Illusion, The
F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater

 The art of illusion is the art of love, and the art of love is the blood-red heart of the world, philosophizes the magician Alcandre at the end of Tony Kushner's post-modern adaptation of Pierre Corneille's 17th-century L'illusion Comique. Kushner's The Illusion is a curious blend of Shakespearean comedy, Pirandellian theatrics and Buddhist philosophy which exposes love as the dangerous and mercurial force driving the human comedy.

Kathryn Wylie-Marques
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
I'm Not Rappaport
Asolo's Mertz Theater

 Asolo Theater Company knows it doesn't hurt to center on characters close to an audience. Though set in New York City's Central Park, I'm Not Rappaport could be any should-be-peaceful public place where two old people can share a seat. In Florida, it might well be a shelter at a beach or a spot near the fountain in a mall. Here it's a park bench slightly out from under a bridge, where retiree Nat tells tales of his radical lifetime to another octogenarian, Midge.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
I'm The One That I Want
Warner Theater

 (see Criticopia Regional review(s) under "Margaret Cho")

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
As You Like It
New Theater

 As You Like It, as staged by New Theater, probably deserved more laughs than it received at Sunday matinee in September. Its fundamental are sound, and it gets a big assist from small touches and tech work. This is the play that gives us the Seven Ages of Man speech. It's the comedy in which all sorts of people are drawn to the Forest of Arden.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
43 Plays For 43 Presidents
Actors Theater of Louisville

Schoolchildren today probably aren't made to memorize the list of Presidents, from George Washington to current occupant, as was the case in times gone by. For those who can still reel off those names at the slightest prompting, the Chicago-based Neo-Futurists compilation called 43 Plays For 43 Presidents, now at Actors Theater of Louisville, is an offbeat refresher course that lurches from absurd vaudeville clowning to somber interludes packed with pathos.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Forty Three Plays for Forty Three Presidents

 (see Criticopia review(s) under "43 Plays for 43 Presidents")

I Hate Hamlet
Arapaho United Methodist Church

 Labyrinth Theater opened a very funny production of Paul Rudnick's farce, I Hate Hamlet. Inspired by an ad the playwright answered in the New York Times real estate section to lease a "medieval duplex" once occupied by John Barrymore, Rudnick let his imagination run wild.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Winter
Culver Studios - Stage 7

Winter affords L.A. audiences a rare chance to see the work of a Norwegian playwright. No, not Henrik Ibsen -- Jon Fosse, who at fifty is considered Norway's leading contemporary dramatist. As translated by Ann Henning, Jocelyn and Lene Pedersen (who also co-stars in the one-act play), Fosse writes in the Harold Pinter tradition of cryptic, understated dialogue broken up by pauses and silence, with much of the drama depending on mystery and menace.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2008
Taming of the Shrew, The
Coronado Playhouse

  The cover of the program for The Taming of The Shrew shows it all as the lovely shrew, Katharina (Victoria Mature), clobbers Petruchio (Pete Shaner). The Coronado Playhouse production of William Shakespeare's classic, adapted and directed by Keith A. Anderson, is one of the most physical I've seen. I do hope the pratfalls
and physicality leave no lasting bruises on the cast members.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
What's That Smell?
Atlantic Theater - Stage 2

 No one loves a good dramatic musical more than I do -- but sometimes, rather than cry along with the music, you just wanna laugh. Thanks to two of New York City's best Off-Broadway theater companies, the York and the Atlantic, we have two great new opportunities to do just that.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Ella
Geva Theater - Mainstage

 We still have performers famous enough to be identified by their first name only and to attract large audiences, but the main interest in the best-known ones these days lies in whether they'll get jailed or publicly display their genitals. "Ella" refers to America's most honored jazz singer, Ella Fitzgerald, who was not only queen of an earlier era when jazz concerts reached an international peak, but also had almost no personal biography that her fans were especially aware of.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
American Buffalo
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 Two years ago, several beginning FSU Conservatory students did a regular "Asolo Late Night Series" stint with David Mamet's powerful play, American Buffalo, about three low-lifers who simulate businessmen to plan a "deal" of a robbery. Just before their last year toward the M.F.A., the student-actors now became what their Mamet characters are: entrepreneurs.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Spring Awakening
Eugene O'Neill Theater

 An actor friend of mine complains that he'll never be able to get a good part on Broadway unless he first becomes a known quantity on television -- and, let's face it, he has good reason to feel that way. More and more often, performers with various amounts of TV-Q are hired for plum Broadway roles, usually as replacements, because the public-recognition factor is seen by producers as guaranteeing good box-office for the shows they join. This sort of thing leads to much consternation and carping when the actors in question can't cut the mustard.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Lonesome West, The
Pelican Theater at Barry University

 In Leenane, the village in western Ireland where Martin McDonagh set three funny and fierce plays just more than 10 years ago, relations between relatives and friends often are a matter of close-in combat with savage blows to the body and psyche. The Lonesome West, one of those plays, gets a top-notch production by the young Naked Stage theater company near Miami. At times it renders the close-in audience breathless.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
February 2008
Dining Room, The
Alliant International University - Legler Benbough Theater

