Rough Crossing focuses on two European playwrights who have nothing to do before their ship docks in New York except create and rehearse a new ending for their latest musical before the composer finds out the leading actress is cheating on him. What could be simpler!
Eric Bogosian’s award-winning 1987 play seems somehow less relevant today than it did 20 years ago. The play takes place in a Cleveland radio studio of that time over the course of an evening as radio talk host Barry Champlain serves up his nightly dish of hang-ups, insults and drivel. In fairness, it’s the callers who serve up the drivel; and that is the point of the play: that society has become so voyeuristic that the banal details of people’s dreary lives have become their entertainment. Bogosian was dead-on when he nailed the genre back in ‘87, but that was before Rush Limbaugh was a household name and back when the Larry King Virus was still somewhat contained.
The line between a sermon, a polemic and a one-person show has become muddled. McLean does put a human face on the New Testament but it isn’t enough to render the work more than a well performed sermon or recital.
It is rare that a playwright also doubles as the lead actor in his own work—but Tommy Lee Johnston is perfect as the eccentric man who can see color auras surrounding others. His talent or curse allows him to feel a person’s emotions whether their vitality or their imminent demise.
Old Times is a memory play enriched with realistic dialogue filled with long silences, start and stop responses—just as we often speak in life. This gives power and credibility to the work.
Certainly, the intimacy of the Raven Theatre provides wonderful immediacy. The audience becomes completely involved with the dispossessed Joad family, economic victims of the Great Depression, thrust from their homes in the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma and forced to board their makeshift truck to undertake a hard, tedious migration across the U.S.
Timeline Theatre Company’s Chicago premiere of Tony Award-winning The History Boys is an absolutely smashing production. It is an irreverent and amusing show that will touch your heart and make you think about what it means to become an educated person. In case you saw the movie,
Tom Williams discusses the following stage plays: The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, The Overwhelming, Sunday in the Park With George, with host Carl Amari on the Radio Program Hollywood 360 on WIND 560 AM. April 25, 2009.
The History Boys covers the life of eight English boys prepping for their entrance exams designed to get them into Oxford or Cambridge. But playwright Alan Bennett has a much larger agenda than merely a coming of age story or a debate about the purpose and style of education. He tackles issues such as sexual identity, teen angst and the role of teachers as mentors to their students.
Steppenwolf’s young adult matinee series is an absolute treasure in terms of exposing young people to quality theatre. The shows in the series are selected by Steppenwolf’s Young Adults Council, a group of high school students who want to learn the inner workings of the theatre