All About That Face
The Triad

All About That Face gives us four talented, lively and beautiful women: Amelia Hart, Courtney Cheatham, Eva Richards and Roxy Reynolds, singing love songs and patter songs and throwing in sketches. Wow! A contemporary group of young women with well-trained voices and a comic flair. Solos for each, duets, ensembles, all well written, staged and coordinated.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
O'Keeffe
WaterTower Theater

Dallas Actress Carolyn Wickwire performs a very polished portrayal of the life of famed artist, Georgia O'Keeffe. Born in 1887, O'Keeffe attended the Art Institute of Chicago beginning in 1905. A friend sent some of O'Keeffe's drawings to the famous New York photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, who was impressed with her work and gave O'Keeffe her first showing at his well-known gallery 291. The two formed a close personal as well as professional relationship. Steiglitz, though married at the time, didn't let that stand in his way.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Go to Sleep, Goddamnit!
The Tank

Go to Sleep, Goddamnit!, by The Krumple Theater Company at The Tank Theater, is a rare theatrical spectacle: Mask Theater which communicates with grotesque masks blowing up human features (you’ve never in your life seen less attractive faces), and one terrific dog, plus body language, comic walks, no spoken words, music punctuating everything, sound effects, noisy props, bells and whistles. It’s silent acting by a physically-trained, flexible troupe, but not really Mime— Mime uses no real props—we mime them.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Rx
Plymouth Church

With baseball season in full swing, Milwaukee’s Boulevard Theatre hits a home run with its production of Kate Fodor’s comedy, Rx. The play has got a bit of romance, a hint of suspense and -- most surprisingly, some hard-hitting humor aimed at big pharmaceutical companies.

Rx, one of several plays written by Kate Fodor, got its Off-Broadway debut at Primary Stages in 2012. Fodor is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow and is the resident playwright at New Dramatists in New York.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Suddenly Last Summer
Ashe Power House Theater

Tennessee Williams’s devastating one-act, Suddenly Last Summer, receives an uneven production by Southern Rep. Set in 1935 in the New Orleans Garden District, the play concerns the wealthy Violet Venable (Brenda Currin, awkward and seemingly clueless) out to get her niece Catherine lobotomized. Catherine’s been in a deranged state since the death of Mrs. Venable’s son Sebastian last year on a Spanish coast beach. She is trying to bribe Dr. Cukrowicz (Jake Wyunne-Wilson, cool) to operate on, and thus silence, Catherine’s ravings about what happened.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Hotel Plays, The
Hermann-Grima House

As part of the Tennessee Williams Festival, a one-act evening called The Hotel Plays ran briefly at the Hermann-Grima House.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Lips Together, Teeth Apart
The Athenaeum

Sensitive artist Sally is married to blue-collar Sam. Sam's amateur-actress sister Chloe is married to preppy academic John. John and Sally are sleeping together and think their spouses don't know. The two couples are spending their Fourth of July weekend together at the beach house that Sally inherited from her now-deceased brother. Oh, and by the way, the beach is on Fire Island, and the late owner of the vacation home died of AIDS.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Sounds So Sweet
Black Ensemble Theater

Weddings, funerals and class reunions have supplied authors with opportunities for dramatic conflict since the advent of lineage-based fiction. In Sounds So Sweet, the occasion precipitating the reunion of the Harrison clan in Ellisville, Mississippi, is the death of its beloved matriarch—but don't arrive expecting the sniffling, sobbing and keening associated with such ceremonies.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Something Rotten
St. James Theater

I admit to being pleasantly surprised by Something Rotten. It sounded so sophomoric, and since I’m in the select minority of people who loathed The Book of Mormon,I wasn’t wild about seeing another production involving choreographer/co-director Casey Nicholaw. And while I could have done without the excrement jokes, the oft-repeated codpiece yuks, and the faux peeing on stage, this was nowhere near as cheesy as I’d feared. It is, however, much too long, and the with the exception of a rousing production number, the second act falls flat.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Peter and the Starcatcher
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

“Collaboration” seems to be the watchword for The Milwaukee Repertory Theater this season. No sooner had it closed Five Presidents, a joint production with a Cleveland theatre, than it launched yet another joint project with Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The result? Peter and the Starcatcher.

