Crones of Cawdor, The
Theatrx

Through much toil and trouble, The Crones of Cawdor manages to muck up Macbeth and his lovely lady's afterlife. Only writer/director/producer Stephen Storc would think of turning a pot-stirring scene into musical comedy. The witches, I mean crones (Laura Makey, Charmaine Hook, and Candace Taylor McClung), under the guidance and direction of Hecate (Deborah Zimmer) seem to cause Macbeth (Robert Wolter) and Lady Macbeth (Karen Spafford) more trouble in death than this lovely couple caused others in life.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2008
All Hail Hurricane Gordo
Actors Theater of Louisville

Carly Mensch's featherweight All Hail Hurricane Gordo, the fifth of six full-length plays in this year's 32nd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, nevertheless has serious things to say about family ties, abandonment, and responsibility. First, however, you must believe that a mother and father could drive away forever after leaving their two young sons in a parking lot and that the boys would then fend for themselves in the family home without any authorities intervening. All very hard to swallow.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2008
Black Coffee
Coronado Playhouse

Agatha Christie's Black Coffee turns 78 this year. It was her first play, later turned into the novel, "Le Coffret de Jaque" (aka "Lackered Box" (English spelling for "Lacquered Box"). It introduced to the stage her most popular character, Hercule Poirot.

In Black Coffee, Poirot is charged with finding Britain's leading physicist, Sir Claud Amory's (Bud Emerson) valuable formula. Suspects abound, each highly motivated to perpetrate this heinous crime. They keep streaming in and out of the elegantly appointed library in his home outside of London.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2008
Bluebonnet Court
Diversionary Theater

If you traveled in the States prior to the 60s, you probably stayed at small roadside motel quite similar to the Bluebonnet Court. If it had a neon sign, it wasn't working properly. You could pull your car up next to your cabin. You may have even met a Lila Jean Webb or Roy Glen Webb. Welcome to playwright Zsa Zsa Gershick's Austin, Texas, circa spring of 1944.

Helen Burke (Wendy Waddell), New Yorker, Jewish, young and attractive, has met car trouble. She's stuck in one of the units of the Bluebonnet Court. Lila Jean (Jo Anne Glover) runs the motel.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2008
Faith Healer
Off-Broadway Theater

When Brian Friel's Faith Healer opened in 1979, critics debated whether it was a play at all. Instead of offering the typical dialogue between actors, Faith Healer consists of four long monologues delivered by three characters. All the characters are linked. Their individual speeches conflict, although they cover some of the same ground.

The first and last segments are given to Frank Hardy, a narcissistic artist whose healing power is both a blessing and a curse.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Death and Taxes
Sunshine Brooks Theater

A town council meeting can't be much more fun than when the whole council is suspected in the murder of an out-of-towner. Pat Cook's Death and Taxes, the current offering at Oceanside's Sunshine Brooks Theater, involves the audience in the search for the murderer.

Prolific Cook, with over 125 published plays, has written 24 whodunit murder mysteries. The playwright has merged satire, farce and several other genres of humor in his Death and Taxes.

Robert Hitchox
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Little Mermaid, The
Lunt-Fontanne Theater

You can't win 'em all. Not even Disney. I'd blame much of the failure of The Little Mermaid (music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Glenn Slater, book by Dour Wright), which seems geared to eight year olds, on the director, Francesca Zambello and choreographer Stephen Mear.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Deep Trance Behavior in Potatoland
Ontological-Hysteric Theater - St. Mark's Church

on Deep Trance Behavior in Potatoland (A Richard Foreman Theater Machine), which Foreman wrote, designed, directed (stage and film) and created the sound for:

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Homecoming, The
Cort Theater

Director Daniel Sullivan does Harold Pinter proud in the current production of The Homecoming. His meticulous direction of this profound but delicate play is impeccable, and his marvelous cast beautifully acts the complex twists of our most obscure yet revealing playwright.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Enchanted April
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

Is Matthew Barber's Enchanted April truly an enchanted production? Thankfully, yes. A stellar cast brings this period piece to life, under the astute direction of Michael Halberstam.

