Ian Thal
Unlike much of what comes through the new play development pipeline, “The Whale” proffers a coherent narrative structure — the result is a well-crafted, somewhat edgy, domestic tragedy.
The 64,000 question is, if the artists’ concerns gravitated to the Marathon Bombings, why did “Interference”‘s press releases and the program cite Picasso’s “Guernica”?
“The working relationship is based on the mutual feeling that all three of us have the same understanding of the purpose of the theatre – to present plays that create a cathartic experience for the spectator, which might open his eyes and his heart to a new consciousness.”
“There is a struggle in love in the best of circumstances, and when on top of the daily challenges there are divisions of culture or society or simply of invented categories – well, that does make it all the harder.”
If “Henry VIII” is dramatically lacking when compared to Shakespeare’s other histories, what makes this production worthwhile is the care Actors’ Shakespeare Project has brought to staging it.
In his satire “The Golden Dragon,” Roland Schimmelpfennig holds his funhouse mirror up to “theater-people”: be they artists, audience, teachers, or students.
“The Whore From Ohio” is a provocative reminder that the same creature that is born to eat, drink, copulate, rot, and die is also a creature that dreams, tells stories, contemplates its own existence, and attends the theater.
Refreshingly, playwright Marianna Salzmann manages to be political without being didactic. Her characters live (rather than preach) through history, grappling with the transition from totalitarianism to democracy.
BTC’s experiment, while not without its faults, proffers an admirable model of the sort of creative thinking that more companies should emulate when placing Shakespearean drama in a contemporary American context.
Recent Comments