Bill B 6229

See it if Like clowning or have any interest in seeing clowning done.

Don't see it if Require dialogue--this entirely physical movement, music and sound effects.

Also Le Grand Voyage is, as the program describes, "an experimental theatrical clown fable" about an immigrant family. I've only seen clowning once before and this is the first time I've seen a complete plot done through it and it worked.

Note--I received my ticket at a discount pursuant to Show Score's Member Nights program.

The use of scenery, physical movement, incidental music and sound effects worked perfectly (for example, the physicality of simulating the plane flight and the use of "Sing With a Swing" as incidental music when the family was coming through customs. This was all done while retaining a cognizable story line.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see an understated, but good, version of Macbeth.

Don't see it if You don't care for austere set design or actors switching roles.

Also The Classic Stage Company has put on a good version of Macbeth. Man-and-wife couple Corey Stoll and Nadia Bowers play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Both have understated and subtle performances although it does seem slightly low-energy at times.

There is little scenery but that often worked. For example, the dinner haunted by Banquo's ghost takes place after the murder of Banquo. The scene commences with his body still on stage and presages the haunting.

Another interesting touch was to have a chorus of the cast be the witches. A smart move when one has a small cast and it doesn't detract from the play (some lines where the witches talked amongst themselves were expunged but that was fine).

I edited this down several points as I belatedly realized that this production excised Macbeth's great "Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy.... Read more Read less

See it if If you haven't seen The Seagull in a long time and really want to.

Don't see it if An indulgent staging that feels like they wanted to make it a musical but just couldn't make the leap.

Also This play had much gratuitous physical business. Several instances in which Nina is standing on or twirling chairs; two in which Konstantin just picks her up in what looks like a high-flying dance move and two scenes that end with what almost looks like a conga line. The initial act at the semi-invalid Piotr doing many moves that were inconsistent with his character's ailing condition.

The second half of the last act has a schmaltzy soundtrack as an overlay (there is a stage direction in which Konstantin plays a waltz, but this was far too much).

The performances themselves were good, especially Tom Schubert as the tortured Konstantin and Roman Freud as the bon-vivant doctor, Dorn. I also liked the dynamic between Schubert and Tatyana Zbirovskaya as his self-absorbed mother, Irina (although her accent was tough to penetrate at times).

I'm on the fence regarding Luisa Menzen as the starstruck and doomed Nina. Sometimes the performance seemed real, sometimes it seemed flat.... Read more Read less

See it if Fine acting, especially between the two leads. As to the writing, I mean, it's Sam Shepard.

Don't see it if The play is intense and there's a plot twist at the end that might bother some.

See it if Chekhov is, well, Chekhov. This was a capably executed rendition.

Don't see it if You have a problem with theater-in-the-round as there will be times when some actors have their backs to you.

Also The acting was generally good, particularly Jay O. Sanders as Vanya and Yvonne Woods as Sonya. I'm still trying to decide of Jesse Pennington's Astrov was a bit understated.

I could hear the play just fine but wonder if people in the back had problems.

I received my ticket for a nominal $5 pursuant to Show-Score's Member Nights Program.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a solid, funny play with a solid underpinning.

Don't see it if Not in the mood for a comedy.

Also Wilder Gone is a sharp, funny play about two women fighting over the same piece of land. Thalia (played by Toni Ann DeNoble), with her boyfriend Streeter, is a black woman (it's an all-black case, btw), who used her ability to pass to gain a plot of land after having lost her home. Mabel (Crystal Dickinson) is a neighbor who runs a boarding house, aspires to be Dallas' (the area is set outside of the city) first female preacher and wants the land for a revival.

There are engaging romantic subplots with Thalia-Streeter and with Mabel having a dalliance with John Jack, a wandering preacher.

There is also a sub-theme of children who've lost their parents with Peanut Brittle, a 12-year-old orphan who is being raised by Mabel and Oliver Oak, who is missing both parents and works three jobs to get by (including being the town baker).

The play is staged well with the sparse stage effectively transitioning to Oliver's store or Mabel's room as needed.

This is a funny, well-acted show.... Read more Read less

See it if You like a generally well-acted and mostly faithful representation of a classic Greek tragedy.

Don't see it if Have accessibility issues as the theater is upstairs and there's no elevator.

Also The New Collectives company did a well-executed version of The Trojan Women.

