Arctic Playhouse’s current show is “Visiting Mr. Green” by Jeff Baron. Eighty-six year old widower Mr. Green is almost hit by a car driven by young corporate executive Ross Gardiner. When Ross is found guilty of reckless driving, he is ordered to spend the next six months making weekly visits to Mr. Green. The show starts off as a comedy with the two characters bickering with each other and resenting being in the same room. It soon becomes more dramatic when family secrets are revealed and old wounds opened up. It deals with accepting the reality of life while dealing with one’s traditions, their family and accepting the changing world around us. Director Sandy Cerel keeps the comic moments flowing wonderfully at the start of the show during their arguments. However as their relationship continues to evolve the two men finally form a bond that turns things into a heartwarming moment between them.The audience is greatly moved by the acting prowess of both these superb actors in this thought provoking play.
Read more “VISITING MR. GREEN at Arctic Playhouse”Category: Uncategorized
The Unique Perspective of David Byrne’s “American Utopia”
By Michele Markarian
“American Utopia”, by David Byrne. Choreography and Musical Staging by Annie-B Parsons. Karl Mansfield and Mauro Rerosco, Music Director. Presented by Ambassador Theatre Group, Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston Street, Boston through September 28.
As the lights go up on the stage, a barefoot David Byrne is seated at a table, wearing a light gray suit with contrasting gray shirt, and holding a replica of the human brain. In pleasant but measured tones he explains that babies’ brains have hundreds more neural connections than we do as adults. Adults, he tells us, keep only the connections that are useful to us. The ones that are left define who we are as people. From this premise springs the rest of this amazing, undefinable event of music, movement, and speech. Over the course of 100 minutes, Byrne shares with us the connections that are important to him, while sharing the stage with eleven other similarly barefoot and clad multicultural musicians, singers and dancers. To say the piece has a narrative arc would be an overstatement, but we are treated to songs from Byrne’s oeuvre, including his first album since 2004, “American Utopia” (which is Byrne’s first album to make Billboard’s top ten), and snippets of stories from Byrne’s history. It’s a combination of cerebral and primitive. In between the often sensual choreography, Byrne reflects on a number of things, including Kurt Schwitters, Hugo Ball, immigration and the need for political agency.
Read more “The Unique Perspective of David Byrne’s “American Utopia””Ripley, Stellar Cast Deliver Blockbuster Treatment of ‘Sunset Boulevard’
Review by Tony Annicone
North Shore Music Theatre’s blockbuster musical of the fall season “Sunset Boulevard” is based on the Academy Award winning 1950 Billy Wilder, black and white movie which starred Gloria Swanson and William Holden. The musical version has music by Andrew Lloyd Webber with a book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. The story is about a faded film star, Norma Desmond who was a popular actress back in the silent films of the 1920’s. The show is told in flashbacks by Joe Gillis who is an up and coming film writer who is being chased by two car repo men while trying to evade them, ending up at Norma’s run down mansion on Sunset Boulevard. Once inside, Norma convinces Joe to help her with her script of “Salome” to present to Cecil B. DeMille with her playing the teenage heroine. Joe, desperate for a job, takes her up on her offer which leads to romance and ultimately tragic circumstances unfold as this relationship continues.
Read more “Ripley, Stellar Cast Deliver Blockbuster Treatment of ‘Sunset Boulevard’”Jomama Jones and ‘Black Light’ Shine Brightly at Oberon
by Mike Hoban
Black Light – Original Songs by Jomama Jones. With Bobby Halvorson, Laura Jean Anderson, Dylan Meek, Josh Quat. Additional Music by Samora Pinderhughes, Tariq Al-Sabir; Costume Design by Oana Botez; OBERON Lighting Design by Justin Paice; OBERON Sound Design; Alex Giorgetti. Presented by theAmerican Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Oberon, 2 Arrow Street, Cambridgethrough September 29
“What if I told you it’s going to be alright?, asks Jomama Jones, the glamorous and statuesque star of Black Light at the opening of her compelling and entertaining cabaret style piece now playing at Oberon. If you’re one of those folks who sometimes wakes in the morning wondering whether or not you (and all of us) ARE going to be alright, Jomama and Black Light may be just the diversion you’re looking for. Employing a diverse list of original R&B, disco and pop songs that sounds like they could have been lifted from a 1970’s episode of Soul Train, and mixing in stories from her childhood that are initially hilarious but ultimately moving, this is a show that moves beyond simple entertainment and touches the realm of the spiritual.
