One of the things drama does so well is to make us think and feel about the vectors a society is following. And one of the things happening in our society that drama needs to address is our headlong rush into technology with a personality verging on personhood. Proxy is a thoughtful and perceptive c... (more...)
There's much to like about this production of THE BODYGUARD, story aside. It's predictable, superficial and just barely passes the Bechdel-Wallace test. The script is measurably better than the story and the performance is even better than the script. Ross Scott Rawlings' accompanying mini-orchestra... (more...)
All politics is personal, as the saying goes. Seldom is this point made with greater dramatic clarity than in Miss You Like Hell. The ending is powerful, but because of the politics. Miss You Like Hell illustrates, in a very personal and detailed way, how deportation policies damage and destroy liv... (more...)
Bright Half Life is presented in a totally nonsequential fashion, and at nearly breakneck speed much of the time. We are left to piece together the whole story from dozens of fragments that appear and pass quickly, which can be both exhausting and exhilarating. And not just for us in the audience; t... (more...)
At the Everyman Theatre, director Paige Hernandez delivers a beautifully rendered revival of David Auburn's play PROOF which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2001. Nearly twenty years later, the issues and dilemmas it presents remain relevant and riveting.... (more...)
The title Perfect Arrangement refers to the compact of a male gay couple and a lesbian couple to hide in plain view from the disapproval of the world in 1950 by posing as two straight couples living in adjoining halves of a Georgetown duplex. The two halves are secretly connected through the residen... (more...)
Keeping us gasping is what Cabaret in all of its incarnations has always been about. Gasping at the opulence, gasping at the decadence, gasping at the heedlessness and the horror. It is intentionally strong stuff, and if it delivers, then it succeeds. And by that yardstick, this version, whatever it... (more...)
It is not often one opens a theater program and on page one sees a letter from composer Stephen Sondheim. I had the privilege of attending the joint Jason Robert Brown and Stephen Sondheim concert on June 24, 2019 at Town Hall in New York City to raise funds for 'Brady United Against Gun Violence' (... (more...)
Support Group for Men will send you away happy. There is nothing profound or challenging in this show: just a well-crafted and very funny comedy of manners, specifically the manners of the male of Species Homo Americanus, youthful to mid-life, as observed in a middle-class Chicago habitat.... (more...)
Dougherty unspools the stories of Chester and Dr. Cotton, his treating physician, with novelistic skill. The feeling of truly being in the World War II period never lifts. The stories reel us in: Chester's of the way he deals with his injury, and Cotton's of hospital life in wartime, with its politi... (more...)
Then the government, represented by its functionary Lucius (Michael Rogers), brings in Shimeus (Wade McCollum), a derelict of another sort, whimpering and traumatized by an arson that killed everyone else in his family. Lucius orders the Browns to harbor Shimeus as a guest. Almost immediately, howev... (more...)
It's an old trick, but a good one: Set two contrasting dramatic tones (usually domestic comedy and dread) against each other and let them fight it out throughout a play. It's the trick playwright Greg Kalleres employs to advantage in Wrecked,... (more...)
The drama works because of the intriguing way the characters' ideas about how to act in response to Marian Anderson's two provocative exclusions (first from Nassau Inn and then from Constitution Hall) shift repeatedly in response to new information, so that consensus is almost impossible to achieve,... (more...)
And now of course we are into the story of Antonio's family of origin, and the world of his origin, which has conditioned him to behave this way, which implicitly and explicitly looks to its men to solve problems with violence.... (more...)
Let me admit when I saw MATILDA on Broadway in 2013 (winner of 5 Tony Awards), I did not enjoy it. I just could not understand the character of the buffoon Miss Trunchbell, the Olympian hammer throwing athletic principal of Matilda's school. He was the villain of all villains.... (more...)
Berowne gloomily foresees: "Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three year's space." And by "necessity" we can be sure he means not simply the logistical necessity of dealing with women but what we might call Jurassic Park Necessity: Life finds a way. As Shakespeare... (more...)
A thinly-disguised parable of the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui may have been written in 1941, but it may as well have been addressed directly to Americans of 2019.... (more...)
Disaster! lovingly pokes fun at two staples of 1970s popular culture: disaster movies like Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure and the disco-heavy pop music of the era. Whether to go is not going to present any great dilemmas. This is a perfect summer evening's smart-alecky entertainment.... (more...)
When you leave the theater and you immediately purchase a copy of the play, that should indicate that you have really enjoyed it. This does not happen often but it happened to me as I left the Lansburgh Theatre (temporary home of the Round House during renovations) in DC. I loved A DOLL'S HOUSE, PAR... (more...)
BWW Review: THE ROYALE at Olney Theatre Center - It's a Knockout!
Personality Verging on Personhood: PROXY at Rapid Lemon
FOOTLOOSE at the Kennedy Center - Put On Your Dancing Shoes
BWW Review: DRACULA at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
BWW Review: THE BODYGUARD Protects Toby's Superstar Reputation
Making Deportation Politics Personal: MISS YOU LIKE HELL at Baltimore Center Stage
BWW Review: BRIGHT HALF LIFE at Strand Theater Company
BWW Review: PROOF at The Everyman Theatre
BWW Review: From Farcical to Sombre in PERFECT ARRANGEMENT at Fells Point Corner Theatre
BWW Review: CABARET at Olney Theatre Center Keeps Us Gasping
BWW Review: ASSASSINS at Signature Theatre - You Will Get Goose Bumps!
A SALUTE TO GILBERT & SULLIVAN, FROM LONDON TO BALTIMORE - at Young Victorian Theatre Company in Baltimore
BWW Review: The Guys Are Alright: SUPPORT GROUP FOR MEN at Contemporary American Theater Festival
BWW Review: Profoundly Moving CHESTER BAILEY at Contemporary American Theater Festival
Patriarchy Run Rampant: A WELCOME GUEST at Contemporary American Theater Festival
BWW Review: You'll Laugh, You'll Shiver: WRECKED at Contemporary American Theater Festival
MY LORD, WHAT A NIGHT! at Contemporary American Theater Festival: Clashing Views on Resisting Racism
Brooklyn Is In Him: ANTONIO'S SONG at Contemporary American Theater Festival
BWW Review: BLACKBEARD at Signature Theatre - A World Premiere Musical About Pirates Will Put a Smile on Your Face
BWW Review: MATILDA at Olney Theatre Center- A Wondrous Musical Fit for Families to Enjoy
BWW Review: Necessity and Realism Prevail Along with Enchantment in LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
BWW Review: DISASTER! at Cockpit in Court Summer Theatre at Essex Community College is a HOOT
BWW Review: Topical and Mostly Sure-Footed Rendering Of ARTURO UI from Scena
BWW Review: DISASTER! Slays at Cockpit In Court
BWW Review: A DOLL'S HOUSE, PART 2 at Round House Theater - A Powerful Production
