Tag: Vol. 34 No. 16

The anguish of aging runs through James M. Barrie’s seemingly playful dramas. If Peter Pan celebrates eternal youth, his equally bittersweet Quality Street defies time’s ravages to offer the reassurance of a second chance at love. Barrie’s 1901 homage to Jane Austen’s Persuasion is a Napoleonic-era caprice: a seemingly spurned lady wins back a long-lost […]

After attempts at writing novels and melodramas, George Bernard Shaw found solid footing with this 1893 critique of hypocrisy within polite society. Mrs. Warren–an entrepreneur who’s filled her coffers by franchising brothels throughout Europe–remains one of Shaw’s sharpest female creations, a huge ripple in his usual stream of dowdy spinsters and petulant schoolgirls. In keeping […]

While not the towering retrospective that the title suggests, this is a finely tuned revue of sketches from the Second City’s vast repertoire plus a smidgen of improv. Director Jim Carlson mixes and matches an impressive variety of diverse but identifiable characters: the ingenue (Rebecca Sage Allen), hunk (Alex Fendrich), imp (Nicky Margolis), Belushi-ish dude […]

Adapter Eve Friedman stretches Isaac Bashevis Singer’s ten-page fable into three hours, an approach perfectly suited to making the audience feel it’s trapped in a Marc Chagall painting. It’s a shame that the European Repertory Company, directed by Zeljko Djukich, expends so much intelligence and energy on this uninteresting piece of folklore. Shtetl Poland comes […]

The four one-acts in Pegasus Players’ 19th annual festival seem subtler and more sophisticated–less tin-eared and less prone to ham-fisted didacticism–than the scripts of festivals past. Imani Josey in Grace never gets preachy as she tells the story of a young woman who learns the dangers of swimming with the sharks. And Nikhar Ahmed in […]