Theater
2722 results
Page 183
Attis Theater's 'Ajax, the madness' at the Wilma (1st review)
The frenzy of war, then and now
In Ajax, the madness, Theodoros Terzopoulos strips down the Ajax legend from Homer's Iliad and the Sophocles tragedy to its barest essentials, probing the roots of violence that underlie war. For Philadelphia, it was a rare opportunity to experience first-rate experimental theater.
Articles
8 minute read
'Paperback Dreadful' at FringeArts Festival
Beyond Goosebumps: R.L. Stine gets his just desserts
What American kid of the ‘90s wasn't captivated by R.L. Stine's spine-tingling Goosebumps books, with their monstrous apparitions and sinister wishes granted? This send-up of Stine ventures a step further to focus on the real traumas of childhood.
Articles
3 minute read
Pig Iron's "Pay Up' at the FringeArts Festival (2nd review)
Pay Up again (for a show you've seen before)
Pig Iron's hilarious/heartbreaking exploration of how money affects us hasn't changed much since 2005. That's because, director Dan Rothenberg insists, things haven't changed much since then. I beg to disagree.
Articles
4 minute read
Jo StrÓ¸mgren Kompani's "The Society' at FringeArts
Beyond Monty Python
In barely an hour, director/choreographer Jo StrÓ¸mgren and his three gifted dancer/actors provide the most lucid, insightful— and funniest— overview of isolationism and global conflict that you're likely to find today.
Articles
3 minute read
Tennessee Williams's "Two Character Play'
A great playwright's dismaying final chapter
The Two Character Play is an agonizing glimpse into the darkness of Tennessee Williams's soul in decline. And yet I can't get the image of the playwright's smiling face out of my mind.
Articles
4 minute read
Pig Iron's "Pay Up' at the FringeArts Festival (1st review)
The uses and abuses of money, in one bizarre hour
The trouble with most “immersive theater” is that you remember the form rather than the content. Pig Iron's Pay Up, by contrast, is a razor-sharp, insightful investigation of how humans (and even animals) interact when it comes to money.
Articles
4 minute read
A man's guide to the 2013 Fringe Arts Festival
No music or feelings, please: A man's guide to the Fringe Arts Festival
Men may dominate the theater world, but women dominate the audience. So how can a male theatergoer enjoy this month's Fringe Festival? By choosing carefully and relying on the expert guidance of my weightlifting teammates and drinking buddies.
Articles
4 minute read
Mauckingbird's "Importance of Being Earnest'
Oscar Wilde gets the ‘post-gay' treatment
Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is a Victorian comedy about men who lead double lives. The Mauckingbird Theatre Company's “post-gay” production overlooks Wilde's motivation for raising such a theme in the first place.
Articles
4 minute read
'The Trojan Women' in 21st-Century Greece
Calling Donald Rumsfeld, or: What war means
With The Trojan Women, Euripides may have written the most powerful anti-war play ever. It has lost none of its relevance: In the fine recent production in Athens, the parallels to the siege Greece is under today from predatory lenders were not far under the surface.
Articles
8 minute read
Shakespeare Festival's "Two Noble Kinsmen'
The Bard's last gasp
Shakespeare's last play is rarely performed, and for good reason: The Bard was paying his dues and departing with a whimper when he wrote The Two Noble Kinsmen. Still, it's worth seeing, if only for its clues to the homosexuality of Shakespeare's patron, King James I.
Articles
4 minute read