The Café: Make your reservations now
I love it when a show makes me work and The Café had me hoppin’. The evening also offers a tasty tasting menu of emerging and established local talent. In The Café, which was conceived by Fay Nass, seven short plays are performed at tables scattered around Kafka’s,...
Bad Parent: Yeah, kinda
I’m going to suspend judgment on this one. Okay, no, I’m not, I have opinions. But I will acknowledge the context of my response. First opinion: an hour is long time to watch a couple bickering, especially if you don’t like them very much. In Ins Choi’s new play Bad...
Redbone Coonhound: diminishing returns
This is unusual: a relatively positive review has come back to haunt me — well, to tap me on the shoulder. When the Arts Club mounted Redbone Coonhound as part of its audio play series, I kind of liked it. Back in February, I said about the play, “It isn’t always...
Blue Stockings: Feminism 101
I wish there was a time store where I could go and demand a refund. The subject matter of Jessica Swale’s 2013 script is potentially fascinating. Set in 1896, Blue Stockings is about women’s struggle to be granted degrees at Cambridge University. The story features...
Benevolence: exuberance, compassion
On my trip to Benevolence, I started on a hill, then wandered through a valley. As I climbed the rise on the other side, I was surprised to find a startling view. Translation: I got bored in the middle of this show, but there’s such an excellent payoff that my...
Hot Brown Honey: The Remix — exhilarating, liberating
Hot Brown Honey: The Remix is one of the best political rallies you’ve ever going to attend — because it’s also a big, loud, slick party. The Honeys, as they call themselves, are an ever-changing feminist group from Australia that’s made up of Indigenous women and...
Animal: family entertainment in the truest sense
I didn’t get what I thought I was in for, but I did get a very good time. Cirque Alfonse is a humble Québecois company: the acrobats and musicians are all either members of the Carabinier Lépine family or their friends. And Animal is a humble show that riffs — in...
The Thursday Night Bridge Circle: Decline the invitation
I do not want to write this review. I know that it takes enormous effort to mount a show — even if it's a bad one. And I’m sure that everybody involved with the United Players production of The Thursday Night Bridge Circle has the best of intentions. But sometimes...
Peter Pan Goes Wrong — and so does this farce (sometimes)
Farces can be beautiful machines: marvels of comic timing and physical business so dazzlingly funny they leave you gasping for breath. But, of course, the thing about machines is that you want them to work all the time. This production of Peter Pan Goes Wrong hums...
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