Once again a brave theater group is giving a surprisingly effective revival to a difficult cult musical which its admirers insist was never properly appreciated. And once again I’ve belatedly been introduced to a well-known old show and impressed by the performance. But again I’ve had to admit that I think the thing deserved to […]
Herbert M. Simpson
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Two play to a T
Center Stage at Jewish Community Center has mounted a first-class revival of Israel Horovitz’s popular, appealing play, Park Your Car In Harvard Yard. An elegantly composed interplay for two actors, it is both heartwarming and funny. Horovitz is one of our most prolific playwrights, a fact that dissuades me from trying to sound like […]
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‘Blue’ is definitely golden
Geva Theatre Center is presenting an absolutely thrilling production of Charles Randolph-Wright and Nona Hendryx’s Blue, an oddity, but a brilliant one. Randolph-Wright’s script is so loaded with genuine comedy and human emotions that I’m sorry to note that it is also predictable and often trite, like a sitcom. But I don’t care. If it […]
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Third time is not a charm
I was sure that the Shelagh Stephenson was Irish, but she isn’t. She was born in Northumberland, where her play Ancient Lightstakes place. That may be significant, since an Irish novelist in the play turns out to be English, from Hull, a port city that I think is in Northumberland. Indeed, almost all the characters […]
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Infiltrating the ranks of the rich and famous
There really was a clever young con man who pretended to be Sidney Poitier’s son and insinuated himself into the homes of wealthy New Yorkers, whom he charmed and robbed. Playwright John Guare heard the story from friends who were victims of that fraud. For his play Six Degrees of Separation Guare used that […]
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A phony American dream
Most people who see Arthur Miller’s masterpiece Death of A Salesman feel that they know a Willy Loman in real life, though each knows a different Willy Loman. That great character is so richly conceived that he seems painfully real and right, even in completely varied castings. Originally, two very different actors brilliantly played […]
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Crossing time, the Channel, and convention
Tina Howe’s romantic play Pride’s Crossinghas something for everyone: re-creation of historic periods and events, Upstairs Downstairs-style social reflections on the role of women, time-shifts from 1920 to the present day, realistic New England local color, fantasy dalliances, and a climactic, exciting swim across the English Channel. Blackfriars Theatre has assembled an attractive, strong […]
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Sad monsters in a cage
Shipping Dock Theatre is back in strong form with a disturbing, haunting drama about prison life: Bruce Graham’s Coyote on a Fence. In a straightforward, potent performance, a small cast holds the audience spellbound with material that is neither pleasant nor ennobling but is certainly thought-provoking and very hard to forget. Playwright Graham doesn’t […]
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Wives run wild
Everybody runs in Ray Cooney’s Run For Your Wife. John Smith, the taxi driver who’s married to two different wives, runs all over London trying to hide them from each other and, for that matter, also trying to hide two different policemen and two upstairs tenants — all from one another, and the truth from […]
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Humbug uncontrolled
p>To spice up the holidays, Shipping Dock Theatre openedlast weekend in its new location at Visual Studies Workshop with an anti-Christmas Carol. Make that an Aunty Christmas Carol. It’s called (take a breath!) The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of A Christmas Carol,and, in deference to Dickens, it requires every one […]
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Gathering and pasting a collage of dance
After 33 years of writing about them, it’s difficult to find a new way to describe Garth Fagan Dance. Yet, though the dances are always definably Fagan’s, they are newly inventive. Fagan adds unique work every year. How difficult must it be to achieve that level of creativity? The performances are equally remarkable. Fagan’s […]
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What, get outta show biz?
In its fourth decade, Neil Simon’s quirky gag fest The Sunshine Boys works amazingly well. Considering those who have played it, I’ve always regarded the play as a showcase requiring master comic actors and comedians. But, though it is headed by one exceptional performance, the Jewish Community Center’s holiday revival of The Sunshine Boys is […]
