Theater
The audience, seated at tables in semi-darkness, responded to TV talk-show style questions. At first, we raised our hands to vote on generic, consensus-building questions: Who believes in private, public or charter schools? Who wants significant change in their lives?
Read More“The Lady With All the Answers” presents the columnist Ann Landers as a person who just might write a letter to Ann herself. Her faith in herself and her work is unquestioned, even as her own life takes a bump or two. Well, really, only one bump.
Read MoreThe impressive cast and lovely, atmospheric design of the Lyric Stage production cannot completely overcome the flaws of “Big River,” but they make the trip a scenic, often amusing, and enjoyable theatrical journey.
Read MoreThe American Repertory Theater’s juggling/removal of the operatic elements in “Porgy and Bess” is clumsy, but the goal is to create a compelling entertainment for contemporary audiences, smoothing out the melodramatic story’s edges and cutting its length.
Read MoreDirector Gus Kikkonen and cast come up with a bright, literate presentation of William Shakespeare’s play “Measure for Measure,” a potentially dark comedy pregnant with power.
Read MoreAn alternative to the New York Times’ review of “Porgy and Bess” at the Tanglewood Festival.
Read More9/11 has inspired a number of movies and TV documentaries, but theater works about the event are rare. What are dramatists and theater companies afraid of?
Read MoreTrapped in a cluttered set meant to evoke an abandoned nightclub (with old, upside-down flowerpots? why?), the cast of TEN CENTS A DANCE do little but wander about singing strangely uninspired arrangements of some of America’s best-known songs.
Read MoreAnyone who has sat through a commercial for one pill or another will recognize and acknowledge the satiric thrust of this enjoyable 1920’s French farce.
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Arts Commentary: Rich in Creativity — But Nothing Else