Patrick Brassell - Page 2

The specificity of the Cuban immigrant experience is discarded in favor of a Survivor-style fight among the passengers to see who will control the boat's destiny.

The performances are all excellent, and they are all of a piece. You believe that these people all exist in the same time frame, the same culture, and the same place.

There are some dark laughs along the way, and some gross-out moments, but the action feels realistic, as if these four people were being besieged on all sides, and the stress was taking a toll on each of them in a different way.

Middletown is a frustrating play to describe because I want to tell you everything that made me love it, and yet I don't want to tell you anything about it. I want you to go see it and experience it for yourself.

There's so much plot crammed into the show, and so many songs (many of them performance pieces that have little to do with story or character), that it hurtles by too quickly for us to get to know the people we're watching.

As the mystery elements kicked in and the bodies began to pile up, I relaxed and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

the playwright has written the characters in a very even-handed way; at no time is either Mike or Margie completely right or completely wrong; we see them both as people trying to do the right thing, yet also trying to hold on to what they already have.

Lynn Nottage's play Intimate Apparel finds a way to make loneliness not only dramatic, but incredibly moving.

Their production of Wait Until Dark is based on a revised script by Jeffrey Hatcher that premiered in 2013. The original, by Frederick Knott, opened in 1966 and was set at that time; this version is backdated to the 1940s. The loot is slightly different, and there are a few four-letter words added to the text, but beyond these cosmetic touches the script is the same.

Whorehouse, for all of its naughty language and scantily clad cast members, is actually one of the most innocent shows around.

The waltz begins its hurdy-gurdy rhythm and suddenly we're transported to the carousel through dance, music, movement, and the above-mentioned scenic effects. It's beautifully done, and every member of the company contributes.

The lines aren't ancient at all; the dialogue makes perfect sense, the jokes become hilarious, and the physical comedy is as well-played as a Three Stooges routine.

Theater is about illusion and the suspension of disbelief. If the actors believe in what they're saying, the audience follows along.

Their new production of The Music Man isn't flashy and doesn't do anything radical with Meredith Willson's book and score, and that's the best decision they could have made.

Under the able direction of Doren Elias, the actors all get the period feeling just right, and the wealthy family feels like a wealthy family - all upper-crust manners and comfortable ease with the fancy trimmings.

Once the actors start doing their version of Romeo and Juliet the adrenaline kicks in, and all three performers are willing to do just about anything for a laugh.

McDonagh's plays are like sitcoms with the anger boiling underneath; they're like Cheers if the characters had all been wasted alcoholics, or the 'Eunice' sketches from The Carol Burnett Show with the wackiness dialed way down.

It is possible to do a rock show about an era that predates rock - think of Spring Awakening, Evita, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson - but these fellows don't seem to know what rock has to do with Lizzie Borden.

John Millington Synge's 1907 play is about Christy, a young man who shows up in an Irish village and announces that he has killed his father with a blow to the head. For some reason, the men of the town are impressed by this feat and immediately claim friendship with the boy, while all the women in the town eye him as potential husband material, particularly the young barmaid Pegeen Mike.

To Herzog's credit, the answers aren't easy, and Emma spends the play struggling to decide how she feels about her grandfather's actions, taking input from everyone around her while trying to figure out how best to honor his legacy - even as she's still unsure what that legacy actually is.