Theater

Theater Review: A Sweet and Contagious “Present Laughter”

August 18, 2012
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Actor Jack Koenig never flags in the Peterborough Players production of “Present Laughter,” and around him in his London studio-flat swirls a churning world of impertinent employees and past and present loves that would do Kaufman and Hart proud.

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Theater Interview with David Sokol, Lyricist who made “Shylock Sing The Blues”

August 18, 2012
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“As an artist, you probably know when a project pulls at you, sometimes kicking and screaming. Shylock definitely has me by the back of the neck.”

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Music Review: Shylock Sings the Blues

August 16, 2012
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This daring musical version of “The Merchant of Venice” provides a fascinating re-imagining of a classic play that explores many of the themes and tropes of the original more deeply than many modern productions do.

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Fuse Theater Review: A Mildly Amusing “Third Story”

August 13, 2012
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There are plenty of amusing moments when dramatist Charles Busch makes effective use of his gift for exaggerated wit and whimsy — no dramatist can drop the word ‘canasta’ with as much hilarious finesse.

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Theater Commentary/Review: A Not So Dumb “Month in The Country”

August 10, 2012
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Given the Russian writer’s modernist pedigree, should director/playwright Richard Nelson and translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky be punished for putting some “unevenesses” into their staging of Turgenev’s finest play, “A Month in the Country”? I think not.

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Coming Attractions in Jazz: (early) August 2012

August 9, 2012
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Percussionist Vicente Lebron

Updated Aug. 9 at 3 p.m. In the second week of August, the power of percussion is much in evidence, with Mikael Ringquist and Marcus Santos, Manolo Mairena, Gary Fieldman, and Vicente Lebron. New Orleans adds some flavor with Christian Scott and Galactic, and Berklee Summer in the City just keeps rolling along.

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Theater Review: Dumbing Down “A Month in the Country”

August 8, 2012
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A 19th-century Russian masterpiece presented in a translation and a production whose mishmash of style distorts the play and confuses both actors and audiences.

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Theater Review: A “Coriolanus” Cut Down to Size on the Boston Common

August 4, 2012
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Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus” deals with the difficultly of recognizing superiority at a time of radical social breakdown, specifically when it is democracy that is in extremis.

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Theater Review: “The Admirable Crichton” Entertains Via a Sprightly Stiff Upper Lip

August 4, 2012
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“The Admirable Crichton” premiered in 1902, but the Peterborough Players bring this comedy about class division off admirably — as classy theater, not anthropology.

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Fuse Theater Review: “Running” in The Wrong Direction

August 3, 2012
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Why did Chester Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Byam Stevens choose such a banal, lazily-written play with no drama, no development, barely any interesting language, and none of the wit, charm or whimsy I’ve come to associate with this stage company?

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