Full Gallop
Off-Broadway Theater

Rennaisance Theaterworks, Milwaukee's only women-founded, women-run theater company, is in its full glory with a rerun of its 1999 hit, Full Gallop. This one-woman show again pairs actor Angela Iannone and the character Diana Vreeland. It is a match made in heaven.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Halpern and Johnson
North Coast Repertory Theater

Halpern has just laid his wife of over 50 years, Flo, to rest. As he looks down at the grave, saying a few last words, Johnson enters, a bouquet of flowers in his arms for his long-time friend, Florence. Halpern is in funereal black wearing his yarmulke; Johnson is in his conservative gray three-piece suit -- two men mourning the loss of one woman. Thus begins their stories and the opening of North Coast Repertory Theater's West-Coast premiere of Lionel Goldstein's Halpern and Johnson.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Harvey
Poway Performing Arts Company

PowPAC's current production, under the direction of Bob Christensen, is Mary Chase's Harvey. In 1950, Jimmy Stewart defined the character of Elwood P. Dowd in the film version of the play. The play hit television in 1972 and again in 1998. It is also a perennial favorite in community theaters.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
I Am My Own Wife
Actors Theater of Louisville

Lothar Berfelde, the German boy who reinvented himself as transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, managed the astounding feat of living openly as a cross-dresser through two of the world's most repressive regimes -- the Nazis and the Communists. "It seems to me you're an impossibility. You shouldn't even exist," playwright Doug Wright wrote her in seeking her cooperation for doing a play about her. That now-famous play, I Am My Own Wife, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the 2004 Tony Award, is receiving an arresting production at Actors Theater of Louisville.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Rabbit Hole
Biltmore Theater

David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole, Manhattan Theater Club's new show now on Broadway, is a domestic drama about a couple's obsession with the death of their child, and the aberrations that can grow out of grief. The entire cast, including Tyne Daly, Mary Catherine Garrison and John Slattery, is excellent, and Cynthia Nixon in the central role is powerful, real, and riveting.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Woman In White, The
Marquis Theater

Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical, The Woman in White has the most amazing visuals I have ever seen on a stage. Designed by William Dudley (who also did the gorgeous costumes), all projected on a huge cyclorama and smaller moving cycs, it's reminiscent of the swoops of perspective in "Lord of the Rings." It's breathtaking. Paul Pyant's lighting design augments the video visuals with the (mostly dark) moods of the piece.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Abigail's Party
Acorn Theater

Jennifer Jason Leigh is a great actress. In Mike Leigh's 1977 play, Abigail's Party, now on Theater Row, she is amazing as she turns artifice into reality, broad caricature in movement, voice, accent, physicality, and attitude into a totally believable human character. She plays a narcissistic pretentious working class woman who believes she is some kind of princess, and Max Baker as her cringing husband brings a matching piece of work to the stage.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life
Gerald Schoenfeld Theater

Chita Rivera, The Dancer's Life, written by Terrence McNally, is not only a survey of the great singer/dancer's life and adventures, it's a great story of fifty years of American Musical Theater, and a fabulous performance by one of the most talented, liveliest stars ever to appear on Broadway. Okay, at 73 her leg doesn't kick as high. So what? Her persona is here, her charm, her radiance, even most of her voice. It's a privilege to spend a couple of hours with a star of this magnitude as she shows and tells us her fascinating life.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2006
Black Nativity
Backlot Theater

For its fifth, amplified presentation of Langston Hughes' "lyrical poem" recounting and celebrating The Nativity of Christ, WBTT garbs its gospel figures in shimmering African-inspired attire. Though it contrasts with less-polished aspects of the performance, the latter constitute part of Black Nativity's charming "folk" quality.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Brooklyn Boy
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

Like his hero, novelist Eric Weiss, playwright Donald Margulies returns to the Jewish neighborhood of his youth and a father-son relationship pivotal to his art and life. After two critical but not popular successes, Eric's new autobiographical novel has hit the best-seller list. His father Manny's hospitalization makes Eric leave his promotional tour for a visit that renews familiar antagonisms. A chance meeting with old friend Ira sharpens Eric's view of the life he escaped.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Color Purple, The
West 53rd Street

After a rousing opening ("Mysterious Ways"), The Color Purple moves along capably enough, telling its now-famous Cinderella story via gospelly pop and showtuney jazz-blues. Everybody sings just great (and Renee Elise Goldsberry, as Celie's exiled sister, is a find), and there are times when the musical perks up with real Broadway gusto (e.g., Harpo and Sophie's duet, "Any Little Thing," which surprises with each new verse). But truth be told, most of Purple is a bland bore.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Color Purple, The
West 53rd Street

