Tag: Vol. 35 No. 28

Ignoring Spain’s century-long literary golden age, Circle Theatre bills Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1936 play, about a bitter Andalusian woman who wants to keep her adult daughters spinsters, as “the greatest Spanish tragedy of all time.” Likewise, director Kristin Gehring ignores the script’s poetic imagery and folkloric hyperbole to interpret the play as psychological realism. A […]

A showcase of one-acts is the most persuasive production so far in the Goodman’s tribute to Mamet.

In Jeremy Menekseoglu’s revisionist take on Sophocles’ tragedy for the Dream Theatre Company, Antigone buries her brother, defying the law, to please not the gods but the chorus. Fury-like creatures who feed on the suffering of others, they and their suave prophet, Te, convince the naive girl that the only way to achieve immortality is […]

Director William Brown and a fine cast manage to find the humor in Enid Bagnold’s mannered 1955 play. As the companion-governess, a woman with a secret, Tracy Michelle Arnold makes cool detachment appealing, and Steve Hinger has exuberant fun with the role of a flappable, fey manservant. Elizabeth Ledo can be charming as the precocious, […]

There’s nothing inspired about David Mink’s paint-by-numbers revival of Moliere’s comic masterpiece for the Oak Park Festival Theatre. Even transposing the story, about a religious hypocrite who takes over an aristocrat’s household, from 17th-century France to the American south in the early 20th century is accomplished so halfheartedly it’s hardly worth mentioning. But you don’t […]

In Clifford Odets’s 1941 play, a naive husband whose wife is suffering from what we now call postpartum depression foolishly does his lonely best buddy a favor by inviting him to come live with them. Why a theater would choose to stage this turgid domestic drama in 2006 is a mystery. But the actors assembled […]

Noble Fool Theatricals director Nick Sandys takes an Alice in Wonderland approach to Shakespeare’s play, adding a Mad Hatter and hookahs–which works well visually. Shipwrecked Viola disguises herself as eunuch to Duke Orsino, whom she hopes to marry, but he’s in love with Olivia. When Viola (in male garb) delivers the Duke’s sentiments to Olivia, […]

Sex and the City regular David Eigenberg, playing a nice guy, brings some warmth and humanity to Melanie Marnich’s chilly, disappointingly obvious play. Set in Africa, it revolves around two American couples and the effect their cheating has on the innocent partners. Eigenberg and the rest of the cast–playing three tart-tongued women (Julie Ganey, Jennie […]