Exact Center Of The Universe, The
Century Center Theater

 Joan Vail Thorne's The Exact Center Of The Universe takes us to semi-familiar territory in its story of Vada Love Powell (Frances Sternhagen), an aging Southern belle in the 1950s. She's alarmed by her son Appleton's (Reed Birney) shotgun marriage to a sweet Italian girl (Tracy Thorne), all the while being visited by his new bride's twin sister (also played by Thorne), who is softening the blow for her beloved sibling. Vada Love is a feisty old bird, but not your garden-variety, crotchety old widow.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Exonerated, The
45 Bleecker

 No matter how good the writing, shows that have actors reading scripts from lecterns require an extra level of patience from audiences and start to wear out their welcome quickly after the first hour, mainly because of the lack of design elements and movement. Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's The Exonerated is no different, even though Tom Ontiveros's varied spotlighting is nicely done, and the play offers gripping, real-life, in-their-own-words stories of wrongly-convicted people who spent years on death row until DNA or other new evidence cleared their names.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Exonerated, The
45 Bleecker

 This intensely researched script, pieced together by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen from public records and personal interviews, is as much a crusade as a drama. A bunch of A-list talent has mobilized behind the cause since this reading stage production opened in October, including Richard Dreyfuss, Jill Clayburgh, Elliott Gould, Judy Collins, Lynn Redgrave, Mia Farrow, Mary Steenburgen and Debra Winger.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Expiration Date
La MaMa ETC - First Floor

 One by one, three eccentric actresses strut onto the stage at La MaMa's First Floor Theater to wait to audition. They flaunt creatively outlandish costumes by Denise Greber and director Abla Khoury, with a common theme of bright red patent-leather shoes or boots. And waiting is about all they get to do, unless you count the impromptu monologues done for an ominous-looking camera on tripod that otherwise mostly spills artsy time sequences of the women onto a screen at the rear.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Hay Fever
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 With Hay Fever, it's all frightfully early, wickedly mannered Noel Coward bordering-on-farce. The eccentric Bliss family's colorful English country home, early 1920s, exactly follows Coward's stage directions, and elegantly. High ceilings, tasteful furnishings (including a shawled grand piano and a set of French doors that lead to a flower-filled garden) provide a proper setting for "retired" but always "on" actress Judith (lovely, vivacious Sharon Spelman). Husband David (conceived of as rather dry by Stephen Johnson) can write his romance novels in an upstairs study.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Hay Fever
Actors Theater of Louisville

 There's always this to be said for the plays conceived and directed by Anne Bogart during her 10 consecutive years of displaying them at Actors Theater of Louisville: they grab your attention and hold on for dear life.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Hay Fever
Trinity River Arts Center

 Theatre Britain, producer of British theatre in Dallas, just completed their production of Noel Coward's raucous comedy, Hay Fever, as the first show of their 2005-06 season. A theatrical satire, Hay Fever was first produced in London in 1925 and ran for over a year. Coward wrote the play in only three days and based it on the experiences he encountered at the home of actress Laurette Taylor and her husband Marley Manners.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Hay Fever
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

 Noel Coward's Hay Fever, as airy a trifle as one may encounter in the theater, soars to new heights in this Chamber Theater production. Crafted in the 1920s with wit and style by the witty and stylish playwright Noel Coward, this comic gem retains all the charm and glamour one imagines it enjoyed during its heyday.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2004
Hazard County
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Allison Moore's Hazard County, opening this year's 29th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, sounded so promising with its conflation of unusual source material - a real-life Kentucky murder and the redneck TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard," so popular (and still in reruns) from 1979 to 1985. For this reviewer, however, the promise was unfulfilled.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Heartbreak House
Actors Theater Of Louisville

How satisfying it is to feast at the banquet of words and ideas provided by the wily Mr. Shaw in his Heartbreak House. Actors Theater of Louisville has set a splendid table for this production of what Shaw, ever in competition with Shakespeare, called his King Lear.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Heartbreak House
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

 There's a bit of melancholy lurking around the Cabot Theater these days. Yes, some of it comes from Captain Shotover, the bearded curmudgeon who stars in Shaw's Heartbreak House. But much of it comes from this being the final year of the annual Shaw Festival.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Heaven
Yale Repertory Theater

