Patrick Brassell - Page 4

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.

Every moment of joy is paired with a moment of pain - and isn't that exactly how you think back on your failed relationships?

What if a group of modern-day folks, annoyed by modern technology and the fast pace of life in the 21st century, decided to create a place where it would always be 1955?

The jokes are lame, the characters are each assigned one personality trait, and the attempts to be heartfelt go flat. And yet...it's a perfect package of boomer nostalgia, so the audience goes wild.

Jane Anderson's The Quality of Life is a play about grief and the various ways people deal with it. Oh, you're thinking, a heavy drama. Nope, it's a comedy. A black comedy? No again. It's warm, heartfelt, profane, and hilarious, and it's life-affirming in the best possible way. Anderson looks at grief from every possible angle and leaves you bruised but hopeful.

Othello, to modern ears, is one of the most melodramatic of Shakespeare's dramas. It involves a villain (Iago) who wreaks havoc without much apparent motivation, a hero (Othello) who believes the villain's lies without evidence to support them, and a lot of coincidences that don't always make sense.

Imagine a young, wisecracking '80s movie star - say Robert Downey Jr. or John Cusack - plugged into Shakespeare's tragedy. It makes for lots of laughs, but it also divests the play of its tragic aspect, which leaves the ending unearned.

A two-actor play is very dependent on its cast, who are onstage nonstop for nearly two hours, and director Philip Cuomo has chosen well.

The entire cast of thirteen sang with pure feeling, and the rafters rang with their astonishing voices.

The plot boils down to whether Veronica cheated, and with whom, and whether she will ever stop abusing substances, and whether Jackie can manage to stay sober.

Band Geeks is the kind of show you start out scoffing at for its simple-minded depiction of teenage problems, but the darn thing sneaks up on you, and you walk out cheering.