Read more “Jomama Jones and ‘Black Light’ Shine Brightly at Oberon”In Speakeasy’s ‘Choir Boy’, Music and Mentors Change Lives
by Linda Chin Workman
‘Choir Boy’ – Play by Tarell Alvin McCraney. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Music Direction, David Freeman Coleman. Choreography, Yewande Odetoyinbo and Ruka White. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company. At Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., through October 19
Like his play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, (which was adapted into the Oscar-winning film Moonlight), Choir Boy, by the multi-talented Tarell Alvin McCraney, powerfully reminds us that getting to love who you want and doing what you love are passions worth pursuing, as painful as the pathway may be.
Choir Boy is set at an elite prep school for boys that has been dedicated to educating strong ethical black men for 50 years, an ambitious mission for the 60s and 70s as for present day. From the moment it’s ‘lights up’ on stage, Director Maurice Emmanuel Parent deftly draws us into the lives of eight students who are uniformly dressed in blazers, buttoned-downs and slacks but unsurprisingly, each carries unique baggage on their transformational journey. The central character is Pharus Young (Isaiah Reynolds), a young gay black man who struggles with feeling unworthy and unseen and finding his voice and place in the community. He attends the school on scholarship and for years has aspired to get the coveted position of choir leader, but is all too aware that any misstep could jeopardize his future. Pharus thinks his nemesis Bobby (Malik Mitchell) has a charmed existence, that his joking manner and carefree attitude about breaking rules reflects his privilege as a legacy student and the headmaster’s nephew. Pharus doesn’t realize that below the surface Bobby carries deep hurt from grief and loss.
Read more “In Speakeasy’s ‘Choir Boy’, Music and Mentors Change Lives”Through the Looking Glass in “Nixon’s Nixon” at New Rep
by Shelley A. Sackett
‘Nixon’s Nixon –Written by Russell Lees; Directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue; Scenic Design by Afsoon Pajoufar; Costume Design by Zoe Sundra; Lighting Design by Aja Jackson; Sound Design by Elizabeth Cahill, Stage Manager- Heather Radovich. Presented by New Repertory Theatre, 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, through October 6.
Like many baby boomers, I called in sick on August 8, 1974. My friends and I gathered in a sweltering un-air conditioned apartment outside steamy Philadelphia in front of a small black and white television. Arranged on a mattress on the floor, beverage and accoutrements in hand, we waited for the fulfillment of our hopes, the culmination of our dreams come true. The gongs sounded on from the FM radio softly playing in the background. At last, soon-to-be ex-President Nixon appeared strolling towards the helicopter that would whisk him off into political oblivion. An entire generation breathed a collective sigh of relief.
What we didn’t know was the historical backstory of what happened the night before.
