Sol y Luna, a Zorongo Flamenco Dance Company production at Southern Theater on 11/29/07

By: Jon Behm
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Domingo Ortega - Photo by Jim Smith The Southern Theater was temporarily transferred to Southern Spain last night. While the audience remained firmly planted in their seats, The Zorongo Flamenco Dance Company’s Sol y Luna took us down a tour of Sevilla’s Barrio Santa Cruz’s mazelike streets, into hot cafes and Gitano enclaves. With only a little sweet red Spanish wine and a roomful of cigarette...

Barbara Field's adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol at Guthrie Theater on 11/25/07

By: David de Young
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Raye Birk as Ebenezer Scrooge - Photo by Michal Daniel "The Goose is on the Loose" I’ll make a concerted effort to say as little as possible about my choice of subtitles for this review, but if you’ve seen the show you know what I mean. And if you choose to attend, you’ll find out soon enough. It’s been years since I attended a production of A Christmas Carol at the Gut...

Between the Worlds, an Interact Center production at Mixed Blood Theatre on 11/23/07

By: Carl Atiya Swanson
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  The excitement was palpable in the lobby of the Mixed Blood Theatre for the gala opening of Interact Center’s Between the Worlds. It helped that the tiny lobby was packed to the rafters with nowhere to stand or turn that wasn’t in line for the food and wine. This is what happens when you have a cast of 45 and a reputation for courageous theatre: people come in droves.    ...

3 Sticks presents Sarah Ruhl's Melancholy Play at Bryant Lake Bowl on 11/9/07

By: Janet Preus
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Melancholy Play publicity photo Directed by Eric Powell Holm Music by Andrew Lynch               The Question: Are we as a culture unable to appreciate what is appealing and satisfying about melancholy? Have we lost the sensuality to be melancholy? We’re angry, bitter, disappointed, depressed, sad – but melan...

Conor McPherson's Shining City at The Jungle Theater on 11/9/07

By: Jon Behm
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Patrick Bailey as Ian and Cheryl Willis as Neasa in The Jungle Theater production of SHINING CITY - Photo by Michal Daniel Conor McPherson’s Shining City can be a difficult play to sit through. The dark tale of Irish loneliness and depression is not something that will leave you feeling like the road is rising to meet you. That being said, it is also a realistically unpolished play,...

David Marshall Grant's Pen at Guthrie Theater on 11/9/07

By: David de Young
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Marc Halsey, Michelle Barber and Phillep Callen in Pen - Photo by Michal Daniel Directed by Rob Melrose Run time is two hours with a 15 minute intermission.   Directed by Rob Melrose, Pen, the most recent play from actor/playwright David Marshall Grant, opened at the Guthrie Theater in the Dowling Studio November 7th. The play originally debuted in 2006 at Playwrights Horizon ...

Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House at Mixed Blood Theatre on 11/9/07

By: Jon Behm
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The Clean House - Publicity photo by Anne Marsden Lisa Rafaela Clair’s Matilde opens up the play by telling a joke to the audience entirely in Portuguese. To the non Portuguese speaking members of the audience (all of us as far as I could tell) the joke was complete gibberish. It was funny to watch though, made so through Clair’s talent for expressing meaning with ...

La Boheme at Southern Theater on 11/3/07

By: Jon Behm
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Jill Sandager & Nathan Brian - photo by Rick Spaulding As I entered the Southern Theater on Saturday night, I couldn’t help but to be reminded of the St. Paul Caves. The theater is small and dark and completely composed of weathered looking stone. It is the perfect backdrop for the theater’s current opera, Puccini’s La Bohème, Theatre Latté Da Production...

The Mail Order Bride by Charles Mee, a nimbus theatre production at Minneapolis Theater Garage on 11/2/07

By: David de Young
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Rose Le Tran as June in nimbus theatre's production of The Mail Order Bride Directed by Josh Cragun Run time 1 hour and 50 minutes with no intermission   Inevitably when writing theater reviews one eventually gets to call a play “a satiric romp.” That phrase is apt in the case of Charles Mee’s The Mail Order Bride, which had its regional premiere at the Minne...

The Rocky Horror Show at Ordway Center for the Performing Arts on 10/12/07

By: Jon Behm
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Photo from www.ordway.org No one ever forgets their virgin viewing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The movie experience usually involves a red lipstick “V” painted on your forehead and some sort of humiliating spectacle in front of the crowd. Mine, many years ago, was unusually harrowing for both the audience, and me, but when you have a theater-full of people in drag ...