 Heaven, as perceived by a very angry Canadian playwright George F. Walker, in his play of the same name, is hell on earth and visa versa. Or so it seems in his newest work, directed by Evan Yionoulis. The advertisements for this production come with a parental caution advisory; they should come with an adult caution advisory. It is ironic that while all the production qualities, from casting to technical elements, are first rate, Walker's writing veers from brilliant excitement to lazy to just simply self-indulgent, most noticeable in the rambling monologue at the end of the play.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
December 2000
Hedda Gabler
Seiner Pavilion at New College of Florida

 In the mise en scene, Hedda surveys her living room, dominated by a portrait of her father, General Gabler, which she embraces before darkness overtakes the Tesman villa in 1890 Norway. When morning light shines coldly, her husband George's Aunt Julie, talking cozily (!), with her former servant, marvels at the expensive furnishings, what with the Tesmans just returned from an extended honeymoon abroad. So much exposition then follows so soon, we had better listen carefully.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2003
Hedwig And The Angry Inch
Henry Fonda Theater

 Thanks to a spellbinding performance by Michael Cerveris in the title role and to its equally dynamic music and lyrics, this rock-opera about the trials and tribulations of a transvestite diva from East Berlin lives up to the rave reviews it got back in New York. By turns satirical, campy, outrageous, bawdy, tender and moving, the show has a freshness and originality to match its in-your-face challenge to puritanical notions of sexuality and love.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
October 1999
Hedwig And The Angry Inch
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz Stage III

 There was a time when many of us talked about a generation gap, but I never really experienced one until seeing and hearing Hedwig, a transgendered German expat and self-described "almost famous" rocker. Oh, I could appreciate the musicianship of his/her Angry Inch combo, the way s/he knocked about and still had breath control enough to elucidate sad autobiographical facts. But I found much of them boring.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2006
Hedwig And The Angry Inch
Zachary Scott Theater

 Zachary Scott Theater Center's arena stage has mounted a rollicking rock and roll hit, John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch, in its Texas premiere. Hedwig relates the story of the "internationally ignored" rock singer and 'her' search for love and stardom.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Hedwig And The Angry Inch
Kitchen Dog Theater

 When seeing a play at two different venues, it is difficult not to make comparisons, so bear with me if I compare the production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Austin's Zachary Scott Theater and Kitchen Dog Theater's mounting in Dallas and find that the latter does not measure up.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
October 2003
Hedwig And The Angry Inch
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

 Perhaps I'm going out on a limb, but here goes: of all the venues that will ever stage the outrageous rock musical, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Milwaukee's Cabot Theater is the most unlikely. To give you an idea of the theater's environment, consider that it was lovingly crafted to recreate a 19th-Century European jewel box. It is a gilt-edged, Baroque masterpiece. One can expect to see Shaw, Shakespeare and operas performed on its stage (indeed, that's the typical fare).

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2004
Hedwig And The Angry Inch
Actors Theater of Louisville

 For its take-no-prisoners presentation of the rock cult classic, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Actors Theater of Louisville has transformed its intimate Victory Jory Theater into the tacky Liki Liki Tiki Room, a Hawaiian-themed lounge where "paradise is just a mai tai away." Hedwig, an East German-born transsexual whose botched operation resulted in an "angry inch," the name she's given her band, is powerfully sung and acted by fabulous David Hanbury, resembling a masculine-looking Sarah Jessica Parker.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
September 2007
Heidi Chronicles, The
Poway Performing Arts Company

 The Heidi Chronicles comes from the prolific pen of playwright/screenwriter Wendy Wasserstein, who also brought us Uncommon Women and Others, Isn't it Romantic, The Sisters Rosensweig, and An American Daughter, as well as teleplays and screenplays. Though it garnered a Tony, the Dramatists Guild Award, and a Pulitzer in the 1988-89 Broadway season, The Heidi Chronicles is Ms. Wasserstein's most static and talky play. Director David Kelso opens it up as much as possible without using implausible artificial movements.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2004
Heiress, The
Cook Theater at Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts

