Lovers And Executioners
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

Chalk up the current production of Lovers and Executioners as one of life's guilty pleasures. Set in the mid-1660s, this wacky period piece employs modern dialogue (and, sadly, modern profanity) to tell its goofy tale of a French feminist three centuries ahead of her time. The woman in question, Julie, is wrongfully left on an island to die by her jealous husband. She survives and is rescued by a passing ship. Vowing to get revenge, she returns to her homeland in disguise and wreaks all sorts of havoc on her husband's life before revealing her true identity.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Loves And Hours
Old Globe Theaters

The blue-carpeted stage is bare, with a multi-level apron extending to the first row. Narrow vertical panels suspended from the flies will slide in from the wings, at various depths, to define the playing area. Projections will illuminate the panels and the backdrop. The theater and stage darken and the cast of 11 enter, forming a wedding party. The stage lights come up, loves and hours [sic] has begun. This is not only Stephen Metcalfe's play title, it is a wonderful, humorous/serious exploration into what love is all about and those many hours we devote to love.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2003
Love's Fire
La Jolla Stage

Love's Fire examines Shakespeare's sonnets (118, 75, 140, 153 & 154) through the eyes of four contemporary playwrights: Eric Bogosian, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman and John Guare. The results is four distinctly different looks at this thing we call love.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Love's Fire
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

Love's Fire takes place on a revolving stage to one side backed by a screen for projections (mainly of places) and with room in front for a compartment-filled cage and/or furniture. On the other side, a scrim-screen (behind which a pianist will play music from classical to pop or painting will be highlighted) before other levels. (At one point a stream of water will fall between levels.) In between lies the space for varying props.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Love's Labour's Lost
Richmond Hill Barn Theater

With its four pair of witty lovers, Latin puns, dialect humor and spectacular fifth-act party scene, William Shakespeare's early comedy is rarely staged nowadays, being a cumbersome undertaking even for the most sumptuous budgets. As adapted and performed by the five-member Encore!

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Love's Labour's Lost
Shakespeare Theater

It has been nine years since The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey last presented Love's Labour's Lost. Their labours are not lost. It is a terrific show.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
June 2004
Report on the Banality of Love, A
Nova Southeastern University - Mailman Hollywood Center Auditorium

  If the title seems familiar, it's because A Report on the Banality of Love is an imagined version of the decades-long affair between German philosophers Martin Heidegger, who would become notorious for his pro-Nazi views as Hitler climbed to power, and Hannah Arendt, who would become famous for her Eichmann-trial inspired book "A Report on the Banality of Evil."

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
January 2009
I Do! I Do!
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

 Here's your answer to the oft-mentioned question, "Gee, does anyone produce I Do, I Do anymore?' In Milwaukee, they definitely do. They've taken this dinner theater staple and made it into a big production at the Skylight's beautiful Cabot Theater. The Cabot isn't a dinner theater – instead, it's a gem of a European "jewel-box" style theater with two undulating balconies. This elegant atmosphere does tend to "dress up" whatever is happening onstage. However, the basics of I Do, I Do remain the same: a groom, a bride and their marital bed.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Love Negotiated
Swedenborg Hall

It's so simple. Veronica (Jennie Olson) and Richard (Marc Biagi), a couple for the last few years, invite three of their favorite marrieds or almost-marrieds over for cocktails. It's a tradition. Maria (Melanie Sutherlin) and Mark (Tyler Joshua Herdklotz), a nice engaged couple with just a few deep-seated problems, are invited. There's Luke (Thomas Hall), living with the charming Kate (Teresa Beckwith). And, finally, John (Stephen Rowe) and Ann (Savvy Scopeletti) join the group, with their own serious problems.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Two Sisters and a Piano
Nova Southeastern University Mailman Hollywood Center Auditorium

