Huntington, SpeakEasy’s Co-Production “The Band’s Visit” Serves Up A Sublime Slice of Life

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

The cast of “The Band’s Visit” at the Huntington. Photo by T Charles Erickson

“The Band’s Visit” — Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek. Book by Itamar Moses. Based on the Screenplay by Eran Kolirin. Directed by Paul Daigneault; Choreography by Daniel Pelzig. Music Direction by José Delgado. Scenic Design by Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs. Costume Design by Miranda Kau Giurleo. Lighting Design by Aja M. Jackson. Sound Design by Joshua Millican. Produced by Huntington Theatre in collaboration with SpeakEasy Stage at 264 Huntington Ave. Boston through December 17.

By Shelley A. Sackett

The delightful musical “The Band’s Visit” is a welcome breath of air in the current asphyxiating climate surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas. Its focus is a single night in Bet Hatikva, a tiny Israeli town that feels more like a pit stop on the way to someplace more important than a destination.

“You probably didn’t hear about it,” says Dina (played by a magnificent Jennifer Apple in a star-making performance), the proprietor of Bet Hatikva’s only café and its resident narrator and cynic. “It wasn’t very important.”

Huntington’s “Fat Ham” Is A Raucous and Resonant Reinvention of Shakespeare’s Masterpiece, “Hamlet”

October 3, 2023October 12, 2023 Theater Mirror2 Comments

Cast of ‘Fat Ham’ The Huntington Theatre. Photos by T Charles Erickson

‘Fat Ham’ — Written by James Ijames. Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, Scenic Design by Luciana Stecconni, Costume Design by Celeste Jennings, Sound Design by Aubrey Dube, Lighting Design by Xiangfu Xiao. Presented by The Huntington Theatre in association with Alliance Theatre and Front Porch Arts Collective at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont St., through Sunday, October 29, 2023.

By Shelley A. Sackett

“Fat Ham,” winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize Award for best drama, is much more than a modern-day riff on “Hamlet,” one of Shakepeare’s most quoted, performed and adapted plays. Using the bones of the Bard’s tragedy as a structural anchor, the exceptionally talented playwright, James Ijames, has fleshed it out with analogous characters whose feet are firmly planted in the here and now and whose modern-day nightmares and dreams reflect both the mundane and the existential.

“Prayer for the French Republic” Tackles Existential Issues with Humor, Grit and Gravitas

September 19, 2023December 26, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Cast of The Huntington’s ‘Prayer for the French Republic’. Photo by Nile Hawver.

‘Prayer for the French Republic’ – Written by Joshua Harmon. Directed by Loretta Greco. Scenic Design by Andrew Boyce. Costume Design by Alex Jaeger. Lighting Design by Christopher Akerlind. Sound Design and Composition by Fan Zhang. Presented by Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave., through October 8.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Playwright Joshua Harmon has a gift for tackling important, profoundly challenging and topical subjects and, through sheer brilliance of characters and dialogue, creating intimate and accessible theater that both rivets his audience and leaves them in a standing ovation of thunderous applause.

He did it with “Bad Jews,” “Admissions,” and “Significant Other,” which Boston theatergoers had the good fortune to see at SpeakEasy Stage Company. Thanks to the Huntington Theatre’s season opener, the 2022 Drama Desk Outstanding Play Award-winning “A Prayer for the French Republic,” they have the opportunity to experience this supremely talented writer’s latest and most ambitious project.

And experience it they should.

It’s All in the Family in Huntington’s Spectacular ‘The Lehman Trilogy’

July 3, 2023July 4, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Joshua David Robinson, Firdous Bamji, and Steven Skybell in *‘The Lehman Trilogy’* at the Huntington. Photos by T. Charles Erickson

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ – Written by Stephano Massini and Adapted by Ben Power. Directed by Carey Perloff. Scenic Design by Sara Brown; Projection Design by Jeanette Oi Suk-Yew; Costume Design by Dede Ayite; Lighting Design by Robert Wierzel; Original Music by Mark Bennett; Co-Sound Design by Mark Bennett and Charles Does. Presented by the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave., through July 23.

