There are few events in life as rife with the heightened emotions of love and loss as weddings and funerals. Add to them the unbridled…
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Category: Reviews
A DOLL’S HOUSE (Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion): 60-second review
It’s hard to imagine a better set design for Henrik Ibsen’s devastating feminist classic than the living room of the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion Victorian House…
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TWO NOBLE KINSMEN (Philly Shakes): Shakespeare as entertainment
Aaron Cromie, the director of Philadelphia Shakespeare Company’s academy performance of TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, is one of this city’s best directors. His puppet/live actor version…
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THE HOMOSEXUALS (Quince): Ten turbulent years for one young man, six friends, and an entire community
And the festivities continue at GayFest! with Philip Dawkins’s acclaimed play THE HOMOSEXUALS. Gritty and thoughtful, with a broad scope of characterizations and universally relatable themes,…
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NOIR (GDP): Theater fatale gets off the beaten path
Little known theater company, GDP Productions, takes a shot at classic crime cinema with NOIR. Played in the shadowy, speakeasy-like back bar of R Bar…
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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (Mauckingbird): 60-second review
Gender roles play an essential part in much classic literature. How many complex pre-1900 plots would be instantly resolved if a woman could just marry…
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MACBETH (Commonwealth): 60-second review
MACBETH is a violent play, a feature emphasized by the contemporary military garb and extended fight choreography in the worthwhile production by Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company.…
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CIRQUE DU GAY (Quince): Circus in stockings and buttless chaps
Dennis Porter, part of the three-man CIRQUE DU GAY, is trolling up and down the aisle at Plays and Players Theatre in a clown suit.…
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AVENUE Q (Mazeppa): A puppet oasis in the summer heat
Rob Henry and Brian Seaman, founders of Mazeppa Productions, the newest resident musical theater company in Philadelphia, offer an oasis of entertainment in the Sahara…
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RETURN OF CONFESSIONS OF A PLATE AND SHOE (SmokeyScout): 60-second review
Josh McIlvain’s RETURN OF CONFESSIONS OF A PLATE AND SHOE should be put in a time capsule and used by future generations as a how-to…
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THE VIOLENCE OF THE LAMBS (OR THE ANIMAL VS. HUMAN WAR) (Chris Davis): 60-second review
As the established Philadelphia companies enter their long off-season, the SoLow Festival is providing a welcome dose of idiosyncratic theater at some unusual venues around…
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Another take on GLASS: SHATTERED (Renegade)
Pacified by a pre-show serving of *Little Baby’s* ice cream, the Renegade Company’s audience sat in a cozy room with broken victrola records scattered on…
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Afterthoughts on UNCLE TOM’S CABIN: AN UNFORTUNATE HISTORY (EgoPo)
EgoPo’s show closes at Plays & Players in Philadelphia tonight. I finally got to see it at the end of the run. The finale of…
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SOME OTHER KIND OF PERSON (InterAct)
The title of Eric Pfeffinger’s SOME OTHER KIND OF PERSON, now in production by Interact Theatre Company, refers to a purposefully misquoted line of Aristotle,…
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GLASS: SHATTERED (Renegade): 60-second review
Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie is described as a “memory play”: its plot an extended flashback, its theatrical pretense laid bare. GLASS: SHATTERED, Michael Durkin’s…
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UNCLE TOM’S CABIN: AN UNFORTUNATE HISTORY (EgoPo): An unfortunate production
Rooted like wooden figurines in a nineteenth-century music box, the cast of EgoPo Classic Theater’s adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s UNCLE TOM’s CABIN stand in…
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AMERICAN SLIGO (New City): Wrestling with dysfunction
The American dysfunctional family was the theme of New City Stage Company’s successful 2012/13 season, and it would be hard to find a play which…
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BARCELONA (People’s Light): Transatlantic tension, transatlantic truth
She’s an American tourist on a girls’ holiday, seeking out a romantic, exotic fantasy of Spain. He’s a dashing, seductive Spaniard who takes her to…
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The Arden Hits a High Note with A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
Stephen Sondheim’s transcendent musical exposé of love, liaisons, and life in 1900 Sweden.
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VENUS IN FUR (PTC): 60-second review
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is known today primarily for the word derived from his name: masochism, and for his scandalous 1870 novel VENUS IN FUR, the…
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