You are currently browsing the Review category.
by Stephen Tortora-Lee on March 21, 2012
The Thing About Dan, which ran last month, was the first play mounted by Slightly Altered States Theater Company, written and directed by Sari Caine Glickstein, created in collaboration with actor Michael Hurst (Paul) and improviser Louis Kornfeld ( Zip).
The production was very warmly received and many of the nights the cast was playing to sold-out houses. Talking with Sari Caine Glickstein before the show she said, “We want to show a reality that’s a little to the left — to show that everyone’s particular reality is questionable.”
The Thing About Dan is a very good first show to highlight Slightly Altered Productions mission and niche, in that it is all about us asking ourselves “What is really real in this play?” and more than that, what is truly real in our beliefs, and in our interactions with others? Though subtle at times, it is nevertheless very clever and well-intentioned in the final calculation. Sari’s vision brought to life with the help of the rest of the newly formed company has helped Slightly Altered Productions receive 501c3 status quickly and they have an exciting lineup of plays in the pipeline for the rest of the year.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by The Happiest Medium on March 5, 2012
The Happiest Medium review by guest contributor Katelyn Manfre.
Are you ready to rock? No, seriously, are you? Because Traveling Musicians, the glam-rock quartet straight out of the barnyard, are ready to help you find your inner animal.
This merry band of misfits is comprised of four multi-instrumentalist critters–a cat, a dog, a donkey and a rooster. Based on the Grimm Brothers fairy tale, The Town Musicians of Bremen, the theatrical rock concert is brought to life by the Minneapolis-import theater company, 3 Sticks.
Billed as the reunion show for the aptly named “Rooster Donkey Cat Dog” (later changed to the much edgier moniker, “Cock Ass Pussy Bitch” or “CAPB”), this hour-long show is a silly, satirical romp through the lighter side of rock clichés. CAPB battles drug addiction (Donkey becomes hooked on sugar cubes), relentless groupies (Rooster’s harem of chicks), attempts to branch out as a bigger brand (Cat pursues a career in fashion), or rising above the rest (Dog, a born howler, is offered a solo gig), making for a tumultuous retrospective on their battles with fame and fortune.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by The Happiest Medium on March 3, 2012
The Happiest Medium review by guest contributor Katelyn Manfre
For those of us tucked up in the Northeast part of the country, Hurricane Katrina is a distant memory, a tragedy of nearly a decade ago. But for those still feeling the effects down South its presence is constant. Siobhan O’Louglin gives a voice to the personal stories in her solo show, The Rope in Your Hands (playing at The Red Room). Through thirteen different first-hand survivor accounts, O’Loughlin deftly moves through the before and after of one of the most devastating disasters in recent memory.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by The Happiest Medium on March 3, 2012
The Happiest Medium review by guest contributor Katelyn Manfre
John Grady loves the show “Fear Factor.” He has his theories and his predictions about how the insane game show will play out, and is especially drawn to the “Couples Edition,” where young die-hards compete, and, predictably lose, to the old married pair with many anniversaries to their name. Despite his intrigue and obsession with these thrill-seeking duos, Grady has only had one serious relationship in his life: with Abby, his Bernese mountain dog.
In Fear Factor: Canine Edition (running at The Kraine Theater), Grady tells the hilarious and heartbreaking story of his life with Abby, and some of the moments that bonded them forever. Intercut with an account of Abby’s last days before she had to be put down at the age of 13, Grady’s stories are beautiful and impassioned, but told simply, with ease and humor.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Diánna Martin on March 1, 2012
Part historical odyssey, part musical, Musical Pawns centers on the career work of Russian composer David Nowakowsky, a brilliant contemporary of Tchaikovsky and Wagner, whose works have been lost for nearly 100 years. Guarding his unpublished manuscripts for decades were his Grandson and then Great-Grandson, and the play also follows their life as Jews in war-torn Nazi Germany. When their lives were suddenly always on the line, it was difficult to protect themselves, much less protect these 2,500 + works of a musical master.
