Commonwealth-Shakespeare-Company

Theater Review: Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” — Soldiering On Through the Void

November 20, 2014
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Brooke Adams portrays Winnie as the ultimate smiley face; her husband, Tony Shalhoub, is little more than another prop weathering her on-going babble.

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Theater Review: CSC Stages a Zippy “Twelfth Night” on the Boston Common

August 2, 2014
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There are laughs in this production of Twelfth Night, but the romantic payoffs are scarce, perhaps because the sit-com rhythms tend to swamp all else (including some of the poetry).

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Theater Review: CSC’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” — A Cuddly Pair of Rats

July 16, 2013
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The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is spunky and engaging — but the play is spun in one direction, away from its weird edginess.

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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: 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: All’s Well, I Guess — Girl Gets Boy, Boy Ditches Girl, Girl Gets Boy Back

July 5, 2011
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The likable Commonwealth Shakespeare Company staging leans very heavily on the comedy in ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, minimizing the Bard’s melancholic undertow.

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Theater Review: A Faint Touch of Evil

August 11, 2010
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Shakespeare’s tragic characters, on the other hand, suffer from the Christian sin of pride: knowing you aren’t God, but trying to become Him—a sin of which any of us is capable. — W. H. Auden on Othello in Lectures on Shakespeare Othello by William Shakespeare. Directed by Steven Maler. Staged by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company…

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Theater Commentary: Boston’s “Comedy of Errors”

August 14, 2009
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The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Directed by Steve Maler. Presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company at the Boston Common Parkman Bandstand, through August 16. Reviewed by Bill Marx Shakespeare can be punished by his own success. In “The Comedy of Errors” he juggles two sets of identical twins on stage with the dizzying aplomb…

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Arts Commentary: Ducking Blowback

August 6, 2007
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Yesterday, a Boston Globe editorial asked that Josiah Spaulding, Jr., president of the Citi Performing Arts Center (CPAC) be replaced. Of course he should go, but that will not solve the CPAC’s problems. Yesterday, a Boston Globe editorial asked that Josiah Spaulding, Jr., president of the Citi Performing Arts Center (CPAC) be replaced. The suggestion…

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At the Trough

August 2, 2007
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Let me get this straight. President and CEO of the Citi Performing Arts Center (CPAC), Josiah Spaulding Jr., presides over five straight years of budget deficits and arts programming cuts, including slashing the budget of this summer’s Shakespeare on the Common production, and he earns a $1.265 million bonus. This is shameful, especially given that…

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