From the category archives:

Theater

Theater

The Huntington’s “Becky Shaw”

Thumbnail image for The Huntington’s “Becky Shaw” by Deborah Finkelstein March 15, 2010

Deborah Finkelstein reviews the Huntington’s production of “Becky Shaw.”

Theater

Apollinaire Theatre Company’s “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom”

Thumbnail image for Apollinaire Theatre Company’s “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom” by Deborah Finkelstein March 3, 2010

Deborah Finkelstein reviews Apollinaire Theatre Company’s “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom.” A new play on suburbia, video games, wormholes, and zombies.

Theater

“The Glass Menagerie” in the Loeb Ex

Thumbnail image for “The Glass Menagerie” in the Loeb Ex by Victoria Petrosino February 27, 2010

Victoria Petrosino considers HRDC’s production of “The Glass Menagerie.”

Theater

Watching “Dracula”

Thumbnail image for Watching “Dracula” by Trent England February 21, 2010

I generally do not like adaptations of any kind, book-to-movie or movie-to-theater to name only two (the list could go on for another paragraph), but Dracula is different. The Bram Stoker novel is a collection of letters and diary entries. Its power is in the effect it has on the reader, the ambiguity of the [...]

Theater

“Legacy of Light:” A History Lesson from the Lyric Stage

Thumbnail image for “Legacy of Light:” A History Lesson from the Lyric Stage by Trent England February 17, 2010

Trent England covers “Legacy of Light” @ the Lyric Stage, a “Julia and Julia” style romp between the Enlightenment and present-day New Jersey.

Theater

How I Learned to Act: BCAP’s “How I Learned to Drive”

Thumbnail image for How I Learned to Act: BCAP’s “How I Learned to Drive” by Bryce Lambert February 17, 2010

It’s not my practice to rail into student and fringe productions, because I think that when everyone’s working for free and they’re practically giving away tickets, they just don’t deserve it. It’s more important to describe what they’re doing, rather than what they’re not doing. That’s not to say that I don’t often see student [...]

Theater

Shakespeare & the Coens: “Two Gentlemen of Lebowski”

Thumbnail image for Shakespeare & the Coens: “Two Gentlemen of Lebowski” by Bryce Lambert February 13, 2010

Sometimes a good reading of a good play is just as good as an outright production. A solid cast can do a lot with just simple, tossed-together costumes, bare lighting, copies of the script, and a few music stands. Sets tend to be so minimal these days, that you don’t really notice an utter lack [...]

Books

Elevator Repair Service Reads “Gatsby” Part 2

Thumbnail image for Elevator Repair Service Reads “Gatsby” Part 2 by Bryce Lambert January 27, 2010

A late follow-up to my earlier post on the play.
Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz continues at the ART through February 7th (tickets $20-75 per part), though it’s clearly not as successful as Sleep No More, which is impossible to get tickets to any more unless (I hear) you make a nice little membership donation, or The [...]

Theater

[title of post]

Thumbnail image for [title of post] by Bryce Lambert January 21, 2010

Whatever you say about SpeakEasy’s [title of show], you can’t say it’s not funny. I don’t even like contemporary musicals. The knock-off plots, simplified music, un-lyrical lyrics, gratuitous flamboyance, and high ticket prices don’t appeal to me, as much as I love the Golden Age Hollywood productions. But, [title of show] is the straight-up funniest [...]

Theater

All My Sons at the Huntington

Thumbnail image for All My Sons at the Huntington by Bryce Lambert January 16, 2010

We’re seeing a lot of plays this year that echo our current economic turmoil or our interminable ventures in the Middle East. Gatz and the upcoming production Paradise Lost at the A.R.T and now, at the Huntington through Feb. 7, Arthur Miller’s classic All My Sons. All My Sons might be set around a war [...]

Books

Elevator Repair Service Reads “Gatsby” Part 1

Thumbnail image for Elevator Repair Service Reads “Gatsby” Part 1 by Bryce Lambert January 14, 2010

Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz (@ the American Rep through Feb. 7) at six hours (not counting the breaks and intermissions) is marathon theater. Even if you do all ten hours of the Boston Theater Marathon, this is something entirely different. It takes the patience of an ardent reader, or at least someone set on [...]