 The Promethean Theater's staging of Nilo Cruz's Two Sisters and a Piano arrives with a pedigree that dates to the world premiere in Coral Gables of Cruz's Anna in the Tropics, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. It's directed by Margaret M. Ledford, who was production stage manager for the 2002 debut of Anna, and playing the eponymous sisters are actresses who played sisters in "Anna": Deborah L. Sherman, now Promethean's producing artistic director, and Ursula Cataan, then billed as Ursula Freundlich.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
March 2008
Lucky Stiff
Derby Dinner Playhouse

 Derby Dinner Playhouse's zany, aptly titled Lucky Stiff, a musical mystery and farcical tour de force, is a gladly received antidote for the winter blahs. With great gusto and split-second timing under producer/director Bekki Jo Schneider's deft direction, the Playhouse ensemble plunges headlong into unraveling the deliriously goofy plot.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
February 2009

 Becky Shaw, by Gina Gionfriddo opens with a most irritating, fast-talking performance by David Wilson Barnes. It's a grating exhibition of repulsiveness as tedious reminiscences are shared with his faux sister with nothing happening, and the word "fuck" used as an adjective every other paragraph.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Meshuggah-Nuns!
Patio Playhouse

 It all begins in the lobby of Patio Playhouse. The USS Golden Delicious bulletin board adorns the wall featuring the day's schedule of activities. Tonight the passengers are to be underwhelmed by Fiddler on the Roof. Sadly, with the exception of Jewish actor Howard Liszt (Scott Kolod) who plays Tevye, the cast is seasick. Alas, no show!

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
History Boys, The
Cygnet Theater

 After nearly three hours, I felt I had spent a whole semester in Hector's and Irwin's classrooms in The History Boys. Alan Bennett's schoolroom drama (with touches of humor) is part social commentary, part academic heresy, part character study, and part finding that one dislikes many of the characters.

On the other hand, Cygnet Theater's work, under the direction of Sean Murray, is eccentrically staged and brilliantly acted. Thus, I left the play with strongly mixed emotions.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Killer Joe
Compass Theater

 Any comment I make about the Smith family will make me out to be a snob. They live in a trailer just outside Dallas. Sharla Smith (Judy Bauerlein-Mitchell) hasn't cleaned it in years, nor has she gotten any help from Ansel (Mike Sears), her husband. Her stepkids, 22-year-old Chris (Joe Baker), a real piece of work, and his 20-year-old sister Dottie (Amanda Cooley Davis), cute as a button, are not much help. Yes, the Smith family has problems. They are short on cash and intelligence and long on dreams they cannot fulfill.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Shipwrecked! An Entertainment
North Coast Repertory Theater

 Donald Margulies' Shipwrecked! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis De Rougemont (As Told by Himself) tells it all. There is a wonderful delight in discovering that you have been completely and utterly taken in by a con. Louis De Rougemont is a brilliant con artist. Intercontinental communication at the end of the 19th century took a bit of time. He was able to convince a lot of people of his grand exploits.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Slasher
Actors Theater of Louisville

 There's much to savor in Allison Moore's Slasher, a comedy about those cheesy horror films in which screaming girls cornered in old empty houses get massacred in various and sundry perverse ways.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Pride and Prejudice
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

Does the world really need another stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice? Probably not, but that doesn't prevent us from enjoying the wonderful adaptation by Milwaukee Repertory Theater Artistic Director Joe Hanreddy and noted stage director J.R, Sullivan.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Miss Julie
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 Two terms ago, as director, Andrei Malaev-Babel turned an Henri Bergson drama, in the forefront of its time for establishing realism in France, into a 19th century melodrama with asides and exaggerated acting styles. Now he has taken a drama typifying August Strindberg's extension of realism into naturalism and, except for sexual matter dictated by the text, confused much of Miss Julie with its writer's later departures from representational drama.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Frost/Nixon
Ahmanson Theater

 History begins in tragedy and ends in satire, goes the saying. In playwright Peter Morgan's hands, though, history turns into sentimental mush.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Stitching
Lillian Theater