Read more “Through the Looking Glass in “Nixon’s Nixon” at New Rep”The Nora Theatre Lets Loose The Crucible with some Help from Bedlam
Review by James Wilkinson
‘The Crucible’ – Written by Arthur Miller. Directed by Eric Tucker. Scenic and Properties Designer: Lindsay Genevieve Fuori. Costume Designer: Elizabeth Rocha. Lighting Designer: John Malinowski. Sound Engineer Ted Kearnan. Dramaturg: Musa Gurnis. Presented by The Nora Theatre Company in association with Bedlam, 450 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, through October 20
As I heard it, the joke is that if you meet someone who participated in high school theatre, you ask them which one they did: Our Town or The Crucible? With their large cast sizes, the two shows hold a particular appeal to drama teachers who are looking to cram as many kids on stage as possible (though I wasn’t in it, my own high school did Our Town my freshman year.) The Crucible has the added bonus of having both its plot and the circumstances it was written in as major historical moments, allowing teachers to force the rest of the student body watch as part of their lesson plan. When you first step into Central Square Theater it looks like this production of The Crucible, (from The Nora Theatre Company in association with Bedlam), is going to riff on this idea of our shared history with the play. The drab green and off-white colors on the walls suggest a high school gymnasium that’s seen better days. High up on the back wall is a mural, (one almost identical to several in my own high school), that’s been painted over but needs a few more coats before it gets completely washed away. When director Eric Tucker makes his first appearance as Reverend Hale, he looks the spitting image of your physics teacher (or at least, mine).
Read more “The Nora Theatre Lets Loose The Crucible with some Help from Bedlam”Seven Fingers Returns to ArtsEmerson with ‘Passengers’
By Mike Hoban
‘Passengers’ – U.S. Premiere presented by ArtsEmerson at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street Boston. September 25 through October 13
ArtsEmerson will be bringing back Montreal’s The Seven Fingers to open their 10th season next week, with the circus arts troupe presenting the U.S. Premiere of ‘Passengers’. The piece will explore “our fascination with trains both in terms of nostalgic dreams of another era or another land, and as metaphor for the twists and turns of life among fateful encounters with strangers.” Theater Mirror had the chance to speak with a pair of the troupe’s newest performers recently, aerial silks and trapeze artist Sabine van Rensburg and tight wire artist Brin Schoellkopf – both of whom will be making their debut with the arts collective with this show.
Read more “Seven Fingers Returns to ArtsEmerson with ‘Passengers’”Trinity’s ‘Prince of Providence’ Endearingly Captures Buddy’s Stormy Legacy
Reviewed by Tony Annicone
Fifty years ago I attended my first show at Trinity Repertory Company during Project Discovery, which was “Wilson in the Promised Land” by Ronald Van Zandt. That show was a world premiere of a play and eventually went on to be performed at the ANTA Theatre in New York. Fast forward 50 years to Trinity Repertory Company’s world premiere play “The Prince of Providence” written by George Brant and based on the book by Mike Stanton about Buddy Cianci and this reviewer thinks that “The Prince of Providence” is destined to become the King of Broadway. The show is the season opener and what a magnificent season opener it is. From sets to costumes to every one of the performers, this epic show is one not to be missed.
Read more “Trinity’s ‘Prince of Providence’ Endearingly Captures Buddy’s Stormy Legacy”Looking to the Future Past with Arlekin Players Theatre’s ‘The Stone’
Review by James Wilkinson
The Stone – Written by Marius von Mayenburg. Directed by Igor Golyak. Scenographer: David R. Gammons. Costume Design: Nastya Bugaeva. Lighting Design: Jeff Adelberg. Composer: Jakov Jakoulov. Video Designer: Vladimir Gusev. Presented by Arlekin Players Theatre, 368 Hillside Ave., Needham through September 29
For Arlekin Players Theatre’s production of The Stone, the past isn’t just present, it’s also rotting to disintegration before our very eyes. This isn’t a pleasant trip through old times. It’s claustrophobic. It’s uncomfortable. It’s frustrating. (This is all mostly by design). What else would you expect from a play that grapples with the memories of Nazism in contemporary Germany? Plenty of artists across a wide range of disciplines have wrestled with depicting the lead up and aftermath of the Holocaust. There’s no shortage academic writing assessing the success and ethics of those attempts. It’s one of those subjects so enveloping that taking it on threatens to crush you under its weight (Perhaps it’s appropriate then that the play is called The Stone).
Read more “Looking to the Future Past with Arlekin Players Theatre’s ‘The Stone’”