REVIEWS BY

It is refreshing to see an new play that contains wit, humor, biting satire with zinging commentary about what it is to be human. Ozma & Harrier is playwright Daniel Caffrey’s satire on the influence of TV sitcoms and pop culture.

I believe that using irritating rhymes and hip-hop speech patterns not only makes the words hard to understand but comes off as trivializing the horrors of surviving the slaughter in the Sudan. Combine the strong African accents with the gibberish, sports-orientated, hip-hop tirades and The Lost Boys of Sudan reduces the struggles of survival by the three teens as a provocative adventure. Too much whimsy and artsy disjointed scenes lowered the impact of the Sudan’s tragedy.

Miller’s 2002 penultimate play brilliantly satirizes modern politics and faith in a media-obsessed society. This is whacked-out satire that contains both Miller’s wonderful dialogue and apt speeches and, a rarely used farcical satirical style each used to hone in to make Miller’s duality– “hope and disgust, high amusement and despair. It’s all packed into one play.”

A Life is both an engrossing work filled with fully developed characters and a poignant look at how bitterness and judgmental attitudes can lead to an unfulfilled life. We see that many of us have some of Desmond’s traits in us.

Miller’s writing in good hands with this cast. My only problem is with some of the young women who speak too fast and run their words together making them hard to understand. Craig C. Thompson, Jennifer Mathews, Nancy Friedrich and Edward Kuffert were particularly effective.

Director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell has assembled a cast of 33 (with mostly Equity actors) that features “A” list talents lead by Larry Adams (Father), Cory Goodrich (Mother), Mark David Kaplan (Tateh) with excellent work from the commanding Quentin Earl Darrington as Coalhouse Walker Jr. Valisia LeKae (Sarah), Max Quinlan (Brother), Stef Tovar (Houdini) and Summer Naomi Smart (Evelyn Nesbit) each made major contributions to the show.

It still contains all the wonderful sets, lighting and costumes one would expect of a Disney inspired production. Beauty and the Beast has played worldwide to 35,000,000 folks and it remains a family friendly musical. It has a terrific score by Alan Menken with Howard Ashman and Tim Rices’s charming lyrics.

The problems lie in scenes set in reality. Without giving too much away, it feels as though certain plotlines are left unfinished and scenes start to drag on about facts and social change. It becomes less and less about the characters and more about ideas. I believe that if Gilman had focused solely on how the role of theatre evolved in America and around the world then the production would have been a lot more focused and interesting.

Lovers of swing, big bands and tap dancing will enjoy My Brother’s Keeper. Black Ensemble Theater finally has a first rate dance show thanks to the talented Rueban Echoles and the youthful emerging talent of Rashawn Thompson.

In one of the finest productions I’ve ever witnessed at Court Theatre, director Charles Newell’s passion for Baroque metatheatricality comes across in a splendid, throughly engrossing, production of The Illusion running through April 11, 2010. This is a “can’t miss show!”