MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET: LESS THAN MIRACULOUS
Perhaps the kindest way to start is to say that, artistically, Miracle on 34th Street is a tough sell in 2024. (And the realistic way to start is to say that this Arts Club production fails to sell it.) Miracle on 34th Street is thin, sentimental, and painfully...
IN THE BELLY OF THE CARP
Childhood poverty and abuse, adult addiction: this is my kind of holiday show. Seriously. At this time of year when so much entertainment is brainless and weightless, In the Belly of the Carp offers a more satisfying experience. And the staging of this production from...
EAST VAN PANTO: ROBIN HOOD — COULD STEAL MORE FROM THE RICH
East Van Panto: Robin Hood is not the best East Van Panto ever, but it’s still fun and it's still a win. Jivesh Parasram and Christine Quintana wrote the script, as they did last year. In their story, Robin Hood is a little critter who lives with his band of Merry...
DOLLY PARTON’S SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS CAROL: WHAT CHANGED?
Well, that was a journey. In Act 1, I admired the performances but was so uninterested in the storytelling that I wrote in my notebook, “Why am I here?” But, by the emotional climax of Act 2, tears were streaming down my face and, when they stopped, I felt cleansed....
THE SOUND INSIDE: LISTEN TO IT
Playwright Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside is an ambitious, literate mystery. For me, it’s about art and reality, loneliness and responsibility. But one of the beauties of the play is that it will be interpreted differently depending on what individual audience members...
THE HOBBIT: SORT OF
In The Hobbit, novelist JRR Tolkein creates a textured, credible, and high-stakes fantasy world, but all of that is missing in Kim Selody’s stage adaptation and there’s not much to replace it. Just two actors perform the whole thing. Tim Carlson’s core character — and...
TOM CREAN – DISCOVERING ANTARCTICA: WHY?
There’s nothing there. I’m not talking about Antarctica; I’m talking about Aidan Dooley’s script for his solo show Tom Crean - Discovering Antarctica. It’s not as though the actual history isn’t rich; a lot happened. Tom Crean, an Irish sailor in the English navy, was...
RIDGE IS CLEAR-EYED
This is an odd compliment I know, but, watching Ridge, I kept thinking, “This show is like a block of wood.” It’s so solid and complete: so dense in its ethics and intelligence, so wholly and naturally itself. Written by Brendan McLeod, brought to fruition with the...
ECHO: MOSTLY SPECTACULAR, SOMETIMES LESS
Cirque du Soleil’s ECHO gave me so much. I want to talk about those things first. The look of the show is fantastic. The only set piece is an enormous white cube — 12 tons and the size of a two-storey apartment building. Designed by Es Devlin, the cube rotates and...
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