Golden Child
David Henry Hwang Theater

 David Henry Hwang's latest play, produced in an Asian-American theater named after him, measures the price that change exacts on family. Set largely in a village near Samoy, in southeast China, in 1918, Golden Child is an autobiographical work dealing with Eng Tien-Bin, a man patterned after Hwang's grandfather.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
Gone Missing
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Theatergoers who venture to Actors Theater of Louisville to catch the incredibly gifted, serio-comic New York troupe called The Civilians during its limited run are not likely soon to forget this dazzling experience. In Gone Missing, written and directed by Steven Cosson from interviews conducted by the company, the wide-ranging theme of loss -- innocence, jewelry, pets, cell phones, shoes, toys, husbands, eyeglasses, self-worth, life itself -- is treated with humor, poignancy, anger, and resignation in witty indelible sketches and song.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
September 2006
Good Body, The
Majestic Theater

Eve Ensler brought her one-woman show, The Good Body, to Dallas. Dallas did not reciprocate.

What is clearly lacking is a modicum of market research. Ensler's audience, from all indications, dwells on the university campus populated mostly by idealistic young people coming to terms with their identities. For those of us who have found it, for better or worse, The Good Body has minimal appeal. At a Saturday matinee at the elegant Majestic Theatre in downtown Dallas on a brisk, sunny afternoon, the house appeared to be only 25 percent occupied.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Good Doctor, The
Pasadena Playhouse

 Light summer fare is the best way to sum up this mixed bag of short comic playlets set in Chekhov's time but given an American gloss by Simon, who even contributes a sketch of his own which has nothing to do with Chekhov ("The Arrangement," about a father introducing his virginal young son to a prostitute). Simon frames the evening by introducing a Chekhov-like character called The Writer (the estimable Harry Groener) whose narration links the action. The Writer, when not confessing his problems with writer's block, steps into some of the stories and assumes other personae.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Good Doctor, The
North Park Vaudeville

 The 40-seat theater was packed on opening night for Neil Simon's homage to Anton Chekhov, The Good Doctor. Based on short stories by Chekhov, Neil Simon created a delightful collection of nine vignettes narrated by The Writer. Director Tisha Tumangan brings together an outstanding cast led by Anthony Hamm, who bridges each scene as the Narrator/Writer and Anton and Anton's father in the final selection.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Good Evening
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

 Red velvet curtains, footlights, off to one side a piano topped with a vase of scarlet roses - all set up a typical British music hall. But what follows is not typical. It's a series of hilarious sketches that are thirty years old yet mostly amazingly fresh. Though I've seen them before (at FST, in fact) and heard them often (in the full glory of their literacy) on their authors' recording, I still just laughed throughout a "Good Evening" indeed.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Good Person Of Szechuan, The
Oregon Shakespeare Festival

 Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechuan invites and receives an "un-Brechtian" produc tion at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, yet the playwright's ironic comments on human exploitation of one class by another come through clearly. Here, Brecht mixes his commentary with melodrama. The Oregon production puts broad comedy, even slapstick, into the mix.

Al Reiss
Date Reviewed:
February 1999
Good Thing
Taper, Too at the Actors' Gang

 Jessica Goldberg's portrait of the human condition in the USA is not a pretty one. In her short, taut, staccato-like drama, Good Thing, everybody is screwed-up and in pain. The two middle-aged folk, John and Nancy Roy (Francis Guinan and Shannon Holt, respectively), are school guidance counselors who can help everyone but themselves. Childless, damaged by an affair he had, they are on the verge of splitting up.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2001
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Park Square Theater

 Linda Kelsey, familiar from "The Lou Grant Show" and other television appearances, proves to be an engaging stage presence in playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald's comic, feminist take on a couple of classic heroines. As cloistered academic Constance Ledbelly (an unnecessarily oafish name), she travels back in time to find out the truth about the women who played opposite Othello and Romeo, and discovers some truths about herself as well.

Michael Sander
Date Reviewed:
May 1999
Gore More Years
Odyssey Theater Ensemble

 Washington DC-based comedy troupe Gross National Product has gone bi-coastal in order to ride the wave of public attention whipped up by the DNC. Politics and politicians are fair game for GNP's satirists, with not only Gore and Bush being ribbed, but Hillary and Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Jane Seymour, Charlton Heston, Ariana Huffington and William Buckley as well. Utilizing a sketch format sprinkled with songs and improv, Gore More Years or Son Of A Bush is more likable than memorable, with the humor rarely drawing blood.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Got Apathy?
Brave New Workshop Theater

 The Brave New Workshop, whose satirical revues are grounded in an improvisational process that evolves into scripted shows, has long specialized in political satire. Interestingly, perhaps because our current crop of politicians provides their own self-satirizing blunders, recent Workshop shows have been short on big comic payoffs. Got Apathy? skips the politics for a change, but mines a much more consistent vein of humor. The focus is as simple as the way we live today, with little emotional investment and willingness to go with the flow of whatever compels us at the moment.

