The Big Apple’s critical embrace: Charles Isherwood from his 12/5/2007 Broadway review in the NY Times: “A fraught, densely plotted saga of an Oklahoma clan in a state of near-apocalyptic meltdown, “August” is probably the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years. Oh, forget probably: It is, flat-out, no asterisks and without … Continue reading
Tagged with Rene Moreno …
Lizard Love Lite: Iguana Nights at Contemporary Theatre
Gender power games, obsession, self-delusion, manic addiction and self-destructive compulsion, the wilds of nature v. the wilderness of civilization, all taking place in a shaken up world where the Germans have just invaded London. Scholars and critics consider Tennessee Williams’1961 drama The Night of the Iguanaone of his greatest works. Unfolding on the verandah of … Continue reading
Fortinbras,Fortinbras—wherefore art thou, soldier dude?
Hullo, Hamlet: you dashing, dizzy, doomed Dane. Wherefore did your intrepid Shakespeare Dallas director Rene Moreno deign to dilute your dimensional drama by employing a stuffy, flat version of your life’s demise? Whitewashed by conventionally prudish Victorian actor/ adaptor Edwin Booth, this version eliminates the politics and most of the conflict and passion in the … Continue reading
Broken Gears’ CREDITORS: Debt Paid in Full
Snuggle up tight, lover, and pay your debt. When Alan Rickman directed the 1888 play Creditors in London and New York in 2008, he described it as “three characters dragged through a hedge backwards in 90 minutes,” Make that a humongous holly hedge with sharp barbs. Creditors is a rank, double-dip dose of double cross … Continue reading
Join me at the theater? Schedule Updates
Come with me to the theater? Play productions are beginning to sprout like colorful weeds all over the region. Here’s what’s opening soon or playing now: THE EXECUTIONER’S SONS by Catherine Bush Directed by Terri Ferguson Runs February 5-19, 2011 Echo Theatre Bath House Cultural Center Dallas TX http://www.echotheatre.org http://www.bathhousecultural.org The Executioner’s Sons, Photo by … Continue reading
Letts’ Play, Oklahoma City: October
August: Osage County. “It can be argued that this is the most significant theatrical work to come out of Oklahoma since a little musical you might have heard of, “mused Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Don Jordan in an October 6 interview with ‘Oklahoma Gazette’ writer Eric Webb. Playwright Tracy Letts may have written, … Continue reading
My Best of Live Theater in DFW 2009
Magic on stage in the Dallas-Ft. Worth region. A wealth of creative theatrical endeavor: satisfying, dignified and quirky, heart-warming and spine-chilling, thought-provoking and side-splitting, high art to lowly farce. Performance ritual reveals truths of the human condition through magical transformation. Or we hope that happens. Here’s what wove that special magic for me this year, … Continue reading
Shakespeare Dallas Rides Again
Bonanza, Blazing Saddles, Dallas, Deadwood…and Shakespeare Dallas, all in one ten-gallon mental picture? Yeehaw. Shakespeare Dallas turns on the heat this summer with fetching Western-style stagings of two of the Bard’s best: The Merry Wives of Windsor TX and The Taming of the Shrew. Theatre companies across the country spend considerable energy and time re-imagining … Continue reading
Upstanding Start: Upstart Productions at the Green Zone
If playwright Lonergan were firing up the metaphorical grill to barbecue for his drinkin’, partyin’ buddies from the 1980’s, he’d marinade the bloody meat in a liberal dose of angst-ridden narcissistic nihilism with a liberal salt shaker’s worth of misogyny. Master playwright David Mamet he is not, bludgeoning the audience with fine-tuned balance of savagery and cunning in imagery and character. Yet this initial stage endeavor shows the promise that filled his coffers with later film ventures. It also affords a young company like Upstart Theater nuanced fodder to sink their artistic teeth into, particularly under the wise guidance of a seasoned director like Rene Moreno. Look for more high caliber performance from these “upstarts.”
Rate this dish? Medium rare to extremely well done. Continue reading
