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 believes – the photojournalist’s knack for using the camera as a shield to keep...
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Illusion Theater has renewed their collaborative relationship with local playwright Jeffrey Hatcher in a commissioned work that also honors producing directors Michael Robins (who directs this production) and Bonnie Morris for their commitment to developing and producing new plays. The relationship and friendship between playwright and theater, in this case, has been a long...
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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. The crusty critics of the 50s and 60s called this subliminal reality “menace,” or...
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I did a scientific analysis of the audience at Million Dollar Quartet (at the State Theatre, through April 1) (I looked around). I immediately perceived that a person with the Rogaine concession would clean up. The show seems geared largely to Baby Boomers, gray-haired 50 and 60-somethings, a-boppin’ and a-rockin’ to some truly dyno-mite...
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We’ve learned to expect imaginative surprises from The Moving Company. The members of this relatively new company of familiar local theater artists just see theater differently. Werther and Lotte, the Passion and the Sorrow, created by company members Nathan Keepers (who plays Werther), Christina Baldwin (Lotte) and Dominique Serrand (director), is an enchanting pas...
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Park Square Theatre, in association with Carlyle Brown & Company, has premiered a new play by Carlyle Brown, taking Park Square down an adventurous path. A commissioned piece by the theater, American Family explores the idea of a mixed-race marriage in 1960’s Alabama. Laura Collins (Noël Raymond) is determined to overcome the societal taboo...
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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 their efforts to expel the Roman occupiers who are (understandably) nervous and quick to...
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Edith Can Shoot Things And Hit Them (Mu Performing Arts, performing at Mixed Blood Theatre, through April 1) wants to be a movie. Much of what we hear about in A. Rey Pamatmat‘s play – Edith’s armed “securing the perimeter” of the house, the shooting of Dad’s girlfriend Chloe, Benji’s fraught confrontation with his...
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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 props. Murals swirl – enough to draw your attention but never distracting. The floorplan...
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Beale Street. Few places figure so centrally in American musical culture. A case could be made for Congo Square in New Orleans, for the now-disappeared jazz clubs along 52nd Street, Laurel Canyon in the 1960s, the Grand Ole Opry. But do these reign as completely as Memphis’s Beale Street, home to the great founder...
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