By Shelley A. Sackett

A lone and mournful clarinetist (Joe LaRocca) wanders across the stage of the Huntington’s theatrically astonishing “The Lehman Trilogy,” inviting comparisons in tone and content to the spirited drama “Fiddler on the Roof.” Steeped in ritual and Judaism, both stories trace what happens to a family when political oppression forces it to leave home, leading most of its members to emigrate to America.

The Parallel Universe of “Joy and Pandemic”

May 6, 2023May 8, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Stacy Fischer, Breezy Leigh, and Ryan Winkles in “Joy and Pandemic” at the Huntington.
Photos by T Charles Erickson

“Joy and Pandemic” by Taylor Mac. Directed by Loretta Greco. Scenic Design: Arnulfo Maldonado; Sound Designer and Composer: Fan Zhang; Costume Design: Sarita Fellows; Lighting Design: Jen Schriever. Presented by The Huntington, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, through May 21.

by Michele Markarian

Joy (Stacy Fischer) and her unenthusiastic second husband, Bradford (Ryan Winkles), are running an art school for children in Philadelphia, a venture which Bradford’s mother, Rosemary (the magnificent Marceline Hugot), disapproves of. Joy’s daughter Pilly (Ella Dershowitz) is Joy’s biggest fan. The annoyingly sunny Joy is a Christian Scientist who peppers her conversations with phrases like, “All we need is an invitation to see things differently” and “fear is a lie that we tell ourselves” while insisting that everything and all beings are “perfect.” In a bit of foreshadowing in response to some clanging chimes Joy has over her front door, Rosemary snarls, “Must optimism always be so piercing?” With a visit from Melanie (Breezy Leigh), the staccato-voiced black mother of Marjory, one of Joy’s prized students, Joy is about to find out how imperfect she is.

At Clyde’s Roadside Café, the Sandwich Rules the Roost

April 3, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Louis Reyes McWilliams, Harold Surratt, April Nixon in ‘Clyde’s’ at The Huntington. Photo Credits: Kevin Berne

‘Clyde’s’ – Written by Lynn Nottage. Directed by Taylor Reynolds; Scenic Designer – Wilson Chin; Costume Designer – Karen Perry; Lighting Designer – Amith Chandrashaker; Sound Designer – Aubrey Dube; Hair, Wig and Makeup Designer – Megan Ellis. Presented by The Huntington in co-production with Berkley Repertory Theatre at The Huntington, 264 Huntington Ave., Boston through April 23.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage has elevated that plebian lunch item — the sandwich — to A-list, Michelin star status in her Tony Award-nominated comedy, ‘Clyde’s,’ now in production at the Huntington through April 23.

Through her skilled script, imaginary recipes combining exotic and surprising ingredients will have the audience trying to remember them after the curtain falls. Glowing in its exalted status as metaphor for salvation, redemption and even tikkun olam (a Jewish concept defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world), we will never think of the sandwich as “mere” again.

A Tree Grows in Boston and Bears Fruit: K-I-S-S-I-N-G at the Huntington

March 19, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Ivan Cecil Walks, Sharmarke Yusuf, and Regan Sims in The Huntington’s production
of K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Photos by T Charles Erickson

‘K-I-S-S-I-N-G’ – Written by Lenelle Moïse. Directed by Dawn M. Simmons. Scenic Design by Jason Ardizzone-West. Costume Design by Dominique Fawn Hill. Lighting Design by Jorge Arroyo. Sound Design by Anna Drummond. Projections Design by Yee Eun Nam and Hannah Tran. Co-produced by the Front Porch Arts Collective and the Huntington Theatre Company at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, Boston through April 2, 2023.