Particularly strong was the performance of Marcie Henderson as Hecuba who, once a queen, was still the moral center of the women. She brought a great range of strength, grief and rage at the right spots. Giverny Petitmermet was also good as an Andromache facing a death sentence for her infant child. Good marks to Joie Bauer in his dual role as Poseidon and Menelaus. On the other hand, Ashley Burroughs as Helen, who is stranded with women who hate her and facing a vengeful husband, was flat emotionally and barely audible vocally.

The performance space was quite small but well set-up to look like a contemporary refugee camp. The costuming well-reflected that. Two notes on the space--it is an actual balcony with no elevator access and there are no separate house lights, so the audience space is illuminated.

I got my ticket for a nominal price pursuant to Show-Score's member nights program.... Read more Read less

See it if A well-acted play that rose to the challenged of being performed on a park blacktop. The trims in the play were mostly well-chosen.

Don't see it if You need every word of a Shakespeare play performed or have a problem with female actors in parts such as Prince Edward and Richmond.

Also Smith Street Theatre's production of RIchard III is done in Carroll Park. Rather than going for some faux-Renaissance costuming they simply dress in contemporary garb.

Most of the trims in the play are acceptable (although I do miss Margaret's denouncing of Dorset's parvenu status line "Your fire-new stamp of honor" and I do miss the Duchess of York being in the play to mention her losses to Margaret).

It was well-acted with the performers being up to the acoustical challenges of the venue. Particularly of note were Kate Ross' Margaret as a raging Fury and Michael Hanson's Richard who is so good at inviting us to enjoy his wicked cleverness at the beginning of the play and his deterioration as the play proceeds.

The show is free but performers do have buckets to collect donations--which I heartily encourage.... Read more Read less

See it if Clever take on reality possibly being up for grabs.

Don't see it if You need a linear plot line.

Also The Conspiracists is set in a church basement which is the weekly meeting site for a support group for believers on conspiracy theories who have an issue with being mocked. The play is set during three nights (whether it's the same night becomes a question). The acting is quite good with Lisa Jill Anderson particularly good playing three different characters who impact the flow of the meeting in different ways. The set was convincing and well done with one prop being part of a clever running gag. The plot development is thought-provoking. The writing takes the correct steps in focusing on the characters rather than the conspiracy theories.... Read more Read less

See it if Classic Eugene O'Neill with some good acting.

Don't see it if "Posed" staging choices.

Also Odi Alibi did a fine job as the title character. Andy Murray was suitably cynical and dissolute as Henry Smithers. I wasn't a fan of the decision to use puppets in the hallucinatory sequences in the jungle. The idea is that they are supposed to seem real to Jones and I thought that was undermined by that choice. Using actors (in masks with necessary and with whatever lighting effects deemed necessary) would've worked better. Having the actors in the "real world" scenes wearing masks just seemed stagy.... Read more Read less

See it if You like seeing fine acting by the leads and an untrimmed Macbeth.

Don't see it if You don't want to see a play that is set, non-stop, on "fast"

Also This version of Macbeth was able to deliver the whole play in about two hours by proceeding at a uniformly fast pace of line reading. That didn't always work--there were a couple of scenes that had diminished impact. Some audience members may have trouble keeping up. The two leads were quite good with a nuanced portrayal of the psychological breakdown that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffered. The other acting varied and I found Macduff to be a bit wooden. The staging could occasionally be off with scenes where characters had their backs to the largest section of the audience instead of backstage.... Read more Read less

See it if A well-acted production with an intense but not overdone Medea.

Don't see it if It has a violent plot even if the violence takes place off-stage. Fazal was great as Medea but is perhaps a bit young for the part?

See it if Well-delineated characters with good chemistry. Some genuine good moments of interaction.

Don't see it if Perhaps over-evocative of Waiting for Godot. Sometimes got lost in its own mysteriousness.

See it if Intelligent, thought-provoking writing.

Don't see it if The two plot lines didn't always seem to mesh well.

See it if It had good acting and there was a convincing chemistry.

Don't see it if The backstory of the quartet's history and relationships was somewhat contrived.

See it if A darkly atmospheric Richard III with a Richard with flashes of humor.

Don't see it if A three-hour play is too long.

Also For me, the essence of Richard III is that he is amused by his cleverness and brings the audience into this. When he goes too far by killing the princes, his conscience catches up with him and you see him spiraling in emotionally.