Michael Sander
Date Reviewed:
June 1999
Graceland
Central Avenue Playhouse

 Ever since the palace of The King opened to the public in June 1982, the Memphis mansion of Elvis Presley has been the epicenter for the most outrageous celebrity worship that our outrageous nation can produce. So it's no wonder an American playwright would seek to probe the depth of the mania of two women vying for the honor of being the first to set foot on newly hallowed ground. What is somewhat surprising in Ellen Byron's Graceland, then, is the decorous modesty of the playwright's characterizations.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Graduate, The
Civic Theater

 The Graduate was a wonderful film in its time, but it fails as a play, even though the touring cast is generally well chosen. Jerry Hall, as Mrs. Robinson, is all right, with some good moments. She certainly is quite attractive, and, in shadows, accomplishes her nude scene. Devon Sorvari, as Elaine Robinson, ends up being totally "valley girl." The rest of the cast is there, but not too convincingly. Rider Strong never grasps the depths of Benjamin or understand his motivations. Dennis Parlato as Mr. Robinson has one excellent scene.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2003
Graduate, The
OnStage Playhouse

 About seven years ago, under the adapting pen of Terry Johnson, The Graduate, the Sixties hit film, entered the stage. Currently Chula Vista's OnStage offering, the production has many high points. The script has both high points and blunders.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2007
La Gran Scena Opera
Athenaeum Theater

 Under the artistic direction of Ira Siff (who plays diva Mme. Vera Galupe-Borszkh with hilarious aplomb), La Gran Scena Opera Co. really lovingly and cleverly spoofs the foibles and absurdities of opera. The divas in drag have real talent, and the scenes from well-known operas that they choose to excerpt are authentically parodied -- so it makes for a successful match. The ludicrously long death scenes are even more drawn out, the catty rivalry between divas is even more exaggerated, and the costumes and hairdos -- and appropriate accompanying behavior -- are even more flamboyant.

Effie Mihopoulos
Date Reviewed:
February 2000
La Gran Via
Thalia Theater

 For this year's excursion into the world of zarzuela, Thalia Spanish Theater's director Angel Gil Orrios turned to two works of genero chico (short variety). The first, La Gran Via (1886, with later modifications), satirized the delays and cost overruns in constructing Madrid's famous central grand boulevard in the 1880s. Eight women with icon-laden signboards extolled their architectural treasures on as many older streets and locales to a bemused Caballero (Rafael Lebron), who in reality has fathered the new street and a Passer-by (Fermin Suarez).

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Grand Hotel
Signature Theater

 Adapted for Signature Theater's intimate performing space by artistic director Eric D. Schaefer, this elegant, mostly well-cast production of Grand Hotel emphasizes relationships of the "ship of fools" docking at the darkly luxurious hotel in 1928 Berlin. Minus the exuberant dancing enlivening the 1989 Broadway adaptation, which under Tommy Tune's direction, garnered five Tony Awards, including Best Choreography, this Grand Hotel compensates with fine singing, ably accompanied by musical director Jon Kalbfleisch and his orchestra.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Grapes of Wrath, The
Tenth Avenue Theater

 An epic in literature becomes an epic onstage. Adapted by Frank Galati, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath retains its power on stage when directed by Claudio Raygoza for Ion Theater. It is currently playing a limited run at the Tenth Avenue Theater in downtown San Diego.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2006
Grapes of Wrath, The
Don Powell Theater

 The Grapes of Wrath has quite a heritage. John Steinbeck's classic depicts the "Oakies'" struggle in Los Gatos, California from May to October, 1938. The book won a Nobel Prize in 1962. John Ford's Oscar–winning film of 1940 was followed by the play in 1988 and a teleplay in 1991. Playwright Galati's script captures the essence of Steinbeck's hard–bitten story.

