The Twin Cities is blessed with many storied theater institutions, two of the most vital being the Children’s Theatre Company and Penumbra Theatre. Both have distinct missions – one to introduce theater in approachable ways to new generations and one…
Category: Reviews
Review | Noises Off: a fine British farce
Noises Off is a perennially popular farce about all the things that can go wrong with a theatre production. Anyone who knows theatre knows the list is almost endless: last minute changes that rattle the actors, backstage romances that threaten…
Review | The Maids: pure energy
Like all of Dark & Stormy Productions plays, Jean Genet‘s The Maids is done in a small, empty office space in the old Grain Belt Brewery (77 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, through Feb 17). The space is intimate. The actors…
Review | A Steady Rain: solid
Of all the horrific things that have happened over the past fifty years the Jeffrey Dahmer story stands out. What makes it especially distressing is that a fourteen-year-old boy escaped from Dahmer’s basement apartment, ran naked to two Milwaukee police…
Review | Ishmael: a monolog based on Moby Dick
For most people… Well, for many people… Okay, for me, Moby Dick = Gregory Peck. The image is indelible: Peck-as-Ahab lashed to the great albino whale’s side, stabbing at him ineffectually with a broken harpoon, as Dick, having handily turned…
Review | Dot: glitter, with tarnished gold
Christmas time mingles past, present and future as families gather to celebrate and share common traditions and memories. So it’s no surprise to discover a play about a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s during the holiday season when the loss of…
Review | Hatchet Lady: doesn’t cut it
Carry Nation is an odd footnote of American history; a woman so impassioned to halt the scourge of alcohol in pre-prohibition times that she took it as a call from God to do physical damage to saloons and bars with…
Review | A Christmas Carole Petersen: a Minnesota Nice holiday
There’s an emotionally raw quality to A Christmas Carole Petersen (Theater Latté Da, through Dec 30) that imparts to the material real substance, true Christmas spirit. Without this the play might could be glib, pat, and predictable. For example: Tod Petersen…
Review | Blithe Spirit: sparking sophistication
Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, now at the Guthrie, begins as the upper-class English couple Charles and Ruth Condomine are about to host a dinner party. He’s an established writer. She manages the household which includes a maid of uncommon exuberance.…
Review | The Unscripted Minnesota Holiday: improvised fun
Looking for a little alternative holiday entertainment? Something that doesn’t require dressing up or pondering the financial commitment for the tickets? Well, here it is: Dangerboat Productions “The Unscripted Minnesota Holiday†at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater – and it’s family-friendly…