The production as a play itself is difficult to follow. Much of this is due to the fact that the narration and scenes switch back and forth between past and present – and variations in time on the past. Combine this jumpy timeline with the case of actors playing several different roles and the result is unnecessarily complicated. The choppy time-line is further marred by a schtick – beginning with very verklempt generalized depictions of Jewish yentas, lawyers, and even the great-grandson of Nowakowsky (played albeit with feeling by Emanuelle Zeesman). I was confused by much of it, and I usually can figure these things out pretty quickly.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Diánna Martin on March 1, 2012
Performance art pieces, in general, can be thrilling to behold, whether they break new ground, or simply retrace the steps made by others in new and innovative (or deeply personal and fascinating) ways. The idea of combining dance, theatre, and clown with music to portray emotional journeys and the struggle of gender roles sounds so exciting! And it could be…if Aerial Allusions was a different show.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on March 1, 2012
When you read that the title of a play is as blatant as Stripper Lesbians you might be led to believe that what you are about to see is nothing more than a show which has women in various states of undress (personally or professionally), making out a lot. However, read further to “Rising Sun Performance Company” and your perspective quickly changes. Sure, the show is sexy, shows a lot of skin, and has no problem exploring the more intimate moments of the relationship, but Rising Sun’s inherent intelligence as an ensemble ensures that your skin is served up with a side of thoughtful, though-provoking drama which explores the title rather than exploits it.
So, who are these stripper lesbians of the title?
First there’s Evan (Amanda Berry). She strips, of course, but identifies herself first and foremost as a woman’s studies major. After all, she wouldn’t even be stripping if she wasn’t writing her senior thesis (cleverly titled “Stripper Lesbians”) as an insider’s exposé on what it’s like to be dating a sex worker.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on February 29, 2012
Little Lady featuring Sandrine Lafond (Photo credit Paolo A. Santos)
I can’t remember, before this show, the last time I saw an adult person unhesitatingly put their whole big toe in their mouth and suck on it with a sense of blissful satisfaction. You can marvel at the flexibility of such a feat even as you cavil at the notion of exactly how clean, now, was that toe before it went in to that mouth. This combination of awe and uncomfortable personal fastidiousness is what Sandrine Lafond, the performer and creator of Little Lady, is happy to promote. She wants to hold you in a spell of fascination as she pricks away at your comfort levels, never allowing you to lapse into a passive, carefree enjoyment of her performance. Perhaps it’s her butoh training at work, or perhaps she’s artfully channelling a sense of anger stemming from her experience as a female performer. Either way she has devised in this one woman piece a highly individual performance of peculiar distinction.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 29, 2012
Man Saved By Condiments by Mary Jo Pehl is a dramatization of the true story of a man whose car went off a bridge while he was on his way to work. With a broke his hip, no cell phone and no one aware of where he was, he survived for five days by eating snow and the packets of condiments he found strewn around the floor of his garbage heap that passes for a car.
The solo show, directed by Bill Stiteler, starts off a bit clumsily as every thought is expressed aloud by Steve (Tim Uren) for the sake of the constructs of the play. While the back story explains that in order to stay sane the man talks to himself the device is somewhat forced for the sake of theatricality. It also doesn’t help that Steve is somewhat unlikable and not particularly introspective. He’s got a chip on his shoulder and (as bits of his life are revealed through the various moments when he’s either talking to himself, chatting with squirrels or railing at God) there’s not much redeeming about him.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
by Stephen Tortora-Lee on February 29, 2012
What do cell phones, natural disasters, and the industrial revolution have in common? LOL: The End (written and performed by Michi Ilona Osato, Una Aya Osato, and Yoshimasa “Sen” Osato) sets out to investigate how the world got to where it is, starting with Man’s earliest domination over nature in order to create shelter, and ending with the isolation that can occur as Man becomes more and more enmeshed in the virtual world of hand-held devices. Though there are less than a dozen words squeaked out in this dense multimedia interaction (which includes curated new media samples from YouTube, ultramodern kabukesque pieces of clowning, and interpretive dance) the message of this show is still clearly vital, diversified, and meaningful.
The central push of this piece is to show how our scramble for comfort is never-ending and essentially the more we have the more our smaller problems require higher costs to avoid them. The end of the world has never been so engrossing as with the physical comedy and funny dramatic redirections of the audience by Michi as the personification of Greed with its quest to maintain power over others. She sets us in our place while we have pity for Una’s embodiment of the innocence of the havenots around the world and throughout history.
Continue Reading…
Related Posts:
