Jack L. B. Gohn

Jack L. B. Gohn

A retired lawyer, and a theater critic of many years’ standing, with over a decade reviewing for BroadwayWorld, Jack Gohn is now writing plays as well as reviewing them. He is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and the Dramatists Guild. His plays have been produced by Baltimore's Rapid Lemon Productions and Spotlighters Theatre. See www.jackgohn.com.






MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

Review: The Atreides Are Us in THE ORESTEIA at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
Review: The Atreides Are Us in THE ORESTEIA at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
February 19, 2024

There are great depths here, and great wisdom, and Playwright Ellen McLoughlin’s handiwork and that of Chesapeake Shakespeare convey them well. It is good to see a Shakespeare-oriented theater applying its tools and insights to other material from time to time, particularly classical material that is not often produced in these parts.

Review: In THE BOOK OF GRACE from Rapid Lemon, a Penchant for Grand Themes and Intoxicating Characters, Outstanding Cast
Review: In THE BOOK OF GRACE from Rapid Lemon, a Penchant for Grand Themes and Intoxicating Characters, Outstanding Cast
January 15, 2024

Playwright Suzan Lori-Parks evidently likes to swing for the fences. In The Book of Grace, now being presented by Rapid Lemon, he is fearless in presenting an extravagantly exaggerated and often violent version of the realities she sees in our country today. Despair seems the only reasonable response – and yet optimism, however irrational, cannot be absolutely extinguished. Parks exhibits an extravagant talent and a penchant for grand themes – and a pervasive if not totally dominant skepticism.

Reality Crumbles But A Plot Emerges: Jon Fosse's STRONG WIND Premieres at Scena Theatre
Reality Crumbles But A Plot Emerges: Jon Fosse's STRONG WIND Premieres at Scena Theatre
November 6, 2023

Scena Theatre productions are never mere theatrical comfort food; they generally have classical or European roots and, whether comic or tragic, they are always intellectually serious affairs, out to show us or make us think about interesting matters. And this show is no exception. With not only [Nobel Laureate Jon] Fosse’s fine script and well-thought-through performances and direction (by company founder Robert McNamara, who usually directs Scena productions), not to mention, in this case, striking sound design by Denise Rose, the show packs a wallop.

Review: A Challenging DOLL'S HOUSE at Everyman Theatre
Review: A Challenging DOLL'S HOUSE at Everyman Theatre
September 10, 2023

A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, translated, adapted, and directed by Joanie Schultz, runs through September 28, at Everyman Theatre. Read our review of A Doll's House here!

Review: A Theatrical Feast: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY at Signature Theatre
Review: A Theatrical Feast: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY at Signature Theatre
August 19, 2023

Given the moat of terrible traffic that separates Baltimore theatergoers from Arlington, what can justify a visit there? Well, one answer for sure is Signature Theatre’s stunning production of the 2014 musical The Bridges of Madison County. With a timeless story, a lush, varied score, and riveting performances, Bridges absolutely repays the drive.

Tightened and Thrilling HAMLET at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
Tightened and Thrilling HAMLET at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
May 3, 2023

I think the minimalism and starkness is intended to be clarifying; we are meant to be focused on the hearts of the various intertwined stories Shakespeare presents, and perhaps less distracted by other things going on at the very large periphery the playwright has laid out. Whatever the purpose, we find ourselves deeply drawn in, so that by the time all the bodies bestrew the stage at the end, the horror and the catharsis of it all has not only engulfed us – but thrilled us as well.

Review: A Compleat HADESTOWN at Hippodrome Theatre
Review: A Compleat HADESTOWN at Hippodrome Theatre
April 13, 2023

So, by virtue of all of these elements this show is compleat in the senses fostered by the archaic spelling of the word, what Webster's renders as 'having all the necessary or desired elements or skills.' The characters, the music, the dancing, the lyrics, and the overall message are all new and different, even if deployed in the service of 'an old tale from way back when,' and they come accompanied by a message of inspiration in the midst of tragedy. A must-see.

Review: THE SOUND INSIDE Thrills and Bemuses at Everyman Theatre
Review: THE SOUND INSIDE Thrills and Bemuses at Everyman Theatre
March 12, 2023

The Sound Inside, by Adam Rapp, now gracing the boards at Baltimore's Everyman Theatre, is one of those all-too-rare plays that just bowls you over, even if, afterwards, you’re not quite sure where you’ve been during its bemusing 90 minutes.

Review: FPCT's DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE Only Rings Softly
Review: FPCT's DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE Only Rings Softly
February 21, 2023

The play doesn’t do either superficiality or depth well. And so a decent production like this (which Fells Point Corner Theatre provided) can still only go so far with it.

Review: Strange But Relatable JUMP at Everyman Theatre
Review: Strange But Relatable JUMP at Everyman Theatre
January 30, 2023

Families, sisterly conflicts, alienation from parents, suicidal tendencies, dissociation, nostalgia for childhood mingled with mature reevaluation of it: all these themes and tropes are universal. And audiences of all backgrounds should find this show about them quite relatable, not to mention intriguing.