 I remember my grandmother's dining room as elegantly furnished, even more elegant than Scripps Ranch Theater's current production of The Dining Room. Like the theater, the table was elegant with carved chairs and a huge buffet whose legs, like the table, were thick and carved. My parents followed the tradition, but with a much simpler design. Even today our dining room is many steps away from the kitchen and ready to entertain eight guests. It includes a glass buffet not unlike the set at the theater.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2008
Love's Labour's Lost
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

If one of Milwaukee Shakespeare's goals is to attract young audiences, then this production of Love's Labour's Lost earns an A-plus. Although this version may not appeal as much to Shakespeare purists, it's a lot of fun to watch. Credit goes to director Jennifer Uphoff Gray and the set, costume and lighting designers. The combination of these elements is practically seamless.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Lying in State
Caldwell Theater - count de Hoerne Theater

 There are election-season jokes being made in Boca Raton, Fla., these days, but they're not about butterfly ballots or hanging chads. Rather, Caldwell Theater Company has mounted a fluffy if middling confection called Lying in State, in which a state legislator's death touches off a panic over who will run for his seat – his ex, his girlfriend, his brother, his go-fer? -- during which time his body goes missing from the funeral home.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Imaginary Friends
Globe Theaters

 Imaginary Friends is novelist/screenwriter Nora Ephron's first foray into theater. Her screenwriting talents are clearly shown in this drama with music. Ephron brings many of the techniques of film to the stage, including close-ups and framing of scenes either with curtains or lighting. The play opens depicting playwright Lillian Hellman (Swoosie Kurtz) and novelist, book and theatrical critic, Mary McCarthy (Cherry Jones), after their deaths in the `80s. They reminisce -- though usually as enemies.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Imaginary Invalid, The
Yale Repertory Theater

 Recently my husband and I were invited to a reception to honor and meet Hillary Clinton; it was to be held Tuesday evening, September 21, 1999 in Westport. I sadly had to refuse this offer because of my obligation to review the first play of the Yale Repertory season, Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid, a comedie-ballet in three acts, with music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. This production boasts a new translation/adaptation by James Magruder, direction by Mark Rucker, and original music and arrangements composed by Gina Leishman.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Imaginary Invalid, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 If as much attention had been lavished on the play's literary facets and far-out commedia characterizations as there has been on quirky production values, we wouldn't have to be told how classic and funny is The Imaginary Invalid. For example, take that wonderful opening scene (here preceded by a superfluous Punchinello) of Argan poring over his medical bills and whittling them down to the size he wants to pay. Now, while robust Dean Anthony laboriously plinks sou after sou on a side table, it's the gals on chairs facing backward on each side of the stage that divert attention.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2003
Imaginary Invalid, The
Theater Three

 On August 29, 2005, Theater Three opened a wonderfully rowdy, frenetic Moliere chestnut, The Imaginary Invalid, with a new translation in mostly rhyming couplets by T3 co-founding artistic director, Jac Alder. Some of the rhymes miss their mark, but why quibble about an otherwise joyous production?

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
September 2005
Imelda
East West Players

 Despite all the apparent sweat and labor spent on bringing the world premiere of Imelda, A New Musical to life, it doesn't reveal anything new or interesting about its subject, Imelda Marcos. Although this musical biography of the First Lady of the Philippines gets all its facts straight, the audience really doesn't care much about Imelda's rise to fame. At least, not in the way many audiences cared about Evita, a musical which basically travels the same route as Imelda.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Importance Of Being Earnest, The
OnStage Playhouse

 The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde's experiment in Victorian melodrama, is part satire, part comedy of manners, and part intellectual farce. Originally a three-act play set in London and Hertfordshire, the OnStage Playhouse production is moved to Manhattan and the Hamptons, updated about half a century, changed to two acts, and has one minor character eliminated.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2007
Importance Of Being Earnest, The
McCarter Theater

 The McCarter Theater chose to end this millennium with a 19th century play described by its author as "a trivial comedy for serious people." Many have said that The Importance of Being Earnest is the greatest stage comedy. The McCarter production was both clever and daring while faithful to Oscar Wilde's wit. Director Daniel Fish staged this Earnest with creative lunacy. Algernon's apartment featured a stuffed zebra and a huge pool table, both of which were used for funny stage business. In the second act, characters spoke at times from a tree swing.