 Like a bratty kid mouthing profanities, Scottish playwright Anthony Neilson delights in trying to shock and enrage audiences. A case in point is his 2002 play , Stitching, which has come to Los Angeles after a stormy but successful run in New York. The two-character drama is a study in sadomasochistic sex tinged with love.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Hard Weather Boating Party, The
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Playwright Naomi Wallace's laudable intention to throw light upon the long-standing environmental degradation and human suffering caused by chemical industries in Louisville's Rubbertown neighborhood inspired. The Hard Weather Boating Party. This fourth play in the 33rd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville falls far short, alas, of its noble goal.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Posthumously Speaking
Westminster Theater

 Posthumously Speaking is receiving its world premiere at Westminster Theatre under the direction of Susan Murphy. The work is penned by Robert I. Landis. It opens with a monologue by Gabriel (Tom Haine). Yes! That Gabriel! He is, of course, in a white suit with white accessories and a dash of almost invisible sparkles.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Wild Blessings
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Wild Blessings: A Celebration of Wendell Berry, the sixth and final full-length work in this year's 33rd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, is a gorgeously conceived tribute to the Kentucky farmer/poet/novelist/essayist renowned, as well, for his environmental concerns.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Romeo and Juliet
Met Theater

 "There are no experts in Shakespeare. All of us, if we read intelligently and without fear, have the right to our own Shakespeare, whether we love him, loathe him, are bored by his plays, or believe them to be the most compelling expression of genius ever written. There is no authority that can place the seal of authenticity on Shakespeare. Each of the many institutions and individuals -- myself included -- who produce, edit, and play Shakespeare offer only an interpretation of a constantly challenging and changing text."

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Pavilion, The
Off-Broadway Theater

 Playwright Craig Wright demands something slightly different from the audience in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, The Pavilion. Instead of allowing us to get completely wrapped up in the play's two main characters, Wright demands that the audience examines its own lives – right then, right there in the theater. Therefore, The Pavilion can wind up being a somewhat unsettling experience. Its unusual approach may not satisfy in the same way a more traditional treatment might do.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Mauritius
Pasadena Playhouse

 A tough, smart and cynical take on American morality, Mauritius is one of the best productions to be seen in Los Angeles in many a day. Originally produced in Boston, then honed in New York at the Manhattan Theater Club in 2007, the play deals with five people vying for control of two of the most valuable stamps on the philatelic market today.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Ten-Minute Plays (2009)
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Two anticipated features of each year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville are a themed anthology showcasing ATL's vibrant young Acting Apprentice Company and three Ten-Minute Plays, in which selected apprentices display their talents.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Love, Sex and the IRS
Sunshine Brooks Theater

 The lovely young couple is frolicking on the couch. They appear to be so in love. He is Leslie Carroll Arthur (Michael Phillip Thomas), and she is Kate (Elisabeth Rebel), a perfect couple. Well, almost.

Leslie has been seriously dating Connie (Haley Palmer) and she, Kate, is about to be married to Jon Trachtman (William Parker Shore), Leslie's roommate. That's when prolific playwrights Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore's Love, Sex and the IRS starts to get complicated.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Guys and Dolls
Nederlander Theater

 Broadway is back, not the struggling one of 2009 but the uniquely flavorful Broadway of the '30's in this cleverly reconceived version, by director Des McAnuff which takes Guys & Dolls from its original '50s to the actual time that Damon Runyon wrote his "Musical Fable of Broadway" and (as reinvented for stage by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling) lovingly encapsulated such irresistible, idiosyncratic denizens like Liver Lips Louie, Augie the Ox, Brandy Bottle Bates, Society Max, Scranton Slim, Joey Biltmore, The Greek, Harry the Horse (you've got to hear Jim Walton's equine laugh), a

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage
Abrons Arts Center - Harry de Jur Playhouse

Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, by James Craig, starts with three scholars talking about "Beowulf." Then the music (by Dave Malloy) starts -- it's thunk-a-thunk and dreary, slow and boring, all minor dissonance -- like a bad German expressionistic band from 1927. I'm sure that's what they intended, but it doesn't work for me as entertainment.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 Such energetic, entertaining fun! Since seeing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat decades ago while attending an American Theater Association convention, shortly after the musical opened on Broadway, I've never been a particular fan of Joseph. But lately I've become a very happy viewer of collaborations between Kyle Turoff, director, and Dewayne Barrett, choreographer. Put together, putting together Joseph, they've made me look forward to another visit to the Apple when the American Theater Critics Association meets in Sarasota, end of April into May.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Ladies Man, The
Geva Theater - Mainstage

 Act 2 of The Ladies Man, adapted by Charles Morey from Tailleur pour Dames by Georges Feydeau, has quite a few laughs. There's much in Feydeau that is just too good to kill, no matter how ineffective the production or how damaging the adaptation. But Morey's well-cast, much traveled and repeated reworking of the great French farceur's first success doesn't make much sense (not even comic sense) and is deliberately directed to produce cynical-looking shtick.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Glass Menagerie, The
New Theater

More than 60 years after its 1944 debut, The Glass Menagerie still has the power to move, as New Theater in Coral Gables shows. Under artistic director Ricky J. Martinez, the play gets an involving, ultimately haunting production.

Today's audience and the Tennessee Williams characters of the Great Depression both are operating in difficult economic times amid wars abroad, but this production succeeds with on-the-money performances and imaginative staging, not historical parallels.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Waiting for Godot
The Light Box

Mad Cat Theater Company's artistic director, Paul Tei, told the Saturday night Miami audience he'd gotten the idea to mount Waiting for Godot scant weeks before as he watched television coverage of a desperate New Orleans isolated after Hurricane Katrina.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
How I Became a Pirate
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts: Todd Wehr Theater

A comical group of dim-witted pirates take a young boy on the ride of his life in How I Became a Pirate, a musical based on a book of the same title by author Melinda Long. The show is being produced by First Stage Children's Theater, Milwaukee's largest and best-known children's theater company.

After hoisting the Jolly Roger, the pirates display their own jolly talents, which include singing, dancing and playing an impressive variety of musical instruments. The show goes full-throttle as the pirates teach young Jeremy the basics of their life.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Spider's Web, The
Coronado Playhouse

 Agatha Christie is an institution. She has written 80 detective novels, many featuring Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple. Her collected sales total approximately $4 billion. Only the Bible has sold more copies. Her books have been translated into at least 56 languages. Did you know she wrote romances under the name Mary Westmascott? It's a wonder that she had time for two husbands...well, both were philanderers. Her The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on November 25, 1952 and is still running.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Murder Among Friends
PowPAC

 What better way to celebrate a New Year's Eve then to have the perfect murder? That is exactly what the characters in Bob Barry's Murder Among Friends have done. In fact their plans are exactly alike down to every detail as wife plans hubby's demise and he hers.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Psychopathia Sexualis
Compass Theater

 Richard von Krafft-Ebing, an Austro-German sexologist and psychiatrist, wrote "Psychopathia Sexualis" in 1886. The book contained studies on sexual perversity. 110 years later John Patrick Shanley wrote Psychopathia Sexualis, a play exploring one such perversity - the inability to have sex without a pair of argyle socks close by. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Rabbit Hole
North Coast Repertory Theater

Life is a continuing series of events. Are they random or interconnected? The dog runs out of the yard and the kid chases after it. In the case of four-year-old Danny, his dog runs out into the street, Danny follows it and gets killed by a passing car driven by a 17-year-old eight months ago. These are the events leading up to the opening of David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize winning play, Rabbit Hole, currently on North Coast Rep's stage in Solana Beach.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2009

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