by Colin Thomas | Jan 25, 2018 | Review
Big chunks of this play about African-American despair are boring. Said the white critic. In Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog, brothers Lincoln and Booth—their father gave them their names as a joke—share a single room. The toilet is down the hall. There is no...
by Colin Thomas | Dec 14, 2017 | Review
You want a big show like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to be lavish and dazzling but, in crucial ways, the Arts Club’s production is stingy and incomplete. Fortunately, there are also some excellent performances in the mix and the story itself is strong. In Beauty and...
by Colin Thomas | Oct 26, 2017 | Review
Who gives a toss? In Mike Bartlett’s 2014 script, Queen Elizabeth II has just died and Charles has become King, although his coronation is a few months off. In one of his first acts as monarch, he refuses to give his assent to a bill that would restrict the freedom of...
by Colin Thomas | Oct 12, 2017 | Review
It’s as if playwright Kevin Loring has tried to cram half a dozen Greek tragedies—plus a couple of episodes of The Honeymooners—into one evening. His new play, Thanks for Giving, is inspiringly ambitious, often funny, sometimes beautiful, and structurally scattershot....
by Colin Thomas | Sep 16, 2017 | Review
Like a fever dream, this production of Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika comes and goes. Sometimes, I was completely in its thrall. At other times, I popped out of the experience and thought, “Oh. I’m in a theatre. And not much is happening.” This mix of...
