner Playhouse's powerhouse production of Grease, that quintessential musical depiction of high-school days in 1950s America, I kept thinking that this show is just about as perfect in its way as Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend, the classic pastiche of 1920s British musicals. Both capture so beautifully through song, dance, and story the innocence of those times, though with Grease the innocence goes hand in hand with a crassness and laughable lack of sophistication wholly natural to characters of that time and place.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
May 2000
Green E, The
Cafe Voltaire

 I guess growing up in Athens, Georgia, makes you susceptible to Elvis. Comedian David Payle, who just moved to the Windy City from down South, has come up with a scheme to use Elvis' popularity to help save the environment. Thus comes the birth of The Green E - The Environmental Elvis. In a flashy white jumpsuit, Payle goes through a gamut of songs -- the Elvis trademark melodies, all right, but different lyrics. They're all rewritten by Payle to be environmentally conscious.

Effie Mihopoulos
Date Reviewed:
October 1995
Gross Indecency
Diversionary Theater

 Rosina Reynolds and her excellent cast have brought playwright Moises Kaufman's work to a new level in the Diversionary production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. David Weiner's set is elegant: heavy in reds, drapery, and gilded trim. Costumer Liam M. O'Brien provides stylish tails, brilliantly patterned vests, and authentic English barristers' garb. The image, accented by lighting designer Jennifer Setlow, speaks well of the end of the 19th century.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Gross Indecency
Arena Players - Mainstage

 Set in 1895, this courtroom drama uses historic letters, newspaper reports, trial transcripts and Oscar Wilde's own writings to chronicle the fall of the famous playwright from the bright lights of the London theater to conviction and imprisonment for sexual acts of "gross indecency" with young men. Wilde, played with great passion by Stephen Wangner, is quite flip about his lifestyle early on, while at the same time denying the acts with which he's been charged.

Mark Donnelly
Date Reviewed:
February 2000
Grouch, The
College of St. Elizabeth - campus amphitheater

The plot of The Grouch, about Knemon (Joseph Costa), an unsociable and cantankerous old "grouch" who won't have anything to do with his neighbors and expends a great deal of time and energy keeping all suitors away from his daughter, builds upon a series of funny encounters, confounding confrontations and just-plain-silly doings between him and the members of the mountainside community. If his comeuppance and a happy ending for the lovers are a foregone conclusion, it is getting to that point that provides the makings for the merry moral denouement.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Groucho
Westport Country Playhouse

 Frank Ferrante has been impersonating Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx for well over 10 years, and not getting arrested for doing so. In fact, he's won many awards for his inspired and edgy recreation of that crusty vaudevillian, here in the U.S. and in London, and in 1995 issued a compact disk of this play, written by Groucho's son, Arthur and Robert Fisher.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
September 1999

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