Gloria
written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
directed by Evan Cabnet
The Vineyard Theatre
June 20, 2015
Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
Talk to any wanna-be actor and they will tell you that his/her number one fear is to spend out their youth in the confines of a cubicle, answering the phone, shuffling paper and dreaming of their next concoction at Starbucks! Gloria gives us such a cruel and competitive cubicle where twenty-somethings fight for the attention of their boss to get better jobs that they will equally disdain!
Office humor can be quite caddy and funny and then, of course, it can become quite crude, as lines are drawn and a feeding frenzy begins on all of the weak and disconnected employees. To avoid going out for drinks with the gang on Friday after work is to risk being the butt of the joke for a long, long time. Continue reading Gloria→
A Human Being Died that Night
by Nicholas Wright, based on the book b y Pula Gobodo-Madikizela
directed by Jonathan Munby
Brooklyn Academy of Music – Fishman Space
June 19, 2015
On a Sunday afternoon after spending ten days with high school students and seeing thirteen shows in ten days, I don’t think my mind was ready to deal with police brutality in aparteid South Africa. Not really the best choice for exhausted teenagers before a flight home. Me bad. This two-hander in a jail cell; some very clinical dramaturgy and acting; and we were off and running. A Human Being Died that Night is adapted from the book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist hired by the South African government to hold all the of the perpetrates of apartheid responsible for their enormous violence and human rights violations. Continue reading A Human Being That Night→
David Mamet without the yelling and foul language? What has happened? Both one acts give the audience a taste of radio theatre where little is happening on stage but much is happening in the quite story-telling.s “Prairie du Chien”, the first of the stories, is a quite murder mystery that is primarily told as a way of passing time on a moving train. One man telling the story and another listening. At first I wandered what was the function of the other less important characters playing cards, serving pages, and tapping their fingers.. Then I closed my eyes and found out how much they were contributing to the rhythm and mood of the story. They became the musical background for the Ghost Story. Continue reading Ghost Stories: The Shawl and Prairie du Chien→
The Flick
by Annie Baker
directed by Sam Gold
Barrow Street Theatre
June 18, 2015 Production website 💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
I will never leave my too-buttered popcorn and giant soda in my movie theatre seat again! Set in a movie theatre in New England The Flick focuses on 3 barely paid workers trying to keep the movies playing (although no one seems to be attending) and the floor free from trash. They interact and collide with each other and basically get to know each other. BUT what makes this experience so rare is that they are getting to know each other at the very same speed that we are! This doesn’t happen quickly.
The Taj Mahal is a truly beautiful wonder of the world – – but you will NEVER be able to look at that serene building the same! Based on a popular myth regarding the Taj, director Amy Morton tells the story of the ugly cruelty that is behind so many of the beautiful things that man is able to create.
Two low level guards are set to protect the construction of the Taj Mahal. They are to insure that no one, including themselves, are able to view the Taj before it is fully complete and ready for viewing. So they stand, and they stand. Slowly we explore the Godot-like relationship of the two men: one strictly following the rules without question, the other, a bit of a radical open to questioning authority! What fun to watch this couple banter away and debate the obvious impossibility of preventing passerby from viewing the enormous Taj. How crazy is this job? But to what extent must authority be obeyed? What would be so wrong to take just the slightest of peeks to see what in the world they have been guarding for sometime. Continue reading Guards at the Taj→
loria
A Human Being Died that Night
Guards at the Taj