Author Archives: Mary Shen Barnidge

Karani Marcia Leslie’s 1994 play explores distorted images of African-American women in the popular media. Her arguments, illustrated by vintage film clips, are presented as part of a fanciful construct: a young executive brings a lawsuit against the stereotypes that she alleges have impeded her professional progress. Leslie’s satirical portrait of Hollywood greedheads is as […]

The narrator is a middle-aged bachelor whose mother languishes in an elder-care facility, so perhaps it’s not surprising he more or less adopts the fiercely independent old homeless woman living in a van parked in his garden. British writer Alan Bennett, who adapted the script in 1999 from his own 1989 autobiographical account, attempts to […]

What happens when the parents are the ones who run away from home? In Jessica Goldberg’s play, a young woman becomes resigned to caring for her ill-tempered invalid brother and thrill-seeking little sister, though their household is chaotic. Then she meets a likewise rootless boarder who awakens the possibility of nuclear-family stability. The story, told […]

Entertaining angels unawares–or, more often nowadays, intergalactic explorers–is a frequent literary theme. Playwright Stuart Spencer creates a variation on it with this innocuous domestic comedy about a lower-echelon alien who jumps spaceship and lands in rural northern Wisconsin, where he becomes embroiled in his hosts’ marital problems. Under Brea Hayes’s direction for Shabam! Productions, a […]

There’s no shortage of plays that read like classroom exercises–but Chicago playwright Belinda Bremner conceived Envoy precisely for the purpose of training actors. The story revolves around student volunteers on a philanthropic service project in an unnamed third-world country who are taken hostage by rebel guerrillas. The actors playing the diverse characters in this Echo […]

Truly It’s not uncommon for children to manufacture fantasy from reality, but when the preadolescent heroine of this American-gothic vignette attempts to reverse the process, she finds real life often unwilling to accommodate romantic fancies. The dramatic arc of Drew Dir’s play progresses too nebulously to make the most of its conclusion, but this Hypatia […]

The traditional picture of Shakespeare’s Richard II is of a spoiled, whining slacker. But director Alan Paul portrays him as a better man after he loses the crown, suggesting the ease with which power can corrupt those not mindful of their humanity. The mostly young actors of the Apex Theatre Company acquit themselves admirably, their […]

In William Mastrosimone’s suspenseful 1986 drama, the leader of an eco-terrorist group that’s killed 27 people agrees to be interviewed by a young television journalist. The issues surrounding civil disobedience are once again timely, and Mastrosimone scores some salient points, attacking big-business cover-ups and media self-interest as well as examining the thin line between lofty […]

Writer-director Stephen Cone asks an interesting question: if a minister of God discovers he has the ability to resurrect the dead, should he do so whenever asked? Especially when his powers wreak havoc in the community as the returnees’ fervor leads to a rash of reckless suicides fueled by curiosity about the hereafter? We might […]

Playwright Yehuda Hyman might have adapted the Hasidic tale of the seven beggars as a contemplative spiritual allegory or as a fast-paced action-adventure fantasy. But he seems undecided which course to take in his account of a reluctant hero, assisted by a bevy of exotic companions, who rescues a sleeping princess. Though the first act […]

In 1879 Ibsen’s Nora Helmer rejected the inequitable status of the upper-class housewife, and in 1902 Shaw’s Vivie Warren embraced the opportunities offered by the working world. W. Somerset Maugham’s 1926 exploration of the connection between economic independence and sexual liberation rewards its savvy heroine with the best of both worlds. A smart cast under […]

If the clan in this play had been Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, or Buddhist, no theater would have touched it. But since its leader is an amen-snorting Arkansas preacher as cruelly abusive as his two children are passive and dim-witted, playgoers can enjoy a guilt-free chortle at the droll antics of these stereotypical rubes. What undoes […]

Three characters in present-day Britain–a serial murderer who preys on little girls, the crusading mother of one of his victims, and a psychologist prone to anxiety attacks–explore the roots of antisocial behavior in Bryony Lavery’s drama. Nominated for a Tony in 2004, it imposes a thick veneer of academic argot on the familiar debate over […]

Nothing The suicide-hotline volunteers in Adam Rosenberg’s Prevention are having a bad night: Joachim is determined not to let his caller hang up, Sonny focuses on the logbook, and Dexter insists on recounting the story of his own near-death experience. Are they three distinct individuals or different facets of a single character? Under Scott T. […]