Pig Iron's "Welcome to Yuba City!' At Live Arts Festival (2nd review)

Shooting fish in a barrel

Dexterous characterizations and vivid costumes make Welcome to Yuba City! the funniest show in this year's Live Arts/Fringe Festival. But most of its humor derives from poking derisive fun at exaggerated stereotypes.

Jim Rutter

Sep 08, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Whit MacLaughlin's "Fatebook' at Live Arts Festival (1st review)

Actions and consequences in cyberspace

Whit MacLaughlin's Fatebook asks rhetorically: What actually happens in cyberspace? The answer eludes him, but in the process his 15-person troupe provides one of the most unique and immersive theatrical productions I've ever experienced.

Jim Rutter

Sep 08, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Pig Iron's "Welcome to Yuba City!' at Live Arts Festival (1st review)

Way out West: A finely tuned ridiculousness

Pig Iron's Welcome to Yuba City! lampoons the absurdity of America's Western mythic culture while simultaneously displaying respect and affectionate empathy for its values— no easy feat in comic theater of this sort.

Jonathan M. Stein

Sep 08, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Mike Daisey's "How Theater Failed America'

Is there an economist in the house?

In a 100-minute rant, Mike Daisey purports to expose the economic forces destroying American theater. He succeeds in demonstrating only that actors know nothing about economics.

Jim Rutter

Sep 06, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Canada theater festival roundup

Only 24 hours from Broad Street: Five provocative days in Canada

In two charming Ontario towns through early November, you'll find theater as good as New York's or London's. At the Shaw and Stratford Shakespeare Festivals, I managed to squash eight plays and a hippy-dippy folk concert into five days. Here's what I saw.

Toby Zinman

Aug 18, 2009 · Articles · 8 minute read

Mauckingbird's "Never the Sinner'

Leopold and Loeb, punished again

Fascinating performances, highly nuanced direction and strong production values manage to infuse tremendous theatrical power into John Logan's otherwise mediocre retelling of the famous 1924 Leopold-Loeb murder case.

Jim Rutter

Aug 15, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Summer camp for show biz hopefuls

Tricks of the trade

Summertime, and many theater companies defray their fixed costs by conducting training camps for aspiring performers. But such camps are not all alike, as a recent exhilarating week-long program in Verizon Hall— more intense and more professionally-focused than the summer training schools run by several of Philadelphia's theater companies— reminded me.

Aug 11, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Greek travesty: Euripides's 'Helen' in London

Euripides has a problem

The rarely performed Helen by Euripides is late Attic tragedy with a comic twist, as the beauty queen of ancient Greece is reunited with her husband Menelaus after the Trojan War. Deborah Bruce's production misconceives its material, and the result, despite Penny Downie's doughty performance in the title role, is neither comedy nor tragedy but travesty instead.

Robert Zaller

Aug 09, 2009 · Articles · 6 minute read

Evan's "The Rock Tenor'

Rocks meets opera meets Broadway

Can rock, classical and Broadway music co-exist? The Rock Tenor ingeniously blends some of the best of each. It's an ingenious concept, brilliantly executed— until Act II, when it runs out of gas.

Jim Rutter

Jul 21, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

LaBute's "The Shape of Things'

The goddess and the dork, and what else is new?

Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things purports to offer us a new take on a familiar literary theme: a man or woman trying to change in order to deserve someone else's love. But LaBute adds little to the theme, other than the shock of exquisite viciousness.

Jim Rutter

Jul 14, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read