The time and setting is post-WWI London. Still reeling from the war's effects, the residents must now contend with persistently cold and rainy weather. A newspaper announcement offering the rental of a beachside castle in Italy proves too much of a temptation for two local ladies, Lotty and Rose.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
As Bees in Honey Drown
Legler Benbough Theater at Alliant International University

Karla Francesca, as con artist Alexa Vere de Vere, and Rob Conway, as first-time novelist Evan Wyler, are perfect together in playwright/screenwriter Douglas Carter Beane's As Bees In Honey Drown. The play satirizes the wannabees and the people who prey upon them. Beane gives Alexa a stylized speech pattern that has an artificial feeling - perfect for a con artist.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Catholic School Girls
Boulevard Ensemble Studio Theater

Boulevard Theater's production of Catholic School Girls is a must-see for anyone who "survived" a Catholic education. And for the rest of us, this hilarious show is the perfect antidote for a dreary, endless winter. The show treads familiar territory, but playwright Casey Kurtti has a way of making familiar things seem fresh and vibrant.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Duchess of Malfi, The
FSU Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

Exposition comes fast and furious as this Duchess opens, so if ever a production needed to get it out clean and clear, this is the occasion. Instead, the director claims "to bring a fresh and very exciting eye to the play." Indeed, the contemporary of The Duchess of Malfi setting is so startling to look at, it distracts us from the dialogue revealing who's who and what's what. The whole gang of mainly jeans-clad actors fills a long, lemon-walled rectangle with its lime carpet, one rear and one side door.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
November
Ethel Barrymore Theater

That David Mamet wrote November is a surprise. That Nathan Lane is hilarious in it is not.

It's sitcom joke after joke after joke about a bad president ending his term, and it's great to have a master comedian with super timing in the role of the ridiculous ninny. Who would have thought Mamet could write like a team of network talk-show monologue creators? He does it very well.

Mixed in is a glimpse of some of the basic flaws of our country, a lot of it from the lesbian speechwriter (a marvelous Laurie Metcalf).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Sunday in the Park with George
Studio 54

In Stephen Sondheim's dazzling Sunday in the Park with George (book by James Lapine), the combination of the extraordinarily brilliant design by David Farley (set and costumes), lighting by Ken Billington and projection design by Timothy Bird & Knifedge Creative Network, and the most unusual use of words and their rhythms since Gilbert and Sullivan (but faster and more profound) gives us a thrilling evening of theater.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Take Me Along
Irish Repertory Theater

Take Me Along, music and lyrics by Bob Merrill, book by Joseph Stein and Robert Russell, based on Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O'Neil, now at The Irish Rep on West 22nd Street, is a cute, old-fashioned Americana musical. With the colossal naïvete in the romantic story, and a morality that can be looked at as an anthropological study, it is a pleasant visit to a time and values long past.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Gypsy
St. James Theater

The question was not whether Patti LuPone would be any good as Mamma Rose; the question was just how incendiary would she be? Would she sledgehammer her way through the role with Mermanesque bravado? Would she act the hell out of it (with the occasional eccentric musical phrasing and slurred lyric just to be uniquely Patti)? Would she use her relative youth to soften and sensualize the role, a la Bernadette Peters, the previous Broadway Rose?

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2008
Thirty Nine Steps, The
American Airlines Theater

Alfred Hitchock''s The 39 Steps, now on Broadway, is a great way to start the new year. Adapted (or rather deconstructed and reconstructed) by Patrick Barlow from the film, brilliantly directed with impeccable timing and grand innovation by Maria Aitken, this is a stylized melodrama played seriously by a team of master farceurs.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
New Jerusalem
Classic Stage Company

"New Jerusalem - The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation: Amsterdam, July 27, 1656" by David Ives. What a title! What a play! How often do we see a play that expounds ideas, philosophical and practical, that wake up the corners of our minds in fascinating dramatic fashion?

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
Cemetery Club, The
PowPAC

It has been just over ten years since I last saw The Cemetery Club at Scripps Ranch Community Theater, just a piece down the road from PowPAC. Now it's Poway's turn to house this charming play. Kate Hewitt is at the helm, directing a fine cast. Her designer, Raylene J. Wall, has provided a well-lived-in set and a unique and very personal setting for the cemetery. I got just a touch of déjà vu remembering that Wall directed that other version ten years ago.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
Anton in Show Business
6th@Penn Theater

Prolific Jane Martin, who has written several plays about theater, created this wonderful satire, Anton in Show Business, currently at 6th@Penn Theater.