Starting with the anticipation of a California nirvana to a cruel taste of despair as reality sets in, The Grapes of Wrath is a difficult play to watch, and a fantastic play to act.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2007
Grease
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 From the opening "Alma Mater," it's clear that goings-on at Rydell High in 1959 will be as much spoofed as remembered. A very subdued teacher and two "guest star" entertainers in story and reality make appearances but take a back seat to Pink (slick-jacketed) Ladies (sort of) and Burger Palace (black-leather jacketed) Boys (greasers). More souped up than their not-so-hot rod, their "Greased Lightnin'" is really their high-voltage dancing.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Grease
Derby Dinner Playhouse

 All through Derby Dinner Playhouse's powerhouse production of Grease, that quintessential musical depiction of high-school days in 1950s America, I kept thinking that this show is just about as perfect in its way as Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend, the classic pastiche of 1920s British musicals. Both capture so beautifully through song, dance, and story the innocence of those times, though with Grease the innocence goes hand in hand with a crassness and laughable lack of sophistication wholly natural to characters of that time and place.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
May 2000
Green E, The
Cafe Voltaire

 I guess growing up in Athens, Georgia, makes you susceptible to Elvis. Comedian David Payle, who just moved to the Windy City from down South, has come up with a scheme to use Elvis' popularity to help save the environment. Thus comes the birth of The Green E - The Environmental Elvis. In a flashy white jumpsuit, Payle goes through a gamut of songs -- the Elvis trademark melodies, all right, but different lyrics. They're all rewritten by Payle to be environmentally conscious.

Effie Mihopoulos
Date Reviewed:
October 1995
Gross Indecency
Diversionary Theater

 Rosina Reynolds and her excellent cast have brought playwright Moises Kaufman's work to a new level in the Diversionary production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. David Weiner's set is elegant: heavy in reds, drapery, and gilded trim. Costumer Liam M. O'Brien provides stylish tails, brilliantly patterned vests, and authentic English barristers' garb. The image, accented by lighting designer Jennifer Setlow, speaks well of the end of the 19th century.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Gross Indecency
Arena Players - Mainstage

 Set in 1895, this courtroom drama uses historic letters, newspaper reports, trial transcripts and Oscar Wilde's own writings to chronicle the fall of the famous playwright from the bright lights of the London theater to conviction and imprisonment for sexual acts of "gross indecency" with young men. Wilde, played with great passion by Stephen Wangner, is quite flip about his lifestyle early on, while at the same time denying the acts with which he's been charged.

Mark Donnelly
Date Reviewed:
February 2000
Grouch, The
College of St. Elizabeth - campus amphitheater

The plot of The Grouch, about Knemon (Joseph Costa), an unsociable and cantankerous old "grouch" who won't have anything to do with his neighbors and expends a great deal of time and energy keeping all suitors away from his daughter, builds upon a series of funny encounters, confounding confrontations and just-plain-silly doings between him and the members of the mountainside community. If his comeuppance and a happy ending for the lovers are a foregone conclusion, it is getting to that point that provides the makings for the merry moral denouement.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Groucho
Westport Country Playhouse

 Frank Ferrante has been impersonating Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx for well over 10 years, and not getting arrested for doing so. In fact, he's won many awards for his inspired and edgy recreation of that crusty vaudevillian, here in the U.S. and in London, and in 1995 issued a compact disk of this play, written by Groucho's son, Arthur and Robert Fisher.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Guest in the House
Lamplighters Community Theater

 Steve Corbett's elegant set, heavy in dark woods, makes for the perfect living room in an upper- class Connecticut home. Guest In The House, by Hagar Wilde and Dale Eunson, at just over two hours running time, is not quite as distinguished. The language sounds stilted by contemporary standards and the pace is often ponderous. In the predictable story, even minor complexities are easily seen.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2003
Gumboots
Wilshire Theater

 History begins as tragedy, ends as farce - or, in the case of Gumboots, showbiz. The origin of Gumboots goes back to colonialist days in South Africa, when blacks were thrust down into the bowels of the earth to dig out gold for their white masters, a typically brutal bunch of capitalists who treated them like slaves, condemning them to work in darkness while shackled to each other. On top of that, the workers were forbidden to speak to each other; forcing them to communicate by rattling their chains, whacking their boots and grunting musically.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 2000
Guys And Dolls
Kit Carson Amphitheater

 It is amazing to see a community theater take on a really big production such as Youtheater and Patio's current production of Guys and Dolls. This Loesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows 1950s smash hit requires a cast of about 30. Many have to be triple threats (act, sing, dance). It has a well-known score and multiple sets. Most of the characters are based on Damon Runyon characters, which begin life as caricatures.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2006
Guys And Dolls
Downtown Cabaret Theater

