MISALLIANCE
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance comes sparklingly alive in Rosalind Productions’ smashing revival of his 1910 comedy.
Unlike the recently reviewed “all-talk, no-action” Candida, Misalliance has enough unexpected plot twists to perk up even the most easily bored theatergoer and enough couplings and un-couplings to make this a precursor of the contemporary “romantic comedy.” It’s not every Shaw play that has eight wedding proposals, a handsome young gun-toting anarchist hiding in a portable Turkish bath, and an airplane crash-landing into the garden of an English country mansion.
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EVERYBODY SAY “CHEESE!”
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
In his funny and touching World Premiere comedy Everybody Say “Cheese!”, Garry Marshall takes an affectionate look back at the mid-1960s, a time of discovery for women and confusion for men, a time when the “fairer sex” discovered as if overnight that no, a woman’s place wasn’t always in the home. Feminists like Betty Friedan were spreading the message that women could be anything they wanted to be, and housewives like Harriet Keenan were listening.
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GOLDFISH
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
John Kolvenbach’s unabashedly romantic take on life is front and center once again in his latest play, Goldfish, now getting a superb World Premiere production at South Coast Repertory.
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TENNESSEE WILLIAMS UNSCRIPTED
Friday, March 20th, 2009
The improv geniuses who brought us Jane Austen UnScripted make a welcome return with their latest concoction—Tennessee Williams UnScripted. Like its predecessors, which spoofed Austen, Shakespeare, and Sondheim, Tennessee Williams UnScripted is a two-act comedy completely improvised in the style of its titular writer. Because this is Williams, author of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie, the director’s note promises that the only thing the cast knows in advance is that “some poetic sensitivity…will be crushed by brutal forces from the outside world.” The rest is up to the imagination of the oh-so-creative improvisers.
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A SKULL IN CONNEMARA
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
The residents of Connemara, a small town in rural Galway, Ireland, appear not to need television or the movies for diversion. They’ve got each other—and their secrets and gossip and gleefully traded insults—to keep themselves and each other entertained night and day.
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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Director Geoff Elliott re-envisions Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew as a 1950s movie set in Italy and succeeds at the challenge with flying colors, making A Noise Within’s production a veritable treat for Shakespeare lovers and classic film buffs alike.
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BAREFOOT IN THE PARK
Friday, March 6th, 2009
One of my favorite things about being a theatergoer is having the chance to see new productions of favorite plays. Unlike the movies, where the word “remake” usually spells artistic disaster, revivals of popular theater favorites give directors and actors the opportunity to put their own stamp on iconic productions and roles, and playgoers the chance to revisit favorite characters and situations—with a fresh new twist.
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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
I’ve been known to say that I’m not the world’s biggest Shakespeare fan. In last December’s review of Love’s Labor’s Lost, I confessed that “I often get lost in his convoluted plots, whole chunks of dialog whizzing past me or over my head without really sinking in.” Well, just as I thoroughly enjoyed Love’s Labor’s Lost last December, I’m happy to report that I absolutely loved The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and Circus Theatrical’s new production of The Taming Of The Shrew. It only took the first lines of dialog for me to have that “Eureka!” moment of thinking, “Wow, I’m actually understanding everything they’re saying, and it’s funny to boot!” Precisely what audiences in Shakespeare’s time must have been thinking when Shakespeare’s verse was not that far removed from actual contemporary speech.
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