Author: John Olive

Learn To Be Latina at Mixed Blood Theatre

In the demented, clutch-popping and mud puddle shallow Learn To Be Latina (Mixed Blood Theatre, through May 13), by Enrique Urueta, a sweet-tempered, blissfully open Lebanese-American (clear emphasis on the latter), Hanan Mashalani, is informed that although she exhibits serious…

Interview: Jeannine Coulombe

It doesn’t rain but it pours: playwright Jeannine Coulombe has two major productions opening within a week.  The first, The Mill, produced by Workhaus Collective, performing (as always) at the Playwrights Center, opens this Friday, April 20 and closes May…

Time Stands Still at the Guthrie Theater

Sarah Goodwin, the hero of Donald Margulies‘s often penetrating (and often static) Time Stands Still (at the Guthrie, through May 20), thrives on conflict.  On blood, on insanity, the sudden violence of war.  She has acquired – or so she…

The Birthday Party at the Jungle Theater

Pinteresque.  The word has permanently entered the English lexicon.  It refers to something seemingly straightforward – a word, a gesture, a simple prop, a mere pause – that implies that we live atop a miasmic sea of horror and nastiness. …

Interview: Jeremiah Gamble

We had the pleasure recently of speaking To Jeremiah Gamble.  Jeremiah has written, stars in, and (with spouse Vanessa Gamble) has composed the music for Kingdom Undone, a remarkably intelligent and challenging telling of the Passion of Christ story.  The…

Kingdom Undone at the Southern Theater

Kingdom Undone (Southern Theater, through April 8, 2012) tells the story of the passion of Christ.  Ostensibly looking to celebrate Passover, Jesus makes his entrance into a Jerusalem awash in revolutionary fervor.  Zealots appear quite willing to employ terrorism in…

Hay Fever at the Guthrie Theater

Hay Fever (at the Guthrie, through April 22) belongs to the designers.  Enter the Wurtele Thrust and behold – “Wow.” – Janet Bird‘s sumptuous, perfectly painted, gorgeously lit (by Philip S. Rosenberg) set.  Paintings compete with rough drawings and eccentric…