Perhaps director Joe Dowling and playwright Jeffrey Hatcher (provider of “additional material”) are right: as it stands Gilbert and Sullivan‘s gloriously English, emphatically 19th century H.M.S. Pinafore (at the Guthrie, through August 28) is too dry and dreary for 21st century Americans. The story, of the sea captain’s daughter torn between her love for...
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In Panic (at Park Square Theatre, through July 10), playwright Joseph Goodrich creates a “cozy” mystery: characters are powerful, wealthy, self-assured. They live postcard-perfect lives. Henry Lockwood, famous film-director, prepares to open his latest film (a grand success, of course) and is starting work on his newest (a mystery, naturally). His semi-invalid wife, Emma,...
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Seeing Finland’s Arto Järvelä and Minnesota’s Kaivama perform together at The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis Friday night made me feel downright happy. For a musical performance to be a success, happiness need not be either the intention or the result, but regardless, it’s a great bonus. Arto Järvelä is a founding member of...
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“What kind of doll are you?” Sky Masterson, high-roller extraordinaire, asks incredulously. To which Sergeant Sarah Brown, proud marcher for the Salvation Army, now sober after getting herself roundly sloshed on Bacardi-flavored milkshakes, replies defiantly, “I’m a mission doll!” End of Act One. I tried hard, I really did. But I couldn’t entirely shrug...
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Upright Egg Theatre Company has opened a company-created show set in a steampunk world laced with dozens of metaphor fragments about love and loss, manmade machines versus nature, lower versus upper classes, beauty versus functionality. But that doesn’t really tell you what to expect. In Songbird, written by Brian Watson-Jones, Inventor Zebulon Volt finds...
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For the first time in the Swiss cheesy memory of this reviewer, a Jungle Theater play has been directed by neither Bain Boehlke nor by his apparent heir apparent Joel Sass. Instead, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (at the Jungle, through July 31) is helmed by the redoubtable John...
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New York is a marvelous city: compact, gorgeously slummy, ethnicities swirling together, SROs right next to upper income high-rises. The City (New Yorkers never bother with the actual name) is filled with weird clubs, outstanding eateries, architectural gems, astounding street theater everywhere you look. Funky and a touch dangerous to be sure, but this...
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