NETWORK: MADDER THIS TIME
I’m so much angrier now than I was when I first saw the movie Network — which is all about anger — in 1976. Many of us these days live in a perpetual state of political fear, frustration, and fury, which makes United Players’ decision to produce playwright Lee Hall’s...
WILDWOMAN: WAIT FOR IT
This show won me over, but it took a while. The problems I had aren’t with the production, which is excellent, but with the script — although the source material is astonishing. Playwright Kat Sandler drew inspiration for Wildwoman from the fifteenth-century history...
HARM: GO
Kelli Ogmundson delivers a perfect performance in this production. How often do I get to say that? Never? Every actor in town should see this piece of work. And so should everybody else who cares about theatre. In playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s 70-minute monologue,...
FRANKLINLAND: TRAPPED IN DULL ABSTRACTION
Man, I was fighting to stay awake. On paper, Lloyd Suh’s script sounds like it might be interesting. In Franklinland, Suh has created a fantasia based on the relationship between Benjamin Franklin — the script calls him Ben — and his son William, who was born out of...
DANCEBOY: WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
I have very little to say about Danceboy because, as far as I can tell, there isn’t much to it. In Danceboy, writer and performer Munish Sharma tells us about his lifelong love of dancing, which started when he was a toddler and Bollywood movies taught him that “This...
HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK: WHERE ART THOU?
There are moments in this production that, on their own, would be worth the price of admission. And there’s a downright bracing vigor in this stripped-down version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. There’s also something missing: the central character. Words, not movement, are...
PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS: NONSENSE AND HEART
At several points watching People, Places & Things, I was very moved. There’s a lot to admire in The Search Party’s production. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there’s a great deal of nonsense wrapped around the pure, humble thread that is the play’s heart....
TOMBOY (CHŁOPCZYCA): THINK ABOUT IT
This production of Anais Mateusz West’s new script, Tomboy (Chłopczyca), held my attention. The intriguing thing for me is figuring out why it did — and I don’t mean that as a diss. Given my framing, it’s probably best to start with the ways I thought Tomboy...
NUNSENSE: LESS IS (MOSTLY) LESS
Let’s set up the terms of this review. The musical comedy Nunsense, which premiered in 1985, ran for ten years, becoming one of the longest-running shows in off-Broadway history. Translated into 26 languages, it has raked in over $500 million. In my opinion, calling...
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