In homage to Of Mice and Men, with hints of Desire Under Elms, Moonshiner comes across as a period piece peering back to the dark days of the Prohibition Era of the 1930’s. We are in Appalachia, East Tennessee, where the production and distribution of moonshine was a cottage industry.
They refer to their jobs as something that was voted on–therefore it is alright to find, arrest and execute folks in order to thin out the herd. Their lack of conscious doesn’t ring true
Road is all about social exclusion and alienation that the poor working class struggles to survive body and soul. Road is filled with raw, raunchy humor, sensuality and desperation.
The sheer negativity and hopelessness of this show was overwhelming. Add the slow pacing and The Hecubae becomes a long tedious evening. The show answers (over and over again) the question: “What remains after war?”
Tom Williams discusses the following stage plays with Carl Amari: Spring Awakening at the Oriental Theatre and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at Circle Theatre. [audio: https://chicagocritic.com/newsite/audio/0809tom.mp3]
The joy of attending a festival of new works is everyone (for the most part) is experiencing the work for the first time. The plays are free of previous baggage and expectations to meet.
Without a Parachute suffers from several flaws: The work has a uneven mood–is it a romance or a drama or a comedy? The main character–Cory (Joanne Dubach) is an unlikable, shouting woman with whom we never warm up to…
Set in the Delta country outside of Memphis in the 1950’s, we meet a rich family getting ready to celebrate Big Daddy’s (Jim Farrell in a subdued yet strong performance) 65th birthday. Maggie (Kimberly Logan) and Brick (Michael Borgmann) bicker about their marriage
-Spring Awakening is so much more than a run-of-the-mill rock musical–it is a major break through musical that most effectively uses pop/rock music to enhance storytelling by underscoring the themes, moods and emotions of the piece. I loved this show!
Laura Eason’s Sex With Strangers is provocative contemporary romantic drama about a hot young 24 year old scenester, Ethan Strange (Stephen Louis Grush) wwhose online blog of sexscapades has turned him into the “it” boy of the Internet.