Der Wachtraum
Parco dei Pini

 Those who made it to Teatri di Vita's Parco dei Pini theater on a snowy Sunday afternoon were treated to a witty "catalogue of paranoia," courtesy of op.eklekt. These were the Italian debut performances for the Kyoto-based company, although they have appeared on the European festival circuit. Der Wachtraum 2 combined Western and Eastern theater traditions with an eye to cartoons and comic strips and a healthy dose of mime.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Wachtraum, Der

 (see Criticopia review(s) under "Der Wachtraum)

Date Reviewed:
November 1999
We, The Blackbirds
Sofia Puppet Theater

 There's hardly a place in Bulgaria where you can't hear rock music blaring. Inside or outside, like it or not, you're guaranteed a serenade. It's Balkan rock, music to make you modern. No matter you won't hear anything like it in Western Europe, leaving aside the Bulgarian lyrics. It's the idea of modernity that counts. Noted Bulgarian author Yordan Radichkov (sadly little known outside his native country) explores precisely this theme of how to be modern in We, The Blackbirds.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Weir, The
Duke of York's Theatre

 For some inexplicable reason, this work was named best play at this year's Olivier Awards in London, and its 28-year-old Dublin-born author took the Evening Standard honor as Most Promising Playwright. The script is one more in a well-nigh endless parade of Irish pub dramas, and a far from captivating one at that. On a windy night in a rural Sligo town, garage-owner Jack (Tom Hickey) and his younger assistant Jim (Tony Rohr) turn up to hoist a few in a bar run by Brendan (Sean Gleeson).

Caldwell Titcomb
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
West Side Story
Stratford Festival - Festival Theatre

 The Canadian cast, director, choreographer and distinguished design team of this West Side Story possess impressive credits from major musicals produced on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border and on both sides of the Atlantic. The result is a Broadway-worthy production of this year's musical based on a Shakespeare classic. The only blemish in this almost perfect presentation is the singing voice of Maria, danced and played beautifully and with much heart by Ma-Anne Dionisio (Kim in the Canadian and Australian premieres of Miss Saigon).

Alan Raeburn
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
When We Were Singing
Buddies In Bad Times Theater

 This four-character operetta bears immediate and constant reminders of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim's work, with a few strains of Gilbert & Sullivan. The roles are right out of TV's "Friends." Unfortunately, most of the "arias" leave us singing the blues. More uptempi and additional humorous lyrics would have taken Dorothy Dittrich's labor of (and about) love to loftier heights.

Alan Raeburn
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Wolf Woman, The
Teatro Franco Parenti

 (see Criticopia International review(s) under "La Lupa")

Date Reviewed:
December 1998
Would-Be Gentleman, The
Comedie Francaise

 (See Criticopia International review(s) under "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme")

Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Royal Family, The
Samuel J. Friedman Theater

There's nothing like an old-fashioned George Kaufman/Edna Ferber classic comedy, such as The Royal Family, to light up and lighten up Broadway. Doug Hughes' revival of this gem leaves no comic stone unturned.

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Rent
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

 The groundbreaking musical, Rent, is back in Milwaukee after a long absence. The current production is billed as "The Broadway Tour" because it features two of the original Broadway performers, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. They play the show's two main characters: Roger (Pascal) and Mark (Rapp). Mark is a documentary filmmaker who follows a group of impoverished, counterculture artists in New York's East Village. Roger is Mark's best friend. He's a songwriter, a former junkie and is HIV positive.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2009
Lady with All the Answers, The
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

 It isn't often that a play simultaneously appears in Milwaukee and Off-Broadway. Such was the case (for awhile) with The Woman with All the Answers. The lady in question is legendary advice columnist Ann Landers, whose syndicated column appeared in newspapers around the world until her death in 2002. That the New York version of this solo show starred Judith Ivey, a Tony Award-winning actor with many substantial Broadway credits, gives you some idea how tricky this play might be.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
Perfume Shop, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 Considering 1937 Budapest's economy, owner Miklos Hammerschmidt is on edge. Will his elegant parfumerie enjoy the good holiday sales he's been working -- and pressing his employees -- so hard for?

Then there's that other worry: While he's immersed in affairs of shop, what affairs might his wife be pursuing? Perhaps, then, his snapping at his employees is understandable.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
Sister's Christmas Catechism
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts - Vogel Hall

 Put the word "Christmas" in the title of any show, and it's sure to attract a crowd in December. A perfect example is Sister's Christmas Catechism, written by the same author who penned the popular Late Nite Catechism and its sequel, Late Nite Catechism 2. All three shows rely heavily on audience participation. As always, the setting is a classroom, where a sometimes-outrageous Catholic nun addresses the audience as her "students."