 So what if it's 19th-Century melodramatic; The Heiress is plain old-fashioned good, like its heroine Catherine -- until she comes to realize how her father and her suitor, each in his own way, withholds love out of selfishness. Then no one -- not even Aunt Lavinia who has more than once conspired to help her elope with Morris Townsend -- can trick Catherine into being anything but her father's heiress: one who's loved very powerfully once but never will again.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2003
Hellcab
Tamarind Theater

 To know a society, Dostoyevsky wrote, one must look inside its prisons and hospitals. Modern addendum: and drive a cab. Playwright Will Kern has done just that; his eight-month stint hacking it in Chicago gave fruition to a short, pungent, bittersweet play whose title, Hellcab, sums up its point-of-view. A series of blackout vignettes, Hellcab depends on raw, earthy dialogue and deft acting to show the truth of life on the mean streets of a big American city today.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
December 1995
Hellcab
Ivanhoe Studio

 The Hellcab, with its original cast and director, is revving its ignition in Los Angeles on December 1st, but the meter is still running in Chicago, as it has been, continuously, since 1992. Richard Cotovsky, the sixth and most recent of the title vehicle's pilots through the Boschian labyrinth of Christmas Eve in the Big Windy, has the face of a Veronica's Veil and the voice of a field medic in the Hundred Years' War, both of which convey the subtlest of rages and the greatest of compassions.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
November 1995
Hellcab
Ivanhoe Studio

 What makes this cab run? Since Hellcab's opening in 1992, no less than eleven actors (whose faces appear on the line of posters featured on the theater's marquee) have put their personal stamp on the role of the humble hackie piloting his yellow ferry through the stygian wilderness of Christmas Eve in the city. The alumni roster of ensemble members whose interpretations comprise the urban bestiary he meets on his pilgrimage reads like a storefront-circuit Who's Who (with several names -- notably Paul Dillon, Andrew Hawkes and Marc Grapey -- now making Coastal waves).

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 1999
Hellcab
Ivanhoe Theater Studio

 Each of the thirteen actors who have piloted the Hellcab since the premiere of Will Kern's play in 1992 has brought his own interpretation to the role. But Scott Cummins also brings directorial savvy to his stint in the driver's seat, reflected in the current production's fresh topicality ù with references to escalating varieties of occupational hazards, racial discrimination on the part of both drivers and customers, and the social and geographical distinction between the South and Southeast sections of this balkanized city.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
October 2000
Hello Again
City Theater

 City Theater has been utilizing a tiny space in a neighborhood of warehouses and earning respect -- even while the size of its audiences has been small compared to older Wilmington venues. But this company should get a lot more recognition as it moves into a new home on the same downtown block as Wilmington's prestigious Grand Opera House. Led by the youthful Jon Cooper, Michael Gray and Tom Shade, the company makes a great impression with its final production before the move.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
May 2000
Hello, Dolly!
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

 What would the holiday season be without its traditions? Milwaukee is luckier than most this holiday season, since it's being honored with a rousing production of Hello, Dolly! Though Dolly's script won't overtax anyone's brain cells, it is a pure delight in the capable hands of Skylight Opera Theater. Chicago-based director Marc Robin chooses to honor tradition, not to tweak it, as one might be tempted to do almost 40 years after the play first opened.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
December 2001
Hemingway's Rose
6th at Penn Theater

 Matt Thompson's Hemingway's Rose, just the right length at slightly under one hour, is hilarious. Combining Angela D. Miller's directing talent with the comedic timing of actors Ted Reis, Jonathan Sachs, and Julie Sachs makes for a delightful, albeit short, evening.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2006
Henry IV, Part Two
Oregon Shakespeare Festival

 The Oregon Shakespeare Festival begins its 1999 production of Henry IV, Part Two, by re-creating the curtain call scene of last year's Henry IV, Part One. The play ends with a speech from Henry V, scheduled for the 2000 season. The theme of the production is transition; from the past, from decay and disease of a nation and people, toward a new future of purpose, victory and renewal -- for some.

