It’s a terrific idea: take the dense, lyrical prose of Federico Garcia Lorca‘s masterful The House Of Bernarda Alba and replace it with dense, semi-dissonant, percussive music (by Michael John LaChiusa). And it works! As long as you don’t expect…
Tag: Theater Latte Da
Review | All Is Calm: masterful
Across a dim stage, out of the (hypoallergenic) mist, a crystal-clear voice rings out, singing the old Scottish tune “Will ye go to Flanders.†The voice takes shape in a young soldier, flanked on either side by a small chorus…
Review | To Let Go And Fall: an affecting study of love and aging
Cello music is, it has to be said, mournful, lugubrious and, well, a little creepy. “It’s not gloomy,” asserts the young son in A Little Night Music. “It’s profound.” IOW, ya gotta be in the mood and, luckily, at the…
Review | Hedwig And The Angry Inch: this one will rock you right to the end
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is not an easy show to pull off. But when it’s done right, it pulls you in, sinking its Aqua Net misted hooks into you and will stay with you long after the final curtain.…
Review | A Little Night Music: the perfect show for a frigid winter night
Only the great Stephen Sondheim can do this: hunched over a (grand, naturally) piano, he plunks out a simple melody. One five-five-five. “Isn’t it rich? / Don’t you approve?” And suddenly – hey, presto! – Sondheim has created “Send In…
Once: heartfelt and streetwise
You know what busking is, don’t you? When a talented (one hopes) musician plays for free on the street, opening his guitar case (or fiddle case, or mandolin case, as the case may be) in hopes of catching a few…
Review | Underneath The Lintel: a hoot
Underneath The Lintel (Theater Latte Da, at the Ritz Theatre) is, to say the least, an unexciting title, but Glen Berger‘s rollicking and rip-roaring play is the bomb. In it, a “librarian” (she has no other name) finds a book returned…
Review | Five Points: the production thrills, but the play needs work
In the mid-nineteenth century, the now nonexistent Five Points in New York City was one of the nation’s most diverse neighborhoods, though it was far from a melting pot. As oppressed people groups found themselves relegated to its squalid accommodations,…
Review | Assassins: overlong maybe, but fab
Ever wonder why the dapper Johnny Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham Lincoln? Laid awake at night sorting out the reasons why the cheerfully insane Charles Guiteau put a bullet in President Garfield’s back? Tried to figure out why the effervescently cute…
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…