Without dwelling on long explanations of why such regional theater collaborations make sense – both financially and theatrically – lets hone in on Peter, the Tony Award-winning musical that contains elements to delight both young and seasoned viewers.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Sunset Baby
Odyssey Theater

Gangsta lingo juxtaposed with Black Power polemics give Sunset Baby, the provocative new drama by Dominique Morisseau, its special flavor. The play, now in its West Coast premiere at the Odyssey, revels in language while an African-American father and daughter butt heads with each other in ferocious fashion.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Finding Neverland
Lunt-Fontanne Theater

Finding Neverland is this season’s Lion King; it’s the new go-to show for kids. I saw it at a Wednesday matinee; the house was filled with children and their parents, and everyone had a fine time. This musical avatar of the story is based on the Johnny Depp movie of the same name, and on a play called The Man Who Was Peter Pan.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Living on Love
Longacre Theater

I had an interesting experience with Living On Love. The running time was variously listed as two hours or two hours and fifteen minutes. In fact, it was quite a bit shorter, which has never happened before. Productions very often do run longer than the stated time. This led me to wonder if the play had been severely cut in an effort to make it more palatable. Sadly, as it is, this is pretty much a dud; a comedy that’s not funny is not long for this world, and I’m curious to see if the run will actually reach the stated closing date.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Between You, Me and the Lampshade
The Biograph - Richard Christensen Theater

The premise of Raul Castillo's Between You, Me and the Lampshade—a fugitive seeking sanctuary among strangers encounters unexpected hospitality—has provided laughs since antiquity. Its characters are likewise generic: the feisty widow Jesse and her meek teenage son Woody, handsome-but-dumb officer Max and adventure-hungry tourist Kristen. The plot proposes not one, but two, "drunk scenes" obligatory to 1950s farce.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Herd, The
Steppenwolf Theater

The household upheaval inspired by the introduction of a baby therein generally diminishes after three or four years, while that of an elderly baby—a cognitively regressive parent, perhaps—still carries with its obligations an expectation of eventual cessation.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Thirty-Nine Steps, The
Union Square Theater

The 39 Steps is a bodacious Alfred Hitchcock mix of comedy and romance driven by foreign espionage, currently playing at off-Broadway’s Union Square Theater. With shrewd use of scanty scenery, a few well-chosen props and creative tweaks, four actors flawlessly switch between countless characters. Playwright Patrick Barlow and director Maria Aitken keep this screwball conceit racing at a sleek pace with wink-wink seriousness.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Hairy Ape, The
The Latvian Society

The mission of the company called EgoPo is to convey theatrical emotion through body movement. Lane Savadove, the troupe’s founder and artistic director, had this in mind when he selected the name by combining the idea of self, or ego, with the French word for skin, peau, re-spelled.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Because of Winn-Dixie
Delaware Theater

If you ignore this play because it seems to be a children’s show, or because a prominent cast member is a dog, you’d be making a big mistake. This is pleasurable, heart-warming entertainment.

Because of Winn-Dixie, named for a supermarket chain in the Deep South, is based on a kids’ book. But remember You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown? That seemed childlike and it too had a dog (though played by a human), and it became an enduring theater classic.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Jeeves Takes a Bow
Broadway Theater center - Cabot Theater

Milwaukee Chamber Theater closes its current season with the third installment of its play series based on the writings of PG Wodehouse. Jeeves Takes a Bow brings back many of the actors who have appeared in its previous productions. For instance, Matt Daniels does an especially fine job of reprising his role as Jeeves, the brainy English butler who always manages to get his employer, a wealthy bachelor, out of a jam. His charge is Bertie Wooster (played again by Chris Klopatek).

