Theater
It is encouraging that the list of recommendations for October isn’t filled with musicals. Are straight plays back? I wouldn’t count on it in this economic climate. So let’s bask in the chance to hear words without music.
In “Delusion,” veteran performance artist Laurie Anderson generates a muted melancholy, sometimes poetic, sometimes poignant, that makes the piece a consistently compelling if not always successful addition to an ambitious body of work.
“South Pacific” endures in this production (and will in others) because it centers on two love stories that are “lovely beyond description.
The quality varies at the TWTF, but here is a chance to become aware of rarely done Williams plays. And if a production does not measure up to one’s expectations, the effort will inspire a few sturdy directors to try their own hand at these and other texts of America’s most eloquent poet-playwright.
In this delightful production of “Candide,” director Mary Zimmerman imaginatively reworks and mischievously augments the musical. Her deliciously blowzy approach embraces, with charming lyrical fervor, the sheer preposterousness of Voltaire’s sardonic fable.
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?
“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.
The 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.
The 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.
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