The first question is: just who is Jane Martin? She has never been seen. Could she be a pseudonym for the retired Actors Theater of Louisville artistic director Jon Jory, where her plays are premiered? Nobody seems to know. What we do know is that she has written a host of popular plays over a 25–year period, among them, Anton in Show Business which premiered in 2000.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
Daddy Machine, The
Diversionary Theater

Based on the book by Johnny Valentine, The Daddy Machine has a book by local playwright Patricia Loughrey, with music and lyrics by local composer Rayme Sciaroni. This is a family-friendly musical commissioned by Diversionary Theater. I can assure you that both adults and kids enjoyed the show.

The story is about two moms with their two kids and singing dog. Also, we can't forget the 62 dads; some are part of the cast and many are created from volunteer kids out of the audience.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
European Cabaret
Florida Studio Theater - Goldstein Cabaret

Probably the most authentic cabaret Florida Studio Theater has offered in seasons emphasizes Berlin as a European center of the art. France follows, but at the same time, stars.

A flamboyant four may be in black (peek-a-boo outfits for the women), but their moods are blue and renditions often purple. Exceptions include "guest" songs from Americans like Lerner and Loewe ("Thank Heaven for Little Girls") and Porter ("It's Delovely"), the latter because cabarets often used his songs.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
Fences
Cygnet Theater

Unequivocally, Cygnet's production of August Wilson's Fences, under the brilliant direction of Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, is the best production I've seen this season.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
Grey Gardens
Walter Kerr Theater

If you're a Christine Ebersole fanatic, or if you harbor an unquenchable curiosity for all things even peripherally Kennedy, you may be able to work up some genuine enthusiasm for this dreary, static adaptation of the Maysles Brothers' documentary, "Grey Gardens." Not qualifying on either count, I found myself questioning the critical kudos.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
Christmas Carol, A
Torrey Pines Christian Church

Director Jessica Seaman takes David Wiener's adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol to a new level of entertainment. The incorporation of classical and traditional music, off-stage narration, and the use of much of the audience space at Torrey Pines Christian Church as a playing area brings this classic up-close and personal. The venue, which has been used by at least one other theater company, offers an extremely large auditorium and an ample stage area.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Farnsworth Invention, The
Music Box Theater

Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention is a fascinating play that is surprisingly engaging for this serious look at the theft of Farnsworth's invention - one he even thought of the name for -- "television" -- by David Sarnoff and RCA. It is awfully good writing as the conflict grows, sprinkled with good humor. But it's seriously flawed by the intrusion of anachronistic vulgarities that destroy the reality of the time. It would have been unthinkable back then to sprinkle speech with "the F word."

That expletive came into common use well after World War II.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Pumpgirl
Manhattan Theater Club at CIty Center

Pumpgirls would not be the first play to interweave monologues to tell the same story from different points of view (e.g., Brian Friel's Faith Healer), nor would it be the first play to illustrate the adage that "the wages of sin is death," so Abbie Spallen's new Irish drama, currently at Manhattan Theater Club's second stage, lacks both the thrill of surprise and the kick of heated conflict.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Doubt
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

"What do you do when you're not sure, ...lack God's guidance?"

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Black Nativity
Historic Asolo Theater

When I reviewed Black Nativity two years ago, it seemed to be headed for the annual holiday celebration it has become for the Westcoast Black Theater Troupe. As such, I declined to review it again last year. But publicist Eva Slane assured me that the production is constantly evolving, so I decided to re-review. Since WBTT's remove to the gilded Historic Asolo Theater, Langston Hughes' self-described "Lyrical Poem" is indeed at a different stage, both physically and artistically, than when presented at the warehouse-like Backlot.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
August: Osage County
Imperial Theater

Tracy Letts's powerful new play, August: Osage County, is a shattering three-and-a-half-hour piece of rural drama. But we might have suspected this from his other plays. Letts shatters, and the intricate family melodies in contrapuntal dysfunctional clashings at this family get-together in Oklahoma, is a wonderfully-directed (by Anna D. Shapiro) slice of twisted life with a super ensemble cast.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Cut to the Chase
59E59 Theaters

It's 1898. Vaudeville is at it height, and the winners of the national contest are here, the best in the country. That's my impression of Cut to the Chase. The multi-talented writer/performer Joel Jeske has put together a troupe of real clowns, tap dancers (led by the zippiest tapper in town, Stan Kasprzak), comedians, jugglers, a beautiful singer (Juliet Jeske - who also did the madcap period costumes), drummers, all with meticulous timing.