Theater

Anarchy in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Thumbnail image for Anarchy in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Bryce Lambert January 6, 2010

Just as Peter Quince and his players struggle to represent a wall, moonlight, and a lion for their production of Pyramus and Thisbe, the Actors’ Shakespeare Project and director Benjamin Evett has attempted to turn A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s fecund Green World of fairies, sprites, herb lore, and unreason into something a little more believable [...]

Theater

“Where the Magic Happens” :)

Thumbnail image for “Where the Magic Happens” :) by Bryce Lambert December 9, 2009

Last weekend, the SpeakEasy Stage did what more theater groups should probably be doing, staging a sort of spur-of-the-moment, simply produced one or two-night show that’s not on the season schedule. We get plenty of free readings from the A.R.T and Whistler in the Dark, but they’re not shows. Although not free, a show like [...]

Theater

Bad Habit’s An Ideal Husband

Thumbnail image for Bad Habit’s <em>An Ideal Husband</em> by Bryce Lambert December 6, 2009

Bad Habit Productions is offering an admirable little production of Oscar Wilde’s farce An Ideal Husband this month at the Cambridge YMCA theater. Director Daniel Morris shakes things up with some gender-bending double casting. Sasha Castroverde plays both Lord Caversham and Lady Chiltern. Anna Waldron plays Mabel and Mrs. Cheveley, though, despite her red hair, [...]

Theater

Truly Graceful: Underground Railway Theater’s A Christmas Memory

Thumbnail image for Truly Graceful: Underground Railway Theater’s <em>A Christmas Memory</em> by Bryce Lambert December 3, 2009

The Central Square Theater’s holiday double-bill Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs pairs Grace Paley’s The Loudest Voice with Truman Capote’s Christmastime classic A Christmas Memory and is, because of the strength of Capote’s text and Wesley Savick’s (director and adaptor of both) loyalty to it, probably the best holiday play I’ve yet seen this season.
Grace [...]

Theater

Dylan Thomas Adapted: A Child’s Christmas in Wales

Thumbnail image for Dylan Thomas Adapted: A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Bryce Lambert December 1, 2009

Dylan Thomas’ Christmas classic, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, deals with so much of what we like to hear about during the holidays–childhood, family, gifts, carols, food, sweets, and snow–told in the manner in which we like to hear it; with nostalgia, innocence, and a sense of humor and poetics. It’s no surprise that it [...]

Theater

Inverted Christmas Trees: SpeakEasy’s Reckless

Thumbnail image for Inverted Christmas Trees: SpeakEasy’s <em>Reckless</em> by Bryce Lambert November 25, 2009

The SpeakEasy Stage Company’s production of Reckless isn’t your typical Christmas show, but you still get most of the trimmings–they’re just wrapped in a different color paper. Okay, that’s enough of the Christmas puns, maybe. In most Christmas shows or movies, A Christmas Carol and the Nativity being the models for nearly all of them, [...]

Theater

In on Fringe: Whistler in the Dark’s In On It

Thumbnail image for In on Fringe: Whistler in the Dark’s <em>In On It</em> by Bryce Lambert November 23, 2009

Whistler in the Dark’s In On It is a sparkly little fringe gem if your tastes (or wallets) don’t lean towards the current holiday shows of the larger Boston companies. Actually, it’s worthwhile either way. Tidily produced in the intimate Factory Theatre, Daniel MacIvor’s two-man-show, starring Joe Lanza and Scott Sweatt and directed by [...]

Theater

The Holidays at the Huntington: A Civil War Christmas

Thumbnail image for The Holidays at the Huntington: <em>A Civil War Christmas</em> by Bryce Lambert November 21, 2009

Like the Christmas movie, the holiday show exists within its own genre. A Christmas play seeks to satisfy the criteria set by its genre even before it even tries to be a good play, because what’s a Christmas play if it’s not sentimental, accessible, family-oriented, overtly American, and evocative of the values we all tend [...]

Theater

Company One’s The Overwhelming

Thumbnail image for Company One’s <em>The Overwhelming</em> by Bryce Lambert November 13, 2009

J.T Rogers’ The Overwhelming (Company One, playing through the 21st at the BCA) follows struggling academic Jack Exley (Doug Bowen-Flynn) as he bumbles into the beginnings of the Rwandan genocide, with his second wife Linda (Lyndsay Allyn Cox) and tormented teenage son Geoffrey (Gabe Goodman) in tow, looking to write a career-cementing book on his [...]

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