by Colin Thomas | Mar 31, 2018 | Review
This Renegade Arts mounting of Rent gets so much so wrong. There are talented people in the cast, and some elements of the show work, but fundamental errors undermine the production. A rock musical, Rent features a group of young-adult friends who are living in New...
by Colin Thomas | Mar 29, 2018 | Review
The Humans is the real thing. Scripts like this are why I go to the theatre. Playwright Stephen Karam starts with a standard set-up: the Blake family gathers for Thanksgiving dinner. Young-adult daughter Brigid has just moved into an apartment in New York’s Chinatown...
by Colin Thomas | Mar 24, 2018 | Review
Emotionally, Bar Mitzvah Boy is a sweetly stealthy play. It takes a while for the script to find its feet. In the set-up, we find out that Joey, a successful divorce lawyer, wants to be bar mitzvahed before his grandson is. Somehow, Joey missed out on the ceremony...
by Colin Thomas | Mar 22, 2018 | Review
Nicola Billon’s Butcher exploits real suffering to create gimmicky entertainment. I hated it so much that I wanted to boo. On Christmas Eve, an old guy in a military uniform has been dropped off at a police station. A butcher’s hook was tied around his neck and the...
by Colin Thomas | Mar 18, 2018 | Review
I Lost My Husband is boring. Why waste time, talent, and money on it? In the story, Evelyn loses her spouse Peter in a bet with a bartender named Melissa. Peter, whom we never meet, obligingly moves right in with the younger woman. There are a couple of...