Long sick of the Peloponnesian war, Lysistrata convenes a meeting with the women from neighboring Greek city states with the aim of putting an end to it with a novel scheme: withholding sex.It takes a little doing, but the women soon come around to Lysistrata’s argument and join forces. The menfolk are incensed, but there […]
Sorry to break it to you, but Stanley Kowalski isn’t the main character in Streetcar Named Desire. This came as a surprise to me, too; montage tribute clips of the 1951 film have always shown that Brando’s Kowalski is the central focus. And to an extent he is, but Blanche Dubois (Anna Reed), Stanley’s sister-in-law, […]
There are two plots running parallel here. The first involves a Latino Afghanistan war vet, Elliot (Zach Rufa) and his older cousin Yaz (Ivy Alphonse-Leja). Why we’re supposed to be interested in them is not clear; plot-wise the only relevant reason is that Elliot wants to bury his aunt and doesn’t have enough money to […]
Standing mid-aisle, Bruh Preach (Curtis Mclaren) breaks the fourth wall and gazes on us. He raises his arms above his head and speaks: “For our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever!” He lowers his arms to his sides. […]
Charise Castro Smith’s Seville is an old-fashioned farce with a serious underbelly. It gets in its share of chuckles and guffaws from the audience, but the real thrust comes through later, during the quiet unassuming moments. With the framework of Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame to hang her characters on, Castro Smith introduces us to […]
Somewhere in the first act, Russian émigré Melena (Sarah Tolan Mee) shoots out the window of her Lower East Side apartment and, with manic glee, races down the fire escape. A few partygoers look on after her from the window. Her husband, at wit’s end, shouts, “There’s nothing for you out there, Melena!” Somewhere in […]
Brown/ Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theatre has a gripping line-up this summer with three new plays from Brown/Trinity MFA graduates. Each play will run in repertory for a week at Brown University’s Leeds Theatre on Waterman Street. Starting July 31, Festival Week, all three plays will be in repertory and on August 3, the Marathon Madness […]
It is anyone’s guess how much of The King and I is based on a truthful or, at least, objective account. Anna Leonowens, the real life English governess, was accused of embellishing and sensationalizing her story when she first published it in 1869. Rodgers and Hammerstein, finding Margaret Landon’s 1944 book on the subject was […]
Trinity Rep’s new horror play about society is interesting and ambitious. It challenges us to think about what trade-offs we make in order to be members of society, but shies away from ever making us truly horrified by the results. The apocalypse has come and people have organized into two groups: those living inside and […]
If there’s one thing Marquee Theatre Productions didn’t skimp on in its performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, it was production design. Director Roberto Santo Cristo Soares’ lustful production design sets the right tone for themes of power and corruption. There’s rarely a scene with fewer than 10 harlots on stage flaunting their wares to the […]
