David Mamet without the yelling and foul language? What has happened? Both one acts give the audience a tasteΒ 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 theyΒ 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 websiteΒ Β Β πππππ out of 5.
I will never leave my too-buttered popcorn and giant soda in my movie theatre seat again!Β 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.Β They interact and collide with each other and basically get to know each other.Β BUT what makes this experience so rare is that they are getting to know each other at the very same speed that we are!Β This doesnβt 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 theΒ obvious impossibility of preventing passerby from viewing the enormous Taj. Β How crazy is this job? Β But to what extent must authority be obeyed? Β 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→
Fun Home
music by Jeanine Tesori
book and lyrics by Lisa Kuhn
based on the graphic novel by Alision Bechdel
produced by Circle In the Square
June 16, 2015
Although I am not a musical theatre person, I was in the audience for the first week of the run of Rent and knew that musical theatre was going to change forever. I felt the same way sitting in the audience for Fun Home. Never have I felt the songs so connected to the story. When the show was over, it never occurred to me that the characters sang – – it was just that beautiful and that invisible! The story is about family and those crazy often toxic people that we will never be able to truly escape. They truly shape ever decision and turn that our life takes. Continue reading Fun Home→
Significant Other
by Joshua Harmon
directed by Trip Cullman
Roundabout Theatre
July 17, 2015 Production website.
π out of 5.
I am really not so sure what makes this significant.Β Significant Others is a play that sets out to explore how hard it is for a twenty-something gay man to find the βone.βΒ For all of his consternating with his grandmother, employing of all social media options and championing of his best girl buddies he simply canβt βget any.βΒ I guess we are supposed to care.
The play does have its funny moments as wedding parties always create a drunken free-for-all.Β And protagonist Jordan Berkan certainly does fly across the stage in a caffeinated craze – – but I simply didnβt care for him.Β He seemed so whiny and shallow as he pursued the elusive Abacrombie-like model that did little but stand on a raised platform for admiration.
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He did talk to his grandmother, played by the talented Barbara Barrie.Β She either ask him βhowβs your love life? (which she does more then a dozen times) or she is oddly and comfortably planning her suicide.Β What??
The set was massive – – a series of rooms and levels but none of them got used.Β Most was played on the apron in front.Β Why build such a big set and never inhabit it.
Significant Other would undoubtable make good TV.Β But to get all dressed up, catch 3 trains, pay over $75 and not to have your dog on your lap – – it simply wasnβt worth the trip.Β It might have even different for the twenty-sowing in the audience but for this fifty-something no.
Ghost Stories: The Shawl and Prairie du Chien
Guards at the Taj
Fun Home