Rent: I didn’t buy it
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...
The Humans is like Death of a Salesman (with more laughs, plus the potential of monsters)
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...
In Bar Mitzvah Boy, faith sneaks up on you
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...
Butcher: Go vegetarian
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...
I Lost My Husband: I lost a couple of hours
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...
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Forget About Tomorrow: Get to the point
When I was returning to my seat after intermission, I had virtually no interest in what was going to happen next. That’s not a good sign. In Forget About Tomorrow, playwright Jill Daum tells the story of Jane, whose husband Tom develops early-onset Alzheimer’s. The...
The After After Party is a banger of a night out
The day after seeing The After After Party, I’m still laughing as I describe it to friends. The laughter is uncontrollable. Like I’m being tickled. By unseen hands. That belong to somebody that I like but can’t identify. If you’re up for an audacious good time, The...
An Almost Holy Picture should come with trigger warnings about bad parenting
In An Almost Holy Picture, Samuel Gentle delivers a monologue about his relationship with his daughter Ariel. Samuel is such a bad parent that I wanted to stab him. To make matters worse, he is a bad parent in a very obvious way. The moral of the story and the action...
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