Aaron Monaghan does a fine job of that, deftly covering the emotional development. His vocal modulations are amazing. Rory Nolan is appropriately slick as Buckingham.

I'm not sure of the costumes. They were striking and effective but seemed slightly overdone.

There are also some very nice staging touches, starting with the slot downstage from which Richard rises with the opening monologue and into which the play's many corpses are shoved. Contributed to the atmosphere of a ruthless, war-to-the-knife politics are the gray dank set design and the use of a cattle gun to conduct the various on-stage executions. Another nice touch was the use of white/red tubes to represent Richard's and Richmond's tents (white/red rose) at Bosworth Field.... Read more Read less

See it if Well-acted, two-man show covering PTSD as the plot thrust.

Don't see it if Looking for anything particularly original or insightful on the subject.

Also Boogieban centers on an Afghan vet who may be suffering from PTSD and his army psychiatrist who, as it turns out, has his own demons. The play is well-acted with David Peacock and Travis Teffner doing fine work as the doc and patient, respectively. The one scene is his office and it's nicely executed and there's sound and light work used with flashbacks that I thought were quite well executed.

The play proceeds in fairly predictable fashion with sparring, layers being peeled off and evolving reveals towards the end. In fact, I kept thinking a couple of times that it felt like a late-M*A*S*H episode. The idea of the therapist having is own dynamic triggered by the therapy is a theme that goes back at least to Equus and there's nothing really new here either.

The play wasn't badly written with the exception of a couple of Caplan's monologues that felt contrived and overwritten. Those were the only flaws with a play that didn't have very much wrong with it but left me unexcited.... Read more Read less

See it if Fast-paced and exciting.

Don't see it if The lighting lights up the front rows. The use of video to cover off-stage action may disorient some.

Also John Webster is no Shakespeare. His characters aren't subtle and his plots are convoluted. However, properly done his plays can be exciting. The White Devil is a revenge tragedy that centers around the two protagonists who kill their respective spouses to be with each other.

The scenery is minimal, which largely works. Video screens are used to cover some off-stage action. This works in some cases but not in others.

Some of the really interesting performances are the actors who play plural parts. Particularly, Jenny Bacon who has three divergent roles, Cherie Corrinne Rice who has two and Derek Smith as the as the shamelessly dissolute Ludovico and Vittoria's soon-to-be-killed husband.

In the larger roles, I particularly liked T. Ryder Smith as Francisco and Lisa Birnbaum showing great emotional range as Vittoria.

It isn't great art but it is fun.

I received my ticket for free as part of Show-Scores member tickets program.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a show with actors jumping seamlessly between their characters and the characters they play in the stories in the play.

Don't see it if You're a non-Spanish speaker and don't want to deal with a small amount of dialogue being in Spanish.

Also Eight Tales of Pedro is a story-within-a-play set among a group of six individuals in a van nervous about their journey. To salvage their morale, they tell a story of the serio-comic adventures of Pedro, a 17th-century Mexican Indio peasant.

The "van" is represented by six simple boxes which allows the actors to quickly take up the larger space that the Pedro story requires.

The performers showed a dexterity playing the different characters in the stories.

There was an interesting meta-fictional touch in the plot element that had the "Pedro" story being a well-known fable that each character had a different version of.

A few parts at the beginning seemed didactic but that's my only quibble.

Full disclosure--I'm acquainted with one of the performers.... Read more Read less

See it if Good acting by Rideout and Zdrojeski and clever use of a small environment.

Don't see it if People who object to euthanasia or who are touchy on religious subjects may not enjoy the show.

Also Before We're Gone centers on two encounters, set 25 years apart (1956 and 1981), between Kathleen Maguire (played by Leenya Rideout with a self-assured tartness that made me think of Dorothy Parker ) and Richard Flynn (a layered performance by John Zdrojeski). The leads were quite good and the set design made a efficient use of a small space; especially given that flashbacks occurred in both time frames.

The writing was capable but left me with questions. The crisis of faith that Flynn touches upon in '56 doesn't seem to have ravaged him much in '81. I'm also not totally sure that the fling that Flynn and Maguire had in '56 would have left a bond that would've brought them together after so long.

I wonder how the play might have looked if there was either a more in-depth look at Flynn or if that relationship had been made less central, essentially making it a biopic of McGuire.