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
Life of Galileo, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 It seems to be the 400th anniversary of Galileo's proof that the earth moves around the sun, which is one justification for Asolo Rep producing The Life of Galileo. We also find the play plunges us into contemporary concerns about scientific vs. "revealed" truths.

A Bertolt Brecht admirer, playwright David Edgar's recent translation allows us, as well, to view this third version of the play as mirroring its writer's personal as well as polemic concerns, especially in the light of scientists producing the atomic bomb.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
Marriage of Bette and Boo, The
Boulevard Theater

 Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette and Boo was first produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1985. It was revived Off-Broadway in 2008. Likewise, Milwaukee's Boulevard Theater first explored this dark comedy a decade ago; it, too, is staging a revival.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
Musical Magic of Hayes & Hyman, The
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 If ever a show were appropriately named, it's the "Musical Magic" presented by the Golden Apple as a holiday special. Along with his singing and occasional dance Bill Hayes supplies most of the narrative, starting with that of his career. That relating to his pianist partner Dick Hyman gets immediate (and ongoing) illustration from the man whose performing is as grand as his piano.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
Oak Tree, An
Odyssey Theater


British actor Tim Crouch first performed An Oak Treeat the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005. It was a success there and went on to become not just a UK but an international hit, with sold-out runs in New York, Moscow, Berlin, Melbourne and other cities. All told, Crouch has performed the show nearly 300 times -- with an equal number of actors (both male and female) assisting him.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Eleven, September

 (see Criticopia reviews under "11, September")

Mauritius
Pasadena Playhouse

 When Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius first opened on Broadway, a critic friend scoffed -- before she'd even seen it -- at how ridiculous it was to base a play on a bunch of people trying to get their hands on a rare postage stamp. What did it say about the state of theater that the ancient Greeks mustered elemental conflicts between gods and mortals; Shakespeare's tragedies covered kingdoms, dynasties, wars and the intricate components of human nature; and in 2007, people squabble over postage?

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Almost, Maine
Geva Theater - Mainstage

 Watching an excessively whimsical play like Almost, Maine, it's hard for me not to think of Groucho Marx's explanation when a woman in a rowboat tells his character that he is "full of whimsy," and Groucho says that he always gets that way when he eats radishes.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Marvelous Wonderettes, The
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 The Crooning Crabcakes weren't able to get to Springfield High's gym in 1958 to entertain at the Senior Prom. Not to worry! On hand running for prom queen, four Marvelous Wonderettes bounded to the stage and filled in. Thus was born a jukebox musical, with lots of pop songs but much less plot.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Yankee Tavern
Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

 Over the years, a close relationship has existed between the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and playwright Steven Dietz. Yankee Tavern is the ninth Dietz play produced by Milwaukee's largest theater company. It's also one of the best, thanks to an exceptionally talented cast and spot-on direction. If memory serves, only the Rep's production of Dietz's Inventing Van Gogh matches the highlights of what unfolds in the current production.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Last Five Years, The
Historic Asolo Theater

 This one's been presented in the area so often that I almost wrote The Last Time Around as the title. Author-composer Jason Robert Brown seens to be very popular locally. At Venice Theater, someone has committed to doing all of his work whenever possible.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
26 Miles
New Theater

 Quiara Alegria Hudes, a two-time Pulitzer finalist who was Tony-nominated for her
In the Heights book, has a new play that's in South Florida as part of its rolling debut.

Part broken-family soap opera, part feel-good road trip, 26 Miles, as produced at New Theatre in Coral Gables, perhaps tries to address too many concerns – but that's difficult to determine because the tech aspects are so often distracting.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
November 2009
Twenty Six Miles

 (see Criticopia review(s) under "26 Miles")

Motown 60s Revue, The
Art Center Sarasota

 Celebrating its tenth year of bringing cultural diversity to Gulf Coast Florida's arts, entertainment and allied educational scene, Westcoast Black Theater Troupe presents music that definitively broke down racial barriers. Blending soul music, pop and rock, the "sound" became known as Motown, derived from Motor City, nickname for Detroit. That was where Motown Records, founded 1959 under songwriter Berry Gordy, Jr., brought together black artists and led in disseminating their works.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Next to Normal
Booth Theater