 A number of years ago, the Downtown Cabaret in Bridgeport gave a successful, spirited production of this wonderful show, with both music and lyrics by one man, Frank Loesser. Now, Damon Runyon's delightfully down and dirty denizens of Times Square, clothed in a perfect riot of stripes and plaids (courtesy of Dodger Costume Rentals), on a free-form, color-drenched set (designed by J. Branson, heightened by Hugh Hallinan's brilliantly-intricate lighting design have once-again captured the stage of the Cabaret Theater in a joyous extravaganza that rivals the acclaimed Broadway revival.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Guys And Dolls
Derby Dinner Playhouse

 Aficionados of the golden age of Broadway musicals rank Guys and Dolls right up there with Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, Oklahoma!, Kiss Me, Kate, South Pacific, and other classics in that celebrated pantheon. Derby Dinner Playhouse, which excels at recreating those magical works, excels once again with its current presentation of composer/lyricist Frank Loesser's tune-filled adaptation from 1950 of a Damon Runyon short story (book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows) epitomizing lovable Broadway gamblers, Salvation Army do-gooders, and heart-of-gold showgirls.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
May 2004
Guys And Dolls
Paper Mill Playhouse

 Here's my marker that five will get you ten if you put your money on Guys and Dolls at the Paper Mill Playhouse. No matter how much you spend on tickets, those fabled Damon Runyon characters are sure to double your investment in pleasure. Those dusk-to-dawn denizens of Broadway have surfaced on the Jersey side of the Hudson but still look for the same all-night crap game. This time the game is not only a little different, it's a lot brighter and a great deal more fun than it possibly has a right to be.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
June 2004
Guys And Dolls
Central Piedmont Community College Theater

 There's a period of adjustment as you walk into panoramic Pease Auditorium. The youths portraying Nathan Detroit and his lowlife cohorts are less believable playing the ponies than they would be playing video games. Nor is director Eddie Mabry's youth brigade in line with the unique Damon Runyan patois, which adds an absurd formality to the flavorful venality. Fortunately, Mabry's choreography invariably hits the target.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
June 1999
Guys And Dolls
Marcus Center For The Performing Arts

 Opening just two weeks after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Guys and Dolls seems like a New York that's cloaked in a hopelessly innocent time, when the greatest dangers were associated with gambling and alcohol. Oh, for the good old days!

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Guys On Ice
Milwaukee Rep - Stiemke Theater

 Oh, if only Wisconsin winters were as quick and enjoyable as Guys on Ice, a send-up of ice fishing currently playing at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. A favorite of the past two seasons, Guys on Ice returns with the same endearing cornpone humor that audiences have grown to love. There's Marvin (Doug Mancheski) and Lloyd (Scott Wakefield), losers in life (perhaps represented by the fact they never seem to get a nibble during the entire show). But they are kings of their fish shanty domain, telling tales, sharing secrets and dreams.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2000
Guys, The
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

 The Milwaukee Chamber Theater is to be congratulated for running a play like The Guys during the December holiday season. The two-character play is certainly NOT your typical feel-good holiday entertainment. Instead, it's a grim reminder of how some families will get through the holidays - those families who lost loved ones in the tragic events of 9/11.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Gypsy
Welk Resort Theater

 Gypsy, a story suggested by Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs, deals mostly with her early years and her ultimate stage mother, Rose. Stephen Sondheim's lyrics and Arthur Laurents' words sparkle under the able direction of Lewis Winkenfeld. John Charron's choreography is charmingly traditional.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2005
Gypsy
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 When Roberta MacDonald takes "Rose's Turn" all through the theater, it's ironic. Why? Because the whole show has been her turn. Sure, Wendee Bresee blossoms out nicely as Gypsy Rose Lee, after her stalwart childhood as the untalented Louise, nicely understated by Brianna Houck. And after Taylor Vaughan passes for talented Baby June, Sarah Jackson brings spirit to grown up June Havoc's revolt against her mother. You couldn't wish for a nicer agent for them or piner after Rose than Larry Barrett's Herbie. But whenever MacDonald is on stage, it's no one else's.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2000
Joy Luck Club, The
Academy of Performing Arts

Amy Tan's novel, "The Joy Luck Club," has seen several iterations besides the film. Four years after the novel hit bookshelves, the Shanghai People's Art Theater in collaboration with The Long Wharf Theater, performed a production in a Mandarin translation. The year was 1993. The production moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong. In 1999 the Pan Asian Repertory Theater produced it. A revival in New York took place last December.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Doubt
Caldwell Theater Company - Count de Hoernle Theater

John Patrick Shanley packs a lot into this one-act play, and Caldwell Theater Company does well by Doubt, a Parable.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
August 2008

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