The Color Purple, based on Alice Walker's novel, book by Marsha Norman, music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Alii Willis and Staphen Bray, is a musical about transformation: from the pits to the heights, from slave to success, from ogre to kind man -- it's like a hundred-year- old melodrama mixed with the contrast to the central drama of old ladies twittering. It's two shows: cute, funny rural characters and a young girl's tragic story. LaChanze, who plays the lead, is an amazing performer, and gives a transcendent performance.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Christmas Carol, A
Lyceum

This is San Diego Rep's 30th production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Each production has been unique. Bringing in the directing talent of Kristen Brandt and the design talent of David Lee Cuthbert has guaranteed that this version would follow the tradition. Set in a period of American history from 1885 to 1945, adaptor D. W. Jacobs maintains the spirit of the original. We are quickly moved from the Industrial Revolution through two world wars and the Great Depression, following the life of rundown nightclub owner, Scrooge.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
G.I. Holiday Jukebox!: The 1940s Stagedoor Canteen
Poway Performing Arts Company

It's the early 1940s, the years of World War II. Hollywood notables are entertaining our troops. We are members of a military audience for G. I. Holiday Jukebox!, at PowPAC, being treated to a very good Stagedoor Canteen production. Our entertainers, our celebrities, are Chrissy Burns, Debbie David, Frank Remiatte and Erick Sundquist backed up on the piano by director Rick Shaffer. They are as good as their counterparts 60 years ago.

This production is a lot of fun with an authentic feel.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
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
Seascape
Booth Theater

In Edward Albee's Seascape, an old couple played by Frances Sternhagen and George Grizzard chit chat on the beach (a magnificent set by Michael Yeargan), about what is more important at this stage of life: to live or to rest. She's lively, he's depressed. Both are totally convincing, engaging actors.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Seascape
Booth Theater

Spoiler alert: a mini-synopsis follows: A vacationing older couple bicker, mostly genially, about how to live the rest of their lives when two giant lizards appear on the beach (virtuosically rendered in highly realistic costumes). The young lizard couple -- who have never before seen humans -- speak English and engage the human in a discussion of life, death and meaning. The concluding line, "All right, let's begin," indicates that the lizards are ready to be formally tutored by the humans.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Seascape
Booth Theater

Edward Albee's Seascape is currently at Lincoln Center Theater in a charming and poignant revival. The original production ran in New York in 1974, starred Deborah Kerr and Barry Nelson, and won The Pulitzer Prize.

Richard S. Horowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Touch of the Poet, A
Studio 54

Eugene O'Neill was America's greatest playwright even before he wrote his four last masterpieces, beginning with The Iceman Cometh. A Touch of the Poet, now on Broadway starring Gabriel Byrne, is one of those profound, brilliant explorations of the human soul, and what a pleasure it is to hear his words.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Ashley Montana Goes Ashore in the Caicos
Flea Theater

Ashley Montana Goes Ashore in the Caicos, or, What Am I Doing Here? is the name of a show by Roger Rosenblatt directed by Jim Simpson. By it's end, I, too, felt the way of the "or."

I went because that great star and Tony winner, Bebe Neuwirth, is in it. Essentially, Ashley Montana features a four-person sketch-comedy troupe with competent performers, some cute, lightly political bits, clever plays on words and fun non sequiturs, but only some jokes work, and lots of the material doesn't. When one hits, we keep wishing more would.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Animal Crackers
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

If you think about where animal crackers fit on the nutritional food scale, you've got some idea where the Marx Brothers musical, Animal Crackers, fits in the theatrical food chain. Well, almost. Although it's not intellectually taxing nor filled with bold insights about the human condition, Animal Crackers is the perfect distraction from life's daily cares -- much as the original film was for audiences in 1930.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Bach at Leipzig
New York Theater Workshop

Bach at Leipzig is an intriguing title. It stirs hopes of an Amadeus, perhaps a Souvenir or a Travesties. Alas and alack. Itamar Moses has a splendid idea -- let six musicians (the requisite number of voices in a fugue) in 1722 compete for the job of music master, let them discuss fugues and end with a verbal fugue. Unfortunately, director Pam MacKinnon, who is excellent at moving people around on the stage, doesn't control their hysterics and declamations when they speak.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Birthday Suite
OnStage Playhouse

Not only does Birthday Suite fit the classical definition of farce, but Robin Hawdon's newest play, direct from the UK and under the talented direction of Bob Christensen, is hilarious. (Hawdon's Don't Dress for Dinner was well received a few years back.)