 Next to Normal, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, music by Tom Kitt, strongly directed by Michael Greif, is a compelling, very contemporary, psychological musical drama performed by a top-level Broadway cast of first-rate singer/actors led by the dazzling Alice Ripley as a schizophrenic haunted by the ghost of her son who died at the age of two and has grown and matured in her imagination.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Purgatorio
Off-Broadway Theatre

 Next Act Theater's production of Purgatorio gives Milwaukee audiences a chance to see two actors at the top of their form. They play a cat-and-mouse game that is completely spellbinding for the play's 90 minutes.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Ruined
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

From the moment cigarette-and-condoms salesman Christian (Stanley Wayne Mathis) drags scared Salima (Stephanie Weeks) and cringing Sophia (Bianca Sams) into Mama Nadi's multicolored cantina, it's destined to become another stage in the Congolese wars between factions of oppressors and rebels. Very hard to tell which is which: they constantly fluctuate.

All sides victimize civilians. Mama (Alice M. Gatling), who provides R & R for soldiers she makes check politics and guns at the lush tropical forest's edge, risks being unable not only to thrive but to survive.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2010
Seafarer, The
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

 How much do you bid in a poker game when your soul is on the line? That's the essence of the second act in Conor McPherson's The Seafarer, a play about whiskey, lost dreams, forgiveness and redemption.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2010
Hour of the Tiger, The
New Theater

 The Hour of the Tiger, a new play by a Miami-based writer, gets its name from a
Japanese belief that 4 a.m., give or take an hour, is a time when anything can happen. At the start of this Japan-set play, 4 o'clock is the time of a meeting between a geisha and an American teacher, but soon enough, it becomes clear that for the four characters of this play, 1973 is tiger time.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
January 2010
Triptych
Museum of Art - Auditorium

 Never mind its love triangle (quadrangle?), Triptych is for and about theater folk, even if its author, Edna O'Brien, is best known for novels that have been banned in her native Ireland. This stage work may be best enjoyed by audiences who like playing gotcha with references to plays from earlier centuries. Quick, now: Shaw, Shakespeare, Webster?

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
November 2007
Grease
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

 In many ways, Grease is a musical theater anomaly. It takes a simple boy-meets-girl story, sets it in a tough, 1950s high school, and attempts to make all the far-fetched shenanigans believable. The current national tour of the show opened in Milwaukee after playing in almost every city in America since it began 14 months ago. Recent Grease revivals have added has-been talent to fill the role of Teen Angel, a heavenly guide who instructs a wayward girl. This show's star attraction is Taylor Hicks, the 2006 winner of TV's "American Idol."

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2010
Sirens
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Poor Sam Abrams. The "Rose Adelle" song he wrote for a girl of that name became a monster hit and won him the girl. But his passion has cooled after 25 years of marriage, and one-hit-wonder Samis desperately seeking inspiration for a new hit by dredging up feelings he had for Allyson, a girl he lusted after before Rose.

There you have the premise of Deborah Zoe Laufer's eager-to-please but disappointing comedy that opened the 34th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Six other full-length plays plus four 10-minute plays will follow.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
February 2010
Fissures (lost and found)
Actors Theater of Louisvillie

 All through Fissures (lost and found), Actors Theater of Louisville's cunningly crafted collaborative riff on how the mind works, I kept thinking how much Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and T. S. Eliot paved the way for it. This quick-moving, one-hour piece, conceived by artists from the no-longer-operating Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis and the same area's Workhaus Collective of nationally recognized playwrights, is the second of seven full-length and four 10-minute plays in the 34th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
February 2010
Year of Magical Thinking, The
Sixth Star Studios

 Joan Didion's monologue play, rooted in her 2005 memoir detailing the deaths in quick succession of her husband and daughter, succeeds at The Women's Theater Project in Fort Lauderdale with attentive tech and an achingly affective performance by Angie Radosh.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
February 2010
Ground
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Lisa Dillman's bluntly-titled Ground, the third full-length offering in this year's 34th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, is breathtaking in every way -- writing, plot, acting, direction and presentation.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2010
+30 NYC

 (see Criticopia review(s) under "Plus 30 NYC")

Phoenix
Actors Theatre of Louisville

 In Scott Organ's sharp-witted Phoenix, the fourth full-length play in this year's 34th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, its two characters, obviously though reluctantly made for each other, square off in a distinctly modern battle of the sexes, lobbing words akin to tennis balls that either hit their mark or fail to connect.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2010
Machinal
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 In 1928, at the height of German-inspired theatrical Expressionism, Machinal debuted in New York to acclaim as a fine example of its type, heightened. The idea behind it was to present an abstract of life in a given situation or environment.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2010

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