by Colin Thomas | May 18, 2019 | Review
I’m so grateful. Pacific Theatre’s production of The Cake is coming at the right time — at the necessary time. With Alabama’s virtual ban on abortion just the latest in states’ restrictions of female autonomy, the Trump administration’s assault on LGBTQ rights, and...
by Colin Thomas | May 15, 2019 | Review
Ellery Lamm, who wrote The Fitting Room, shows promise as a playwright, but that promise hasn’t ripened yet. In this script, she presents a parallel set of crises. In the first, Henry, who’s 13, has dared his friend Noah to stand on the ice in the middle of a hockey...
by Colin Thomas | May 8, 2019 | Review
Nassim feels like an endless set-up for an experience that barely arrives. Starting in 2011, playwright Nassim Soleimanpour made an international name for himself with a much better script, White Rabbit Red Rabbit. At that time, Soleimanpour wasn’t allowed to leave...
by Colin Thomas | May 4, 2019 | Review
This script’s heart doesn’t start pumping until well in to Act 2. Until then, it’s on the artificial life support of a visually dynamic production. In The Great Leap, American playwright Lauren Yee tells the story of a Chinese-American kid named Manford. Although he’s...
by Colin Thomas | May 3, 2019 | Review
Like a kid who has had the wrong kind of home schooling, Edward Bond’s The Sea is wildly creative—and undisciplined. It takes you to a refreshingly original imaginative world but then insists that you linger too long in some of the duller corners. Set in 1907, The...