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Women on Time
Working Stage Theater

Femme power takes center stage in Women in Time, a bill of seven short plays produced, written, acted and directed by women. All the one-acts deal, naturally, with women’s issues. The same three actresses, Joanna Miles, Julie Janney and Kimberly Alexander, appear in each of the plays, taking on different characters in a variety of settings. Their skillful, tour de force performances are a joy to behold.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
American in Paris, An
Palace Theater

If you see only one Broadway musical this season, let it be An American In Paris. This show is as close to perfection as even the most ardent aficionado can imagine. The entire production is put together like a fine timepiece; every tiny section is meticulously staged. Every moment is filled with ever changing visuals, and with shapes and colors to dazzle the eye. There’s 1945 Paris, of course, complete with Eiffel Tower, in all her shabbiness and all her glory right after the war. There’s the ocean, complete with little row boats.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Chapatti
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz Theater

Lively, long-divorced Betty, aide to a rich recluse named Peg, lives alone with 19 companion cats. Lonely, depressed Don, who wants to not just visit the grave of his long-time love Martha but to unite with her, first needs to find his dog Chapatti a caring home. We learn about Don and Betty’s memories and present feelings through intriguing monologues. They meet not-so-cute at a vet’s and then cuter when he fatally runs over Peg’s cat.<

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher about Evolution
Next Act Theater

Some of the best local actors, as well as a promising newcomer, add polish to the world premiere of Stephen Massicotte’s 10 Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher. This mouthful-of-a-play closes Next Act Theater’s current season.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Bird Feeder Doesn't Know, The
Raven Theater

The playbill gives the period as 2006, but in Herman and Ingrid's cozy countryside living room, it might as well still be 1962. This is because the sweethearts who met while serving in the Korean War vowed that their marriage, like the house Herman built them with his own hands, would be a "bunker" against disturbing events in an uncertain world. The birth of a child afflicted with a crippling disease intensified their insularity. What happens, though, when people sworn to shelter one another find themselves no longer capable of doing so?

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Gigi
Neil Simon Theater

Gigi is sparkling fun, mainly because the title character is played with enthusiasm by the vivacious Vanessa Hudgens. She’s delightful in the role of the irrepressible youngster who turns into a beautiful young woman, seemingly overnight. Even in the second act, which drags considerably, Hudgens lights up the stage. She’s pretty, has a good strong singing voice, and dances very well. A flaw in any of these attributes, and she’d be wrong for the part.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Murder Ballad
Flatiron Arts Center

We know upon entering the Flatiron Arts Center's smaller studio—reconfigured into the King's Club on Manhattan's Lower East Side, complete with drinks, tables and a few elevated seats for the more cautious and/or less thirsty—that before our play is over, somebody will kill somebody else: The band invites us to sing along with a rockabilly version of the venerable broadside ballad "Tom Dooley" and, in the very first song, our storyteller reaffirms the promise of the show's title.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Never Givin' Up
Eli & Edythe Broad Stage

Anna Deavere Smith is the theatrical equivalent of Studs Terkel: a master at interviewing people and turning the text into a book (or non-book, as some critics have said). In Smith’s case, of course, she takes the text and gives voice to it, like the skilled actress she is.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Wolf Hall
Winter Garden Theater

The pomp and grandeur of 16th century English royalty captivates Broadway, bringing all the machinations and theatricality of tradition and demands. Inspired by the award-winning Hilary Mantel books, “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies,” the Royal Shakespeare Company produced this two-part, enthralling costume drama with a vast cast and provocative performances.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Chicken Shop
Urbanite Theater

Chicken Shop is a coming-of age-story that takes notable twists into the realm of sexual trafficking as well as sex-related obsessions, problem-packed parenting, and bullying. As teen-age Hendrix, son of a lesbian mother and absentee father, Joseph Flynn makes an impressive debut in and along with a new downtown Sarasota theater dedicated to edgy plays of contemporary import.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Wolf Hall
Winter Garden Theater