by Linda Chin

The coming-of-age play now making its world premiere at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion did not come into being from a hurried hook-up, nor inexperienced young people sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. A decade in the making, Lenelle Moïse wrote early drafts during her 2012-2014 Huntington Playwrighting Fellowship, and its development history went something like the titular schoolyard rhyme: First came love – in the form of a commission by Clark University, staged readings at the New Rep and Huntington in 2015 and 2016, and an educational production at Ithaca College (2018). Then came ‘marriage’ – a three-year strategic partnership between Front Porch Arts Collective and the Huntington that started in the fall of 2021, connected Moïse and Porch’s Co-Producing Artistic Directors Maurice Emmanuel Parent and Dawn M. Simmons and catalyzed the companies’ first co-production. A tree growing in Boston has blossomed and borne the loveliest, sweetest fruit. Welcome to the world, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

The Huntington’s ‘The Art of Burning’ Smolders and Sparks

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Adrianne Krstansky, Michael Kaye and Rom Barkhordar in The Huntington’s ‘Art of Burning’
Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson

“The Art of Burning” by Kate Snodgrass. Directed by Melia Bensussen. Scenic Design: Luciana Stecconi; Lighting Design: Aja M. Jackson; Sound Design: Jane Shaw; Costume Design: Kate Harmon. Presented by The Huntington, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston through February 12.

by Shelley A. Sackett

Patricia (Adrianne Krstansky), a frumpy middle-aged painter, opens Kate Snodgrass’ ‘The Art of Burning’ mid-conversation with her friend Charlene (Laura Latreille). “Sometimes we have to kill the things we love to save them,” she announces seemingly out of the blue. Charlene adds critical context. The two have just seen a production of “Medea” and are debriefing outside the theater.

In the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, Medea takes vengeance on her unfaithful husband Jason by murdering his new younger wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life. To Charlene’s discomfort, Patricia not only sympathizes with Medea, she praises her.

“She saves her children,” Patricia explains. “She doesn’t want to but she has to. The world will make their lives miserable and she doesn’t want that. She loves them.” Patricia may look mousey, but she is a mouse that roars.

Hell Hath No Fury in “The Art of Burning”

January 31, 2023February 1, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Adrianne Krstansky, Michael Kaye, and Rom Barkhordar in “The Art of Burning” at The Huntington Photos by T Charles Erickson

“The Art of Burning” by Kate Snodgrass. Directed by Melia Bensussen. Costume Design: Kate Harmon Lighting Design: Aja M. Jackson Scenic Design: Luciana Stecconi Sound Design: Jane Shaw. Presented by The Huntington, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston through February 12.

by Michele Markarian

Patricia (Adrianne Krstansky) is a scary, angry, off-kilter painter. Her husband, Jason (Rom Barkhordar) has left her for his younger colleague, Katya (Vivia Font), and the two of them are duking it out for custody of their fifteen year old daughter, Beth (Clio Contogenis). Their family friend Mark (Michael Kaye) is acting as their mediator at Jason’s insistence, a fact that Patricia doesn’t appreciate. When Mark’s wife, Charlene (Laura Latreille) relays the story of a “friend” who’s having an affair, Patricia’s self-righteous and judgmental attitude about people who have affairs is alienating. Patricia is on a collision course, unhinged by the infidelity of Jason.

A Magnificent ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ Heralds the Huntington’s Jubilant Homecoming

October 25, 2022October 26, 2022 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Patrese D. McClain and James Ricardo Milord (foreground) and cast in ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ at The Huntington.

‘August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ by August Wilson. Directed by Lili-Anne Brown; Arnel Sancianco, Scenic Design; Samantha C. Jones, Costume Design; Jason Lynch, Lighting Design; Aubrey Dube, Sound Design. Presented by The Huntington Theatre through November 13.

by Shelley A. Sackett

What a pleasure it is to have the Huntington Theatre Company back. With its sleek Narragansett Green walls, gold domed ceiling and cherry red extra legroom seats, an always pleasurable theatrical experience is now also one full of creature comforts. Even more stunning, however, is the magnificent production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, with which the Huntington christened its reopening. If Joe Turner’s footprints lingered long after he had gone, it’s because Wilson’s unforgettable presence (and titular title as the Huntington’s creative patron saint) enveloped the stage.