Pig Iron's "Twelfth Night' (2nd review)

Excessive? Yes. Genuine acting? Also yes.

I've never before heard a Twelfth Night audience so quickly drawn in emotionally as well as intellectually. Pig Iron had us in its grip and never let go, in the process demonstrating what makes a drama dramatic.

Marshall A. Ledger

Sep 18, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

"Lady M' at Live Arts Festival

The misunderstood Lady Macbeth

What made Lady Macbeth such a murderous bitch? Shakespeare never told us, but this ingenious interpretation ties her hunger for power to the insecurity of medieval women.

Steve Cohen

Sep 18, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

"The Oresteia Project' at the Fringe Festival

Aeschylus lives!

Some theatergoers think of Greek tragedy as simplistic and heavy-handed. What we saw here was subtle and nuanced. In this 2,500-year-old trilogy, Aeschylus tried to show how equitable, intelligent government could overcome generations of vengeful slaughter.

Steve Cohen

Sep 17, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Cathy Quigley's "Female Trouble' at the Fringe Festival

Profiles in courage

Who on earth would want to attend a performance about endometriosis? Let us now praise Cathy Quigley, who brought this painful condition to the stage with a combination of courage, aplomb and ingenuity.

Alaina Johns

Sep 17, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

"Aspects of Love' at the Walnut

Oh, grow up!

Aspects of Love is a musical about love among the incurably immature. It's impossible to take it seriously, as Andrew Lloyd Webber intended. But it almost works as a Gallic sex farce.

Steve Cohen

Sep 17, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

"Wars & Whores' at the Fringe Festival

When Henry IV met Pete Seeger

Wars and Whores is an unpretentious musical version of Shakespeare's Henry IV, with the story performed straight and the songs composed in a hootenanny style, that nevertheless manages to remain true to Shakespeare's play.

Steve Cohen

Sep 17, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

"WHaLE OPTICS' by Thaddeus Phillips

Flights of underwater imagination

When it comes to communicating across space and time, humans can learn something from whales, and vice versa. In another of his unpredictable flights of imagination, Thaddeus Phillips breaks new ground as an artist.

Jonathan M. Stein

Sep 13, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Max Frisch's "The Arsonists' (2nd review)

Rod Serling, where are you?

Contrary to its promotion as an “absurdist romp,” Max Frisch's The Arsonists is a moral play with several morals. It deserved better than this heavy-handed trivialization.

Gresham Riley

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Applied Mechanics' "Overseers' at Fringe Festival

Minding everyone else's business

Overseers concerns a revolt in a totalitarian society. Its creators at Applied Mechanics are themselves rebels against the tyranny of theatrical boundaries.

Jim Rutter

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

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