Luna Theater's "How to Disappear Completely' (2nd review)

You'll never get away

The British playwright Fin Kennedy's How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found is not so much a primer on vanishing as a meditation on the cruel impossibility of oblivion, especially in a virtual Internet world where things and people live forever.

Alaina Johns

Sep 06, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Pig Iron's "Twelfth Night' at Suzanne Roberts (1st review)

Pig Iron plays Shakespeare (and passes the pickled herring test)

This rollicking production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, an unusually mainstream choice for the customarily avant-garde Pig Iron, got a deservedly wild reception at this week's opening, from the pickled herring to the boisterous final dance.

Alaina Johns

Sep 06, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Eric Singel's "The Wedding Consultant' at Walnut Studio 3

If you've seen one wedding….

Writer/performer Eric Singel rounds up every warmed-over wedding joke known to Western society to prove that weddings are indeed universally similar affairs”“ even gay weddings.

Alaina Johns

Sep 06, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

"The Method Gun' at the Fringe Festival

Eat your heart out, Jesus: What Stella Burden's disciples did for art

The obsessive acting coach Stella Burden once drew five young actors together for nine years to rehearse the bit parts of A Streetcar Named Desire. She went crazy in the process, but her method— as portrayed in The Method Gun— revealed the profundity that often lies behind madness.

Jim Rutter

Sep 03, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

"The Arsonists' at the Fringe (1st review)

A play about Obama (written before he was born)?

When arsonists arrive to burn down your house, should you invite them to dinner and try to dissuade them? Max Frisch's The Arsonists (formerly called The Firebugs), written in 1953, speaks of moral responsibility and action in the face of personal threat. It doesn't seem the least bit outdated in this Fringe Festival offering.

Marshall A. Ledger

Sep 03, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Luna Theater's "How to Disappear Completely' (1st review)

Stop the world— I want to get off (again)

Fin Kennedy's How To Disappear Completely is part meditation on selfhood and part how-to guide to changing your identity. Unfortunately, it succeeds at neither.

Jim Rutter

Sep 03, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Movement Brigade's "Constants'

A river into our past

In this nighttime theatrical adventure, Alie Vidich's Movement Brigade harnesses the Schuylkill River nightscape to connect Philadelphians to a lost history of our surroundings.

Jonathan M. Stein

Aug 27, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

My 15 minutes as Shakespeare

Bloomer boy, or: An actor in spite of myself

After years of devoted service as a Free Library petty bureaucrat, I got my mom

Kile Smith

Aug 14, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Jez Butterworth's "Jerusalem' on Broadway

Goodbye, ‘Masterpiece Theatre': Genteel Britain confronts its dark side

Jez Butterworth's pulsating, profane Jerusalem will shock Anglophiles who, like me, cling to a vision of England as a quintessentially gracious land. Even before last weekend's rampant riots and looting in London and Birmingham, Butterworth astutely perceived a darker Britain, peopled by the descendants of primitive Celts and Normans who persist today on the margins of English society.

Carol Rocamora

Aug 06, 2011 · Articles · 6 minute read

"Much Ado About Nothing' in Clark Park

Shakespeare 1, Mister Softee 0

Much Ado About Nothing triumphed over multiple distractions in its open-air West Philadelphia venue. But then, Shakespeare himself confronted similar challenges in the 16th Century.

Marshall A. Ledger

Jul 23, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read