MUST SEE

If you had a friend who was desperately unhappy and thought they needed to make a major change that would not only be completely different from what you would do, but offensive to your deepest-held morals, would you support them? That’s the question at the core of British writer Deborah Bruce’s 2012 play The Distance, now enjoying its American premiere under the direction of English transplant Elly Green. In it, three women make very different choices for their families, and as the friends delve deeper into their reasons for doing so during a crisis, their ability to put on a polite face for each other becomes more and more frayed. The result is a challenging examination of parental responsibility that is starkly honest and darkly funny.

This spring’s six-hour long Tug of War: Foreign Fire is made up of the rarely-seen Edward III, Henry V, and Henry VI Part One. Next fall’s accompanying epic, Civil Strife, will consist of the other two parts of Henry VI, and Richard III. It’s an unusual combination, which massively re-contextualizes the Hundred Years War into an examination of personalities, and perhaps most significantly, transforms Henry V into a tragedy. The result, though in some way massive in scale, is also deeply intimate, and through the outstanding work of Gaines, her ensemble, and her production team, a long-ago conflict becomes vital again.

It is well-known how easily a play about itself can go awry, especially when it contains heavy use of unusual performance techniques. However, writer Dan O’Brien knew that the story of his relationship with war photojournalist Paul Watson defied conventional narratives—it’s messy, inconclusive, and made up of snapshots taken from chaos. Fortunately, Stage Left director Jason A. Fleece knows just how to handle his two-man cast and team of designers to make each moment of the story clear and effective. Against the background of the shooting down of American Black Hawk helicopters in Somalia in 1993, as well as the threatened serenity of the Arctic, two men explore the ethics of their professions, and what drives them to keep on sharing theirs and other peoples’ dysfunctions with the world.

With their long-running escape room The Last Defender playing downstairs, and their first show, Death and Harry Houdini being revived upstairs, The House Theatre has decisively conquered The Chopin. Both are major hits for the highly innovative company, which use non-standard storytelling techniques, and both, it so happens, force people to rely on their ingenuity to escape mortal peril. Magician Dennis Watkins stands a far better chance of prevailing than the defenders in the basement. In this latest revival, Watkins is at total ease in the role of Houdini, but Nathan Allen’s writing incorporates the escape and magic tricks into a story as exciting as it is tragic and ironic. With the addition of The House’s always evocative music, composed by Kevin O’Donnell, Death and Harry Houdini is far more than a parade of illusions; it captures the magic of theatre, as well.