Wolf Hall is a great theatrical spectacle. The Royal Shakespeare Company is composed of arguably the finest English speaking actors in the world. There is pageantry, a gripping storyline, and even a little education thrown in for good measure. It’s also over-long, over-written, repetitive, and sometimes boring. Throw in the fact that the stage is kept dark and smoky most of the time, and you may be in for a very expensive snooze.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Recorded in Hollywood: The John Dolphin Story
Lillian Theater

South-central L.A. was in its heyday from the 1920s through the mid-1950s, a vibrant Black ghetto whose 40-block main street, Central Avenue–known to locals as The Strip–was lined with nightclubs, theaters, bars and after-hours joints where such jazz musicians as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Art Tatum and Charlie Parker played red-hot jazz and blues every night.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Skylight
John Golden Theater

You would not call them a Golden Couple. Although Kyra Hollis (Carey Mulligan) and Tom Sergeant (Bill Nighy) once had a serious thing going, their age difference and Tom's marriage to Alice, plus disparities in their values and sensibilities, invariably steered them in different directions. Love gone awry is not unusual in the theater, but watching these two blue-chip actors pair off as Kyra and Tom is riveting in this revival of David Hare's 1995 drama, Skylight, at the Golden Theater.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Travesties
The Greenhouse

In historical fiction, the ideal narrator is a humble citizen who just happens to occupy a position affording a close-up vantage of world-changing events. he events in Tom Stoppard's Travesties are premised on the coincidence of Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin, Tristin Tzara and James Joyce—respectively, a founder of the Russian Communist party, a founder of the Dadaist art movement and a founder of the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique in English literature—all living in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1917.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Title and Deed
Water Works

The first words uttered by our narrator after he rolls onstage—literally—are "I'm not from here." We never learn what country of curious customs claims him as its son, but his resemblance to the hero of Samuel Beckett's Theater I hints of realms bordering on Waiting for Godotterritory, described by a character as birth occurring astride a grave—"The light gleams an instant, then it's night once more." Though our tourist displays the resignation engendered by this knowledge, he is determined to be cheerful during that brief gleam's last hour.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Not That Jewish
The Braid

You don’t have to be Jewish to have a Jewish heart,” is the theme of Monica Piper’s hilarious and touching one-woman show, Not That Jewish, which just opened at The Braid, L.A.’s brand-new performance space, for a five-week run.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Cherry Orchard, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

Anton Chekhov’s iconic play, The Cherry Orchard, lurks in the FSU/Asolo Conservatory’s mishmash production but is hard to find in the chopped-up interpretations of characters and action. Though it’s about the passing of an old order--symbolized by the Renevskaya orchard--to a new one, it’s a strain to find out who’s who and why they’re what they are.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Shape of Things, The
Villa Terrace Decorative Art Museum

For its second offering, one of Milwaukee’s newest theater companies, All in Productions, tackles Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things. The production does a worthy job of presenting LaBute’s take on modern society.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Wild Child in the City
The Secret Theater

Wild Child in the City, written and performed by Tjasa Ferme, a Slovenian dynamo, about the adventures of a single woman, shows the actress being wild, sexy, fearless, changing clothes in front of us, interacting with the audience (including having one of them tie her up), and showing us that even grooming can be really entertaining. She’s Performance Art at its highest level. She’s a Robin Williams- jumping from story to story, character to character, all fascinating.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Corktown `57
Odyssey Theater

The war between Ireland and Britain is fought out in a Philadelphia grocery-store basement in Corktown `57, John Fazakerley’s gripping family drama, now in a world-premiere production at the Odyssey.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Heidi Chronicles, The
Music Box Theater

The Broadway revival of Wendy Wasserstein's 1988 Tony Award/Pulitzer Prize Award-winning play, The Heidi Chronicles, still raises sensitive points, especially for women. With wit and poignancy, Wasserstein balanced the zeitgeist of American women in the 60's and '70's, demanding equal choices, smashing that glass ceiling and quashing the cultural roles. By the late 1980's, many of the inequities had become part of history. Many, but not all.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2015

Pages