Our Oregon Critics
View All »
BWW Reviews: Joy and Pain in THE LAST FIVE YEARS at Portland Center Stage
Every moment of joy is paired with a moment of pain - and isn't that exactly how you think back on your failed relationships?...
BWW Reviews: A Very Different Kind of Nostalgia Lives at MAPLE AND VINE at CoHo Productions
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?...
BWW Reviews: THE SIGN IN SIDNEY BRUSTEIN'S WINDOW
As Denzel Washington, Kenny Leon and Co. usher in the umpteenth renaissance of Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN, across the country, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is mounting a 50th anniversary revival of the only other work the Hansberry- who died at 34 - lived to see produced....
BWW Reviews: WATER BY THE SPOONFUL at Oregon Shakespeare Festival
It may take a few minutes for a viewer to get his bearings within the world of WATER BY THE SPOONFUL. The canvas laid out by playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes stretches from Puerto Rico to San Diego, from Philadelphia to Japan. Characters go by their chatroom handles, and their relationships to each o...
BWW Reviews: THE TEMPEST at Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Feats of magic are at an end, resolutions have been made and Ferdinand and Miranda are bound for a world far braver and newer than what they've experienced on this magical island. That's when Jeffrey King, as Antonio, turns to face his brother Prospero whose Dukedom Antonio usurped lo those many yea...
BWW Reviews: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS at Oregon Shakespeare Festival
The throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-pray-for-laughs approach to low comedy is a staple of live theater, and certainly, of William Shakespeare's plays. None play would seem to invite a shtick-fest - beg for one even - than the hugely ridiculous THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. At the Oregon Shakespeare Fe...
BWW Reviews: THE BIKINIS Try to Bring Back the '60s at Broadway Rose
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....
BWW Reviews: Artists' Rep THE QUALITY OF LIFE Asks the Tough Questions...and Laughs at Them
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 gri...
BWW Reviews: OTHELLO Fights for Glory at Portland Center Stage
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....
BWW Reviews: Post5's HAMLET Has An Antic Disposition
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....
BWW Reviews: Third Rail's MIDSUMMER Will Make You Sing in the Rain
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....
BWW Reviews: Portland Playhouse's THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA Is a Quiet Masterpiece
The entire cast of thirteen sang with pure feeling, and the rafters rang with their astonishing voices....
BWW Reviews: THE MOTHERF***ER WITH THE HAT Is a Brutally Romantic Comedy at Artists Rep
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....
BWW Reviews: Give in to Your Nerdy Side with BAND GEEKS at Broadway Rose
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....
BWW Reviews: THE MONSTER-BUILDER Is a Devil of a Comedy at Artists Rep
Part of the fun is figuring out what's going to happen and where the whole thing is headed. It took me until intermission to figure things out, as Freed throws a big surprise at the audience right before the act break that tells us once and for all what we're watching....
BWW Reviews: JITNEY is a Long, Meandering Ride at Portland Playhouse
The play is anecdotal, each character telling long stories about where they've been and what they've lived through, but the stories are less distinctive than I'm used to from August Wilson....
BWW Reviews: CHINGLISH is Filled with Cross-Cultural Laughter at Portland Center Stage
An American businessman comes over to try to sell the city leaders on hiring his company to build the signage for the center, in hopes of avoiding the mistranslations we've all seen and laughed at....
BWW Reviews: Crazy, Maddening, and Funny...That's ENJOY at Coho Productions
Sometimes a play that isn't working takes a positive step in its second half, and that's the case with Enjoy....
BWW Reviews: All the Laughs You Could Ever Want Are in NOISES OFF at Third Rail
Michael Frayn's farce-within-a-farce is simply the funniest play ever written by a human, and it's so good that even high schoolers can get surefire laughs with it. Put this script in the hands of talented professionals, however, who can find laughs beyond what's written on paper, and you've got an...
BWW Reviews: Artists Rep's FOXFINDER Gets Lost in the Woods
William keeps searching, Judith tries to hold things together, and Sam becomes increasingly agitated. You could read the foxes as just about anything; originally I thought of McCarthy's Communists, though WMDs also came to mind....
BWW Reviews: A Fractured Family Faces THE OUTGOING TIDE at CoHo Productions
A playwright choosing Alzheimer's as a topic would seem to have painted himself into a corner, and we expect that we're going to spend the evening watching Gunner get worse. But the action here takes place over just a couple of days, and Gunner has a plan of his own to solve the problems facing the ...
BWW Reviews: The Road to Hell Begins with a Backyard Barbecue in DETROIT at Portland Playhouse
Lisa D'Amour's play Detroit does not specifically take place in Michigan, but everything about it reminded me of my hometown. Daniel Meeker's stunning set presents us with a couple of middle-class suburban patios, shabby around the edges, with worn paint, cheap outdoor furniture, and stained concret...
BWW Reviews: A Showbiz Tour de Force at Artists Rep, But MISTAKES WERE MADE
Mistakes Were Made is more or less a one-man show. Felix, played by Michael Mendelson, becomes increasingly frantic, bouncing from call to call, screaming obscenities one second and sweet-talking the people who can help him the next....
BWW Reviews: A Family Dinner Is SWEET AND SAD at Third Rail
I completely forgot I was watching a play. The actors disappear into their roles, and the dialogue is so natural, filled with the interruptions, unexplained digressions, and inside references that you'd expect to hear at a family dinner....
BWW Reviews: THE GREAT GATSBY is an Ambitious Undertaking at Bag & Baggage
Simon Levy's adaptation is actually a skillful condensation of the events and dialogue of the novel, stitched together with some narration, but this production isn't up to his writing, let alone Fitzgerald's....
Videos
|
Kristina Wong #FoodBankInfluencer Portland Center Stage at The Aromory (5/26-6/07) |
|
Funny Girl Lakewood Theatre Company (4/24-6/07) |
|
Arbus & West The Sactuary @ Sandy Plaza (6/04-6/20) |
|
Next To Normal Twilight Theater Company (5/21-6/14) |
|
Doja Cat at Moda Center Moda Center (10/17-10/17) |
|
Once Upon A Mattress Broadway Rose Theater Company (5/21-6/21) |
|
The SpongeBob Musical Portland Playhouse (4/29-6/07) |
|
The Taming Ten Fifteen Productions (5/28-6/13) |
|
|
Sound Of Music Keller Auditorium (5/11-5/16) |
|
DAPPERLESQUE: (PRIDE EDITION) A Gender Bending Burlesque Cabaret Alberta Rose Theatre (6/27-6/27) |
| VIEW ALL SHOWS ADD A SHOW | |
Get Oregon's #1 Theatre Newsletter
Get the best news & discounts for Oregon Shows & beyond.
