It’s good fun and, for a while at least, it’s interesting to watch the actors fulfill the play’s impish demands.
Alan Ayckbourn
Theater Review: Huntington Theatre Company’s “Bedroom Farce” — Sleepytime
There’s nothing here to challenge the status quo, just an amiable ‘sex’ comedy about characters who aren’t getting any.
Fuse Theater Review: “Intimate Exchanges” — A Comedy of Possibilities
In many ways, Alan Ayckbourn in Intimate Exchanges has concocted the perfect recipe for a company like the Peterborough Players.
Theater Review: An Exuberant and Dark “Absurd Person Singular”
Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular is a comedy of total narcissism — belly-laugh jokes accompanied by a cold cruelty.
Theater Review: A Delightful Turn “Round and Round the Garden”
British playwright Alan Ayckbourn does not build gag machines that spit out one-liners. He creates finely etched characters whose humor is rooted in their befuddled behavior and personalities.
Fuse Theater Review: Theatrical Time Machines — Wild Swans and Time of My Life
Both productions play around with chronology in order to show the dark side of history, to unmask convenient illusions of social or personal well-being by juxtaposing the myopia of the past with the payback of the future.
Theater Review: Gloucester Stage Company Tries The Impossible
Now why, you might ask. Why is there no reaction? Why does everyone involved, chose to ignore the scandal? Because, playwright Alan Ayckbourn would say, that is how most of us are. To paraphrase “Hamlet”: We rather bear the troubles we know, than — by opposing them — create even bigger ones.
Theater Review: Edward Albee’s Animal Talk
The Zeitgeist Stage Company production has made me rethink Edward Albee’s HOMELIFE to the extent that the couple, well played by Peter Brown and Christine Power, generate a loving bond that adds some welcome tension (and humor) to the revelations of free-floating anxiety and confusion.
Fuse Theater Review Roundup: Taking in London Stages
Reviews of eight stage productions in London, with two terrific shows noted: American dramatist Bruce Norris’s powerful study of racial relations, Clybourne Park, and Alan Ayckbourn’s 1980 farce Season’s Greetings. Another winner on the West End, the critically acclaimed War Horse, comes to New York next week. By Joann Green Breuer. Penelope by Enda Walsh […]
Theater Review: Ayckbourn’s Comedy of Desire
Boredom is the root of all evil . . . The influence that it exerts is altogether magical, except that it is not the influence of attraction, but of repulsion. — Søren Kierkegaard, “Either/Or” Private Fears in Public Places by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by David J. Miller. Set design by Miller. Staged by the Zeitgeist […]