Review: RIDE THE CYCLONE At Arena Stage
Review: RIDE THE CYCLONE At Arena Stage
January 23, 2023

Go See It! Join the enthralled cult! It’s for anyone who was ever a theater or choir kid. It’s for anyone who ever had a sexuality of any flavor whatsoever, or just even an inner life. It’s for the frustrated amateur metaphysician in each of us. And it is certainly for the amateur detective in each of us; the creators, Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell, have sprinkled clues and non sequiturs everywhere for us to ponder.

Incredible Songs and Ingenious Book Propel Audience Bliss With JAGGED LITTLE PILL at Hippodrome
Incredible Songs and Ingenious Book Propel Audience Bliss With JAGGED LITTLE PILL at Hippodrome
December 15, 2022

We do get a sort of happy ending, but not with a gratifying round of absolution for everyone. In the complicated interplay of transgression and victimization, and in the face of the realities of life in a patriarchal and heterosexist society, almost everyone ends up wishing they’d deserved and received greater absolution. There reemerges what Morissette calls “common ground,” but everyone remains a work in progress. And it is still enough to send the audience out with eyes shining. It’s earned.

Review: Uninhibited AIN'T NO MO' at Baltimore Center Stage
Review: Uninhibited AIN'T NO MO' at Baltimore Center Stage
November 4, 2022

As the director says, this is a 'Black play that speaks to Black people and talks about Black shit.' But it allows larger audiences a chance to listen in to the conversation and laugh, if more gently, at the jokes. While not everything in the show is funny, much of it is irresistibly so.

Handsome Production, Tedious Script: THE LION IN WINTER at Everyman Theatre
Handsome Production, Tedious Script: THE LION IN WINTER at Everyman Theatre
October 30, 2022

You not only have to have the talent to do the technical side of costume drama well, and have actors who can emote convincingly and then (in this case) reverse gears convincingly, and then reverse gears again as many times as the script calls for. You need a script that doesn’t make them do it so often it makes the audience stop following and stop caring. That is a bar this script doesn't clear.

Review: HOLIDAY at Washington's Arena Stage: Deeply Flawed Show, Flawless Performance
Review: HOLIDAY at Washington's Arena Stage: Deeply Flawed Show, Flawless Performance
October 17, 2022

They sure don't write them like Holiday anymore. A play about the foibles of a family of rich White people that supplies no meaningful social or racial context, a critique of the world of wealth which is bafflingly superficial, and a romance almost lacking in visible courtship, playwright Philip Barry's 1928 Broadway hit has very little claim to be produced now. Yet it's given a sumptuous and impressive production by Arena Stage in Washington. Go for the performances, the costumes, and the direction, and you'll be fine. Seek more, and you may be disappointed.

A Pretty-Much Perfect TWELFTH NIGHT at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
A Pretty-Much Perfect TWELFTH NIGHT at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
October 3, 2022

There’s so much to like in Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s current revival of Twelfth Night, a production that succeeds in big things and small, that I can’t imagine any spectator walking away unsatisfied. What did our critic think of TWELFTH NIGHT at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company?

Good Times, Fun, and Some Laughs: SWEET CHARITY at Cockpit In Court
Good Times, Fun, and Some Laughs: SWEET CHARITY at Cockpit In Court
July 25, 2022

Dated and flawed as I consider it, Sweet Charity is something of a landmark in the world of the American musical, and this rendition is admirable. And then there are those three big songs. You will definitely experience good times, fun and some laughs.

Review: Stunning, Well-Made HOUSE OF THE NEGRO INSANE at Contemporary American Theater Festival
Review: Stunning, Well-Made HOUSE OF THE NEGRO INSANE at Contemporary American Theater Festival
July 20, 2022

A well-made, stunning play, about racist mental hospital practices in the not very long-distant past, with four strongly-imagined characters and an explosive ending.

Review: A Love Story, a Critique, a Cry of Despair: SHEEPDOG at Contemporary American Theater Festival
Review: A Love Story, a Critique, a Cry of Despair: SHEEPDOG at Contemporary American Theater Festival
July 20, 2022

In the end, it is largely the combination of sensitively-selected detail and poetic diction on the one hand, and the big-picture view of various interlocked social problems that makes the show so extraordinary. In that big picture, the problems are too pervasive, too ingrained to surmount, and well-intentioned people trying to escape those problems will probably fail. In the end, the play suggests, we are much more the product of the forces that shaped us than of our own volition.

Review: BABEL At Contemporary American Theater Festival Probes the Dilemmas That Could Be Presented By Eugenics
Review: BABEL At Contemporary American Theater Festival Probes the Dilemmas That Could Be Presented By Eugenics
July 18, 2022

Babel, which invites us to contemplate a world, apparently in the near future, in which the human genome is so well understood that every person’s – and fetus’s – potential, including the potential for antisocial behavior – is determinable, and if a child cannot be “certified” while in utero as meeting the mandated genetic risk profile, the child will face lifelong legal discrimination thwarting most forms of career accomplishment. Abortion is freely available, and the resulting pressures to terminate pregnancies when a child is not certified are intense, as is the misery of potential parents whose gestating child is deemed uncertifiable, and probably a menace to society. We witness how these dynamics play out with two couples who are friends. Definitely recommended.



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