Donald Collester
Date Reviewed:
October 1999
Impossible Marriage
Horse Cave Theater

 Her exasperated mother and hugely pregnant sister vehemently agree that Pandora's determination to marry a much older man, a philandering poet who wears a ponytail, will indeed make for an "Impossible Marriage." They'd like to sabotage it but find themselves grimly expecting it to go through as they scheme and vent in the garden (nice design by Jeremy Artigue) on the family estate outside Savannah, Georgia.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
Impossible Marriage
Martin Experimental Theater at Kentucky Center for the Arts

 Giddy, headstrong Pandora Kingsley (Leah Michelle Roberts) is hellbent on marrying Edvard Lunt (Emmett Bowles), a writer more than twice her age who has divorced his wife of 23 years and deserted his seven children. In Beth Henley's deliciously subversive Impossible Marriage, Pandora's genteel Georgia mother (the splendid Laurene Scalf), hugely pregnant older sister Floral (Susan Shumate), and Edward's morose eldest son Sidney (Mike Brooks) do everything they can to abort the wedding.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
May 2006
In the Beginning
Experimental Theater

 And God Spake. He spaketh about Romer's tribe, folks not mentioned in the good book. The tribe is upset with Eve and her apple-eating habit in David W. Hahn's story, In the Beginning, currently running at the Experimental Theater on the campus of San Diego State University.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2007
In the Lap of the Gods
Venice Little Theater - Stage II

 According to the director of In the Lap of the Gods, "The puzzles presented by the playwright spiral through historical events, then up into a future haunted by images of past gods, all viewed through the slightly skewed lens of the absurd." The absurd, however, implies existence of a center. Playwright Myroup displays none with his pageant in which "everycaveman" Moe goes from nature's cycle of birth and rebirth eventually into a future on a starship where he can determine fate with the push of a button.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2005
Indian Ink
Wilma Theater

 The plot of Indian Ink, by Stoppard standards, is rather simple. Flora Crewe, an English poet with a bit of scandal in her past -- liaisons with H. G. Wells and Modigliani -- comes to India in 1930, develops a relationship with an Indian man and allows him to paint a nude portrait of her. Meanwhile she is wooed by an English officer stationed there, and we don't know how far either of her relationships went.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Infinite Ache, An
Off-Broadway Theater

 Life is short, goes the saying. You'll never know how short it is until you witness the breathtaking pace of An Infinite Ache, now showing at the Next Act Theatrer. How fast, you ask? This mating dance goes from awkward first date to comfortable old age in the span of 90 minutes. The two-character play involves two ordinary people living an ordinary life in Los Angeles.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Inherit The Wind
Coronado Playhouse

 Normally, The Coronado Playhouse, known as The Theater by the Bay, is a warm and friendly place to have dinner and see a nice production. Not this time. There were pickets outside declaring a faith in the most literal interpretation of the Bible. I crossed the picket line to get my ticket.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2007
Inherit The Wind
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 The authors were wise to insist that the program for Inherit the Wind, specify Place and Time as "A small town...not long ago." The play still represents places in America that are parochial and resist change, where, unfortunately (just so you know where I stand), "the right to think is very much on trial." Here, being free to think means being able to teach scientific theory, even if it seems to or does contradict long, stanchly-held beliefs.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Inherit The Wind
Geva Theater

 It's no surprise that Geva Theater's elaborate revival of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's rousing courtroom drama, Inherit the Wind, plays like gangbusters, bringing its opening- night crowd to their feet. And, despite being slightly more than half a century old and based on a notorious historic trial that took place more than 80 years ago, the play is, sadly, all too timely.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
February 2006
Inspecting Carol
Legler Benbough Theater at USIU

 It seems that many, many playwrights dream of and write a play about staging a play. Daniel Sullivan, conspiring with the Seattle Repertory Theater, did just that. Their Inspecting Carol, directed by Gil Savage, is currently on the boards at Scripps Ranch Theater.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
November 2006
Inspecting Carol
Labyrinth Theater

 The laugh-out-loud funny Inspecting Carol, by Dan Sullivan and The Seattle Repertory Company, premiered at Seattle Rep December 11, 1991.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2006
Inspector Calls, An
OnStage Playhouse

 What begins as an engagement celebration suddenly darkens when... An Inspector Calls. J. B. Priestley set the action in 1912 in North Midlands, England. Enter Inspector Goole; exit happiness.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Interview with Paul Robeson, An
Off-Broadway Theater

 Billed as a "dramatic biography with music," An Interview with Paul Robeson had an impressive world premiere at Milwaukee's Next Act Theater. This play is the creation of the production's two actors, Paul A. Mabon (who plays Robeson) and John Kishline (who plays a New York Times reporter). The subject is ideally suited for drama, as the real Paul Robeson battled for racial equality in America at the same time he was in demand worldwide for concerts.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2007
Intimate Apparel
Lyceum

 San Diego theater season 2005-2006 has been the finest in our history. The quality of productions has been consistently higher than previous seasons, and it's across the board, from community and independent theater to the professional venues.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2006
Intimate Apparel
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

 Not since the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre staged a sparkling production of Sam Shepard's "Buried Child" in 2001 has there been such a wondrous blend of talent and storytelling on the Stiemke Theater stage as one finds in Intimate Apparel. Lynn Nottage's play is exquisitely written, expertly directed and beautifully performed by a talented cast. As the curtain opens, one is immediately swept into the world of black society in New York City, circa 1905.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2006
Inventing Van Gogh
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

 Playwright Steven Dietz is to be commended for tackling the myths and legends surrounding renowned artist, Vincent Van Gogh. In creating this odd work about Van Gogh's life and his legacy, Dietz strays from the biographical to the fantastical. Inventing Van Gogh moves back and forth through time, pairing contemporary angst with that suffered by artists in the late 1800s.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2003

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