Author Archives: Josefa Smith

CONTINUUM: VISIONS FROM YETUNDE Ma’at Production Association for Afrikan Centered Theatre at Body Politic Theatre The Ma’at Production Association for Afrikan Centered Theatre says it uses “dance, music and poetry to illuminate the richness of Afrikan culture and emphasize the wealth of the Pan-Afrikan experience.” A noble aim, but MPAACT’s first stage play is nonetheless […]

IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER Lookingglass Theatre Company at the Prop Theatre When I was old enough to have my own room, in the heated porch off my parents’ apartment, my grandmother suggested I look under my bed every night just in case an intruder was hiding there. I did–and when I got my […]

AS YOU LIKE IT Folio Theatre Company For me, half the fun of Shakespeare is the period costumes–men in tights, women in gowns, women in tights disguised as men. I’ve seen too many companies update the look and setting of his plays with no other intent than to show off their own cleverness. But recently […]

INFANTS OF THE SPRING Live Bait Theater Glenda Starr Kelley’s adaptation of Wallace Thurman’s 1932 novel Infants of the Spring opens with flappers kicking up their heels before a purple, pink, and red set, and ends with the play’s protagonist, Raymond–the leader of an artists’ colony in 1920s Harlem–on a darkened stage, describing his commune […]

FAITHFUL Renegade Theatre Company at the Royal George Theatre Center’s Gallery Wouldn’t it be funny if a hit man called his psychiatrist while he was on a job? Wouldn’t it be even funnier if the psychiatrist were a sniveling, insecure gambler begging his patient for guidance and assurance? The author of Faithful, Chazz Palminteri, was […]

A . . . MY NAME IS ALICE Prologue Theatre Productions at the Theatre Building ALICE IN WOMANLAND Eta Dorpha Society at the Beat Kitchen Both these plays examine popular women’s issues–love, divorce, food, cramps, one’s identity in the workplace, and abortion. A . . . My Name Is Alice, a musical revue conceived by […]

SHOWBIZ Wisdom Bridge Theatre My high school and grammar school drama coaches are best remembered for their screaming fits, one for throwing a chair across the stage during a particularly frustrating rehearsal, and another for getting drunk on opening night. One, however, was a professional. If Mr. Smith yelled, his voice resonated and shook the […]

TWO ROOMS Oil-Can Productions at Cafe Voltaire The strengths and weaknesses of this company’s first professional production reflect those of Lee Blessing’s play. A very moving story, about a hostage and his wife who remain spiritually connected though physically separated, is weakened by heavy-handed portraits of the ineffectual government agent and ambitious journalist who claim […]

LILLIAN Interplay Playwright Lillian Hellman makes a fascinating subject. A successful writer in Hollywood and New York during the 30s and 40s, she had stories to tell about Dorothy Parker, Tullulah Bankhead, and Dashiell Hammett, with whom she lived off and on for 30 years. In 1952, when she was subpoenaed to testify before the […]

SUNKEN LAND Stage Left Theatre Sometimes a program tells you more than its producers intend it to. The one for Jeff Mangrum’s Sunken Land describes the play as “a futuristic drama where women & men struggle against a government that has gone out of control.” Not surprisingly, the play isn’t any more subtle than this […]

GULLIVER’S LAST TRAVELS Organic Theater Company “It’s not the way I remember the book,” I thought watching Lawrence Bommer’s adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels. Most of the people and places here aren’t anything like those I imagined when I read Jonathan Swift’s fictional travelogue. Of course, no two people interpret fiction in the same way. But […]

PRIN Wild Life Theatre Company at Facets Multimedia International Performance Studio If you’re beautiful, brilliant, or talented, don’t see Prin. It’s a conventional two-act play extolling the virtues of being ordinary, which is probably why I liked it so much. That, and playwright Andrew Davies’s smart but unaffected dialogue, director Karen Kessler’s ability to catch […]

VINEGAR TOM Halcyone Productions at Splinter Group Studio Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom, first performed in 1976, is as much about the 70s women’s movement as it is about the witch-hunts of 17th-century England. The story centers on four women accused of witchcraft, but the actors intermittently step out of character to sing campy folk songs […]

WHEN THE REST OF HEAVEN WAS BLUE Theatre M at Bedrocks There’s something collegiate about When the Rest of Heaven Was Blue, Theatre M’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe short stories and poetry. Poe’s works can seem amateurish, but that can’t be the whole explanation. For beyond the doggerel of some of his poetry and […]

THE HOTHOUSE European Repertory Company at Shattered Globe Theatre Harold Pinter wrote The Hothouse in 1958 but set it aside until 1979, when he reread it and decided it was “worth presenting on the stage,” as he writes in the introduction to the play. Today it’s still worth it, and not just because it exposes […]