With all the mud-slinging in the current American presidential campaign and negativity about the state of our nation, it is an appropriate time, before the…
View More RFK (New City Stage): Remembering the Turmoil and Ideals of the SixtiesCategory: Reviews
Experience an Original Sonic Happening at the Fringe with Found Theater Company’s ELECTRIC JUNGLE
Found Theater Company’s latest foray into the Fringe Festival is everything the Fringe should be: experimental, inventive, boundary-breaking, and thoroughly engaging. Devised by Found’s young…
View More Experience an Original Sonic Happening at the Fringe with Found Theater Company’s ELECTRIC JUNGLEThis House Is Made of Waste Products Only: Thinking about Kyohei Sakaguchi
Though Sakaguchi is relatively unheard-of in the United States, his Zero Yen House project has traveled as close as Canada, and with the sustainability movement in full force here, heʼs a figure who bears extensive discussion.
View More This House Is Made of Waste Products Only: Thinking about Kyohei SakaguchiTreats of the 2012 Philly Fringe: THE GHOST SONATA and THE MAIDS
One of the great things about the Fringe Festival is the opportunity to see independent companies perform works unlikely to be attempted by more established…
View More Treats of the 2012 Philly Fringe: THE GHOST SONATA and THE MAIDSRED-EYE to HAVRE de GRACE (Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental): 2012 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival
An early version of this show lit up the Live Arts Festival in ’05, and I couldn’t wait to see the latest manifestation of the collaboration between Thaddeus Phillips’ Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental and Wilhelm Bros. music. The production has grown up over the intervening years. It’s bigger, wider, and deeper, and just as amazing and magical.
View More RED-EYE to HAVRE de GRACE (Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental): 2012 Philadelphia Live Arts FestivalCREDITORS (Philadelphia Artists’ Collective): Everything Great Theater Should Be
August Strindberg’s CREDITORS is a revenge tragedy of classic proportions, a modern descendant of the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare. His unnerving story of a love…
View More CREDITORS (Philadelphia Artists’ Collective): Everything Great Theater Should BeFringe Festival Takes Flight with Nichole Canuso Dance Company at the APS Museum
RETURN RETURN DEPARTURE considers the fleeting nature of time and the human compulsion to capture it, and there can be few more poignant examples than an ephemeral dance duet at sunset, videotaped for posterity by the performers themselves.
View More Fringe Festival Takes Flight with Nichole Canuso Dance Company at the APS MuseumA Rare and Satisfying CYMBELINE at Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre
CYMBELINE is one of Shakespeare’s later and lesser-known works, not often performed and hard to classify. Though inspired by legends about an ancient British king…
View More A Rare and Satisfying CYMBELINE at Philadelphia Shakespeare TheatrePlenty of Pulp: THE END OF CIVILIZATION at the Walking Fish
Some of the best entertainments are plot-heavy pulp mysteries: the film Double Indemnity, Raymond Chandler’s stories, Agatha Christie’s plays. With unemployment, serial killing, prostitution, addiction, and…
View More Plenty of Pulp: THE END OF CIVILIZATION at the Walking Fish“Don’t ask me what happened. It’s best not to know!”: A DYBBUK, or Between two worlds
Review of A DYBBUCK from EgoPo Classic Theatre
View More “Don’t ask me what happened. It’s best not to know!”: A DYBBUK, or Between two worldsA Taste of the Fringe in Early Summer: New City Stage Presents Two Sam Shepard Shorts
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival receives hundreds of applications from American drama troupes every year. Philadelphia’s New City Stage Company is in talks to become one…
View More A Taste of the Fringe in Early Summer: New City Stage Presents Two Sam Shepard ShortsSisyphus Sings in Silent Joy: Lantern Theater Company’s THE ISLAND
In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus compares man’s existence to the figure from Greek mythology, condemned for eternity to push a rock up a…
View More Sisyphus Sings in Silent Joy: Lantern Theater Company’s THE ISLAND1812 Productions Weds Mamet in BOSTON MARRIAGE
I have a soft spot for the drawing room plays by Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maughan, and the like. With ready wit they provide amusing takedowns…
View More 1812 Productions Weds Mamet in BOSTON MARRIAGEHAMLETMACHINE + MEDEAPLAYS = Renegade’s Richly Challenging Work
n HAMLETMACHINE and MEDEAPLAYS, now in seemless production at the space by The Renegade Company, Müller has reassembled classic texts and plot-points into a dislocating new context.
View More HAMLETMACHINE + MEDEAPLAYS = Renegade’s Richly Challenging WorkTHE TEMPEST (Curio): Such stuff as dreams are made on
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will…
View More THE TEMPEST (Curio): Such stuff as dreams are made onTheatre Exile’s A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE Entertains
Author Graham Greene wrote two types of books. His novels (The Power and the Glory, The Quiet American), onto which he staked his literary reputation, and…
View More Theatre Exile’s A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE EntertainsPhiladelphia Shakespeare Theatre Triumphs with TITUS ANDRONICUS
Shakespeare’s early revenge tragedy, TITUS ANDRONICUS, is a bloodbath of murder, dismemberment, rape, and cannibalism, which has remained for centuries the Bard’s most maligned work.…
View More Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre Triumphs with TITUS ANDRONICUSStirring BLACK MONK Offered Up by Simpatico
“Forget all the laws of optics, which the legend does not recognize” —Anton Chekhov, The Black Monk Attempting to summarize the best modernist short stories…
View More Stirring BLACK MONK Offered Up by SimpaticoRomeo and Juliet (Lantern Theater Company): Do we need another R&J?
You may ask, “Do we need yet another production of Romeo and Juliet?” The answer is yes we do. This is the Lantern. Next question? The…
View More Romeo and Juliet (Lantern Theater Company): Do we need another R&J?New City’s TERRORISM Presents a Sardonic Look at Modern Life
Passenger: It’s madness — what sort of an age do we live in? You don’t feel safe anywhere now, only at home… First Passenger: At…
View More New City’s TERRORISM Presents a Sardonic Look at Modern Life