If you want to glean a sense of the transformative power of masks watch as Maria dons the Virgin Mary mask in La Natividad (a co-production of In The Heart Of The Beast Puppet And Mask Theatre and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, through Dec 22). Suddenly the performer, who had been merely human, becomes… ...
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The story of a youthful con artist, staying one step ahead of the law, living by his wits, naïve and fearless, is a great story. In the hands of accomplished writers, it transfers to the musical theater genre surprisingly well. “Catch Me If You Can,” running this week at the Orpheum Theater, is set...
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Need a little “Sparklejollytwinklejingley” this Christmas season? Looking for an overload like indulging in an entire plate of Christmas cookies? I’ve got just the thing: take someone who could use a little Christmas to the Broadway musical, “Elf,” showing through December at the Ordway Theater. You’ll come out smiling and laughing, stuffed with cozy...
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The Servant Of Two Masters (at the Guthrie, through January 20). First some mechanicals come out in semi-darkness, speaking pidgin Italian. They kill the lights and we have an exquisite firefly effect: twinkling lights, hundreds of them, seeming to float o’er the McGuire stage (three cheers for lighter Chuan-Chi Chan). Then the lights shoot...
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Playwright Martin McDonagh has a rep as a hard-drinking Irishman, an angry and dyspeptic glorifier of domineering mothers, gravediggers, cripples (okay, let’s say differently abled wheelchair-bound schemers) and, in the case of A Behanding In Spokane (now playing at the Gremlin Theatre, through Dec 16) deranged searchers-for-severed-hands. But this is unfounded. Hard-drinking? Okay, maybe. ...
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This is not exactly a review, but then “It Is She Who I See” is not exactly a play. I would like, however, to try to describe it to you because if you’re the sort of person whose interest is piqued by a show billed as an “immersive multimedia performance,” this is something you...
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One of the pleasures of reviewing theater in the Twin Cities is discovering another brave, small theater company tackling a challenging play and nailing it. The company is Nightpath Theatre, the play is “Old Times,” a modern classic by Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, and the place is the stripped down Loring Alley Theater, a...
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The holiday season approaches, so it must be time once again for that lovable grouch called “Grinch” to attempt to steal Christmas from us. He can’t succeed, as we know, but it’s oh, so much fun watching him try. The Children’s Theatre Company was packed with bouncing youngsters of all ages on Friday for...
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