DISCLOSURES
I got my ticket as part of Show-Score's member program. I am acquainted with Ms. Rideout.... Read more Read less

See it if An engaging, well-acted play with some interesting ideas.

Don't see it if There is a small amount of stage violence.

Also Dido of Idaho name-checks the story of Dido and Aeneas. In the Aeneid, as is explained in the play, Aeneas romances Dido but leaves her to found Rome and marry someone else; Dido kills herself.

The Dido in this case is Nora, played with restless, driven intelligence by Layla Khosh, who is trying to get her married lover Michael (Curran Conner) to leave his wife, Crystal (playwright Abby Rosebrock).

The other part of the dynamic is a cabin in rural Georgia where lives her disapproving evangelical mother June, (Dalia Davi) and the dynamic of that disapproval--especially when Nora returns there after things go south with her affair.

The acting was overall quite good with particular notice to Khosh, Davi and Rosebrock..

The only flaw was a plot element at the end where Crystal ends up in a scene in a situation that I didn't find realistic.

There is a foray in magic realism that precedes that which I wasn't totally sure of, but could live with.... Read more Read less

See it if You like well-acted intense drama by the playwright who wrote Doubt.

Don't see it if The two scenes are in different parts of the building--a problem if mobility is an issue.

Also This is an intense two-person play. Although the plot of two burnt-out people meeting each other and trying to make a go of it has a slightly tried-and-true flavor to it, the subtle characterizations of the script and effective performances of Domig and Arredondo make this play real visceral.

The staging is interesting. The play is performed in the basement of a church. Each act is done in two separate rooms. The first is the bar scene with two tables with stools in the middle and tables and chairs for the audience on both sides, as if the audience were in the bar (the fact that wine is on sale in an adjacent booth enhances that). The second scene is in a bedroom with a more traditional seating for the audience, enhancing the idea of the room as a private place. The audience does have to move and this results in a short de facto intermission.... Read more Read less

See it if Well-acted with Shay having a particularly nuanced performance. Great scene design.

Don't see it if Consider Strindberg's views on feminism to be a deal-breaker.

Also Strindberg's Miss Julie does represent the feminist upbringing of the central character as an integral part of her problem and that makes the play dated. That doesn't make the psychological dynamic any less engaging. The use of dust on the ground meant that the characters got dirtier as they broke-down, literally wallowing in the dirt.

I received my ticket for free pursuant to Show-Score's Member Nights program.... Read more Read less

See it if An engaging and smart play with well-written, well-portrayed characters that deals with the aftermath of military service.

Don't see it if Any aversion to fight scenes as there is one.

Also The Reckless Season has good acting from all four performers and is a well-written play about the impact of service in war on soldiers and people they leave behind.

The video-game that one of the characters plays is a good metaphor for the brother who remained at home trying to hold onto a piece of the brother who left and has just come back near the start of the play and for the difficulty in seeing any "end of the tunnel" for those who have served.

The dynamics among the characters are convincing.

I received my ticket for free as part of Show-Score's Member Nights program.... Read more Read less

See it if You like energetic acting by a cast that clearly enjoyed what they were doing and clever wordplay.

Don't see it if You have a low tolerance for wordplay that is occasionally too cutesey.

Also This is an energetic and clever production. The rhymed pentameter seemed to work and the production was consistently funny.

There was a nod and a wink to the audience that mostly worked but fell short on a few occasions, mostly in the case of some intentionally forced puns and a couple of anachronistic gestures (Clarice mimes a mike drop in one sequence).

I received my ticket from Show-Score for a nominal fee as part of their Member Nights program where the producers provide Show-Score with free tickets in the hopes that members will score the play whether they liked it or not... Read more Read less

See it if A fine production with a particularly good Johnstone, Harrow and Page.

Don't see it if You have a problem with Shakespeare being done with modern trappings.

Also I received a comp ticket pursuant to a ShowScore program.

See it if Intelligent play about children in the wake of war--set in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War

Don't see it if Some stage combat and violence involved.

See it if A funny show which focuses on non-verbal interactions which are well-staged and acted.

Don't see it if There is one scene involving one character's total nudity.

See it if Marital breakdown, aburdist-style writing

Don't see it if Sometimes the approach worked, sometimes it seemed posed and got in the way of connecting with the emotional landscape.

See it if Decent acting and the music and dancing were well-executed.

Don't see it if The music and dancing were gratuitous and distracting.