Al Reiss
Date Reviewed:
June 1999
Henry The Horse
Actor's Asylum

 Henry the Horse has all of the right ingredients. Director Pam Benjamin amusingly interprets playwright Tom Hyatt's script and has brought to it a cast of enthusiastic, talented performers.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
Heroes, Inc. / The Road to Hades
Fault Line Theater

 Fault Line's storefront theater is often the starting point for aspiring actors, a place to learn to memorize short scripts, take direction on a very small stage, and have some fun. It is also a theater with two-week runs -- a short rehearsal schedule. Both of which mean that experienced actors between gigs can hone their skills while making a very short commitment. The current offering includes a continuing series, "Heroes, Incorporated 3," subtitled "John System vs. The Global Crime League."

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Hidden Sky, The
Prince Music Theater

 The opening scene of this world premiere musical features an Arabic-sounding wail that perfectly sets the tone. This is a fable about the rediscovery of Arabic numerals and the development of logic and science that are based on the Arabic arithmetical system.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
February 2000
High Spirits
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 Dubbed a "revisical" by author-adapter Timothy Gray, High Spirits originally had a large cast that included ghosts who frequently flew about a large stage. In Sarasota, for the first time, the characters are down to earth and pretty much in the number and drawing-room proximity that Noel Coward originally created. With his clever lyrics and stylistic closeness to Coward, Gray has turned out an entertaining musical of manners.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
September 2004
Hinton Battle
Apollo Theater

 Hinton Battle - Largely Alive isn't a bad show, it's just unnecessary, a deficiently constructed solo for an excellent performer. Battle has been a leading musical comedy performer on Broadway and on the road for decades. He has just completed a run as a featured performer in the Chicago production of Ragtime. Battle's new one-man show at the Apollo Theater traces his life, from his childhood in Washington, DC through his education as a ballet dancer to his success on the Broadway musical stage.

Richard Allen Eisenhardt
Date Reviewed:
August 1999
Hobson's Choice
Milwaukee Repertory Theater

 Hobson's Choice brings the welcome return of Nagle Jackson, former artistic director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater (1971-77). His talents are evident in this well-oiled production, an early example of women's liberation that manages to puncture many of the cultural taboos of English life in the 1880s. The play makes a heroine out of its main character, Maggie, who certainly puts Gloria Steinem to shame in her zeal to move beyond the domestic chains that shackled women in the Victorian era.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2000
Hold Please
Fort Lauderdale Children's Theater - Studio

 After producing two tough dramas -- Carolyn Gage's The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women and Eve Ensler's Necessary Targets - the three-year-old Women's Theater Project in South Florida went looking for a comedy and came up with Annie Weisman's Hold Please. Weisman has said she was moved to write the four-woman play by the Clinton-Lewinsky episode, which, to her, illustrates that the person with ostensible power may not hold all the cards.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
June 2005
Holiday
Victory Gardens Theater

 In 1927, no one knew that the stock market would soon crash, plunging citizens secure in their affluence into poverty -- not even Philip Barry, whose explorations in the Land of Plenty contrast those who earn their own money with those who inherit it, and those who use it to enjoy themselves with those who allow themselves to be imprisoned by it.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Holiday Memories
La Jolla Stage

 The joy of word pictures! Truman Capote reflects on his childhood in Holiday Memories. Placed in the depression dirt poor-south, "The Thanksgiving Visitor" and "A Christmas Memory" bring the audience the meaning of the holidays, of family, and of values.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Hollow Lands, The
South Coast Repertory

 Howard Korder's epic historical drama is that rare theatrical bird, a socially-conscious work that looks deep into the American soul and exposes the cancers eating away at it (lust for empire and power, naivete, violence, racism, religious fanaticism). Featuring a 17-person cast, produced at a cost of $750,000, The Hollow Lands is an immensely ambitious project for a mid-sized theater like South Coast Rep to mount, especially in light of the play's harsh, uncompromising point of view.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
Hollow, The
Coronado Playhouse

 Agatha Christie delights in planting extremely funny dialogue within the investigation of a murder. We find that, while everybody loves everybody else, there are those who consider many of the others with absolutely no regard. The Hollow is set in the fall of 1951, at the Angkatell estate, a mere 18 miles south of London.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2003

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