It is all clean, precise, masterful as these zanies cavort.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Bronx Tale, A
Walter Kerr Theater

I saw the original production of Chazz Palminteri's spectacular vivid picture of his old neighborhood in The Bronx and was knocked out by the writing, basically a morality play, and his performance. Then I saw the De Niro movie. Terrific.

Now Palminteri has returned to Belmont Avenue again, and it's even stronger, more nuanced, even sharper, more thrilling than before. The physicality of each character is so clearly developed that it is a masterpiece.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Seafarer, The
Booth Theater

The Seafarer, written and directed by Conor McPherson, is about a bunch of Irish drunks talking banalities with not much happening.

The entire cast is terrific, with an outstanding David Morse at its center. But boring small talk and quaintness has short appeal for me, and Irish drinking isn't actually funny to me. (For the past five years, I have regularly worked directing and performing at a theater in Derry.) Half an hour into this play, I still didn't know what it was about besides mocking these poor men and their moronic behavior and subjects.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Is He Dead?
Lyceum Theater

Mark Twain is very much alive; the rumors of his death are premature. His play, Is He Dead?, adapted by David Ives, has opened on Broadway, and it's hilarious.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Oh, The Humanity (and other exclamations)
Flea Theater

The Flea Theater's production of Oh, The Humanity and other exclamations, five short plays by Will Eno, directed by Jim Simpson, with Marisa Tomei and Brian Hutchison is now running. Here's my brief rundown:

1. "Behold the Coach in a Blazer, Uninsured": A losing coach talks to the microphones. Dreary introspection -- all whine.

2. "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rain." Two morons in pursuit of the ordinary describe themselves with no effect.

3. "Enter the Spokeswoman, Gently" -- Air crash -- morbid -- some humor, but no joy.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2007
Santaland Diaries, The
Actors Theater of Louisville

It's surprising that The Santaland Diaries, the hilarious David Sedaris tale about his time spent playing an elf named Crumpet at Macy's during Christmas, is just now on stage at Actors Theater of Louisville for the first time. The wait has been worth it, and ATL has another major attraction to add to its two other popular seasonal offerings, A Tuna Christmas and A Christmas Carol.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
November 2007
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

A musical with a most unusual title and the surprising winner of two Tony Awards is about to say adieu to Broadway after a long run. What better time to hit the hinterlands? So it happens that a tour of the tiny musical-that-could, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, appeared in Milwaukee, WI.

This oddly-named musical had an equally unlikely rise to Broadway fame, triumphing first in regional workshops and productions and off Broadway before landing on the Great White Way.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2007
Young Frankenstein
Hilton Theater

The New Mel Brooks musical, Young Frankenstein, book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan, music and lyrics by Brooks, is primarily an entertainment. It's full of old-fashioned vaudeville numbers, catchy, zippy dance numbers by director/choreographer Susan Stroman, bouncy tunes performed by top-level Broadway performers Roger Bart, Megan Mullally, Sutton Foster the amazing Shuler Hensley as the creature, Andrea Martin, Fred Applegate, the marvelous Christopher Fitzgerald as Igor with the movable hump, and a super singing/dancing/acting chorus.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2007
Cry-Baby
La Jolla Playhouse - Mandell Weiss Theater

A special congratulations to book writers Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan and song scribes David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger for maintaining John Waters' raunchiness in the musical, Cry-Baby. Add to that Rob Ashford's highly suggestive choreography and Mark Brokaw's blatant direction. Baltimore, the year is 1954. Black and white TV, Bill Haley and the Comets, Eisenhower, "I Love Lucy", B-47s, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Eddie Fisher, The Chords and The Cordettes were all a part of the scene. It was a time when the kids got their first polio vaccine.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
November 2007

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