The action in this love triangle is confusing. Why does the Daphne keep kissing the girl who she and August referrer to as Boy and why is Daphne okay August having sex with Lisa? Why does Lisa seem to befriend the pregnant Daphne when her purpose is to get August to return to the USA with her?
We easily like Simon’s characters, flaws in all. In director Cody Estle’s production, the underlying tone is lover and ultimate acceptance even after explosive conflicts. This cast is an ensemble triumph. Led by the terrific spot-on talents of teen actor, Charlie Bazzell ,who give Eugene enough spark to light up the neighborhood, Brighton Beach Memoirs also features terrific work from JoAnn Montemurro, Ron Quade and Sam Hubbard.
The layers of story becomes much more that a family comedy as Simon weaves honest family conflict into the humorous foibles of as teenage boy. Get to see this Brighton Beach Memoirs to rediscover the genius of Neil Simon. You’ll see that he was much more than simply a funny playwright.
Playwright Bruce Graham and director BJ Jones—who two years ago collaborated on Northlight Theatre’s successful production of The Outgoing Tide—have once more come together to bring us the world premiere of Graham’s new play, Stella & Lou, which again tackles issues of aging, loneliness and loss. And sure, Stella & Lou may exert all the stirring impact of a strong cup of Earl Grey, but it’s not as if its trying to move mountains either. Stella & Lou is a small story about modest people, set within the tiny walls of an old Philly bar. And while it never approaches the level of revelatory, Stella & Lou at least manages to be insightful.
And even in Barbara Gaines’s wryly psychological new mounting, now gracing the stages of Chicago Shakespeare, history itself seems set to the tune of a courtly courante, proceeding with a definite lightness of step and airy acquiescence to the sizable pathos of its victims. Draping itself in nothing so heavy as lush fabrics of lavender and crimson, this gorgeous new production manages to be an intensely well-observed psychodrama on the nature of political ambition while never losing its underlying operatic registers.
TimeLine Theatre’s mission is to produce history inspired works that connect with today’s social and political issues. They sure have a gem in J.T. Rogers’ Blood and Gifts. In a well-paced and superbly acted drams, Blood and Gifts take us back to the 1980’s as CIA agent, James Warnock (Timothy Edward Kane) struggles to stop the Soviet Union from escalating its war in Afghanistan toward Pakistan as the Cold War Doctrine’s policy of containment of Russian aggression unfolds
Most plays when they fail to work do so because of a lack of sufficient texture: characters are too broadly drawn, the setting lacks detail and nuanced specificity, the dialogue skirts true feeling in favor of stagy declarations. In these respects, Dana Lynn Formby’s new play If You Split a Second—receiving its world premiere with the Pegasus Players—is not like most plays. But that doesn’t necessarily means that it works either.
In 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduces to the world his “consulting detective” Sherlock Holmes (Nick Lake) and his new sidekick, Doctor Watson (Brian Pastor). We meet the 20something’s as they first become roommates to save money and seek companionship. Watson is recovering from wounds from the Second British Afghanistan War while Holmes, ever the self-absorbed scientist, relishes on the prospect of having someone to admire his cleverness. We see the two as young gentleman filled with curiosity and determination. In a world premiere adaptation by Paul Edwards, A Study In Scarlet is a most engaging and surprising yarn.
So what can we say about the Chicago premiere of playwright Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark? Well, for starters, its funny, alarmingly smart, and beautifully conceived under Chuck Smith’s current direction at the Goodman Theatre.
But given all that, why doesn’t it work?
This one-man show explores the nature of being a minority within a minority in a magical, mythical journey to the land of Common Grounds.
At times, Mascot feels as thought its attempting to do for personality disorders what Sarah Kane’s 2000 psycho-monologue Psychosis 4:48 did for clinical depression, isolating the psychological symptoms in a dramatic vacuum and giving them a more or less unrestrained ability to manifest themselves. The audience—like a room full of clinicians—is thus always on the outside looking in, giving us the sense that what we are watching is something much darker than lies ostensibly on the surface, i.e. a scene of frustrated bondage and unflagging sadism. A man beyond our help, but who nonetheless approaches us with all the charm and insinuating familiarity of a self-knowing psychopath. Someone who evokes our pity even as we think he might be oddly dangerous.