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Captain Louie
Little Shubert Theater

Captain Louie is an inept kids show performed by kids who sing well but leave a lot to be desired in the acting department. But the play's the thing that sinks the project. Based on "The Trip" by Ezra Jack Keats, the book for the show, by Anthony Stein, is condescending, trite, saccharine, and basically at such a low level that my grandnephew, Mathew Sprague, who is nine, said, "It was kinda young for me." Scenes where Louis goes back to his old neighborhood are based on rejection without motivation and throw the whole mess further out of whack.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Bath House Cultural Center

WingSpan Theater Company opened Danny and the Deep Blue Sea on October 27, 2005 at the Bath House Cultural Center. It is a mediocre early effort by John Patrick Shanley who went on five years later to win the Oscar in 1988 for his original screenplay of "Moonstruck."

First performed as a staged reading in 1983 at the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center, the play received its professional debut in February 1984 at Actors Theater of Louisville and moved to Circle in the Square in New York on June 6, 1984.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Enchanted April
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Scenery, costumes and special effects figure almost as importantly in this production as does the plot. Enchanted April builds on the Come-to-Italy-and-Your-Life-Will-Change premise, used so often in modern movies (note the British film version of von Arnim's book.) Asolo Theater Company wins applause for the real rain pouring down outside windows in the opening London scenes. Clapping also greets a first view of the castle, its trellises overflowing with vines and flowers, overlooking a sunlit shore at San Salvatore.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
I'll Leave It To You
Theater Three

Theater Three opened a rarely produced Noel Coward play, I'll Leave It To You, on October 17, 2005. Coward's first play, penned when he was 20, it was produced on July 21, 1920 at the New Theatre in London. Bobbie, the aspiring writer/musician, was played by Coward in a part he wrote for himself.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Jersey Boys
August Wilson Theater

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons are alive and well at the August Wilson Theater on 52nd Street in Jersey Boys -- book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crew (except for the Golden Oldies the boys sing before Gaudio).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Sweeney Todd
Eugene O'Neill Theater

John Doyle has taken Sweeney Todd, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler, as adapted by Christopher Bond, and transformed it into a fully expressionistic, awe-inspiring production that may be the most exciting show now on Broadway. Doyle, who directed and designed the event, takes us, with marvelous stylization and amazing musical arrangements by Sarah Travis, into another dimension of theater.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Crowns
Dallas Theater Center

Crowns by Regina Taylor and directed by her at Dallas Theater Center is one of the most poorly crafted plays I've seen in a long time - a good premise gone awry. It tells of the importance of hats to African-American women and dates back to the time when the only place slaves could gather was at church; so that's where they went all out to dress in style, and hats were all important. The Bible says a woman's head must be covered; so they wore their finest hats to church.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Curse of the Starving Class
Cygnet Theater

Sam Shepard's 1977 Curse of the Starving Class is easily as strange as its setting. The set suggests quiet desperation; a sorta kitchen with a strange but near-empty fridge, a stove that barely works, a dining table that is used for many things, rarely dining, and a broken front door. One wall is red painted wood, another galvanized metal sheets reminiscent of roofs on dirt farms of yore, and more.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical
Fifty Foot Penguin Theater

What do you get when you take a porn classic, take out the nudity, and add music? Good campy fun.

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

What a journey Ethel Waters took in life! From a bastard black childhood in Philadelphia's Whores' Alley to stardom as a singer and actress of stage and screen, and finally to crusading with Billy Graham as a partner in faith, the trek exacted a toll. As if mirroring how hard Ethel Waters had it physically as well as emotionally, to embody her Jannie Jones alternates with another singer-actress.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Devil of Delancey Street, The
78th Street Theater Lab

Richard Nixon famously remarked, "I am not a crook!" Let me paraphrase that and say, "I am not a crank!" I don't go to the theatre looking for trouble, but like all critics, I do occasionally find it. Such was the case on a recent lovely autumn evening in Manhattan.

David Dow Bentley
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Fireside Christmas, A
The Fireside

The Fireside, one of the most amazingly successful regional dinner theaters in the country, produces a handful of musicals and dramas each year. Although each attracts a sizeable audience, no production sells more tickets than the annual edition of A Fireside Christmas . (That's why performances begin in mid-October.) This is the 13th annual edition of a show that warms the hearts of literally thousands of viewers each year. To paraphrase some well-known lyrics, the show is a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll, and a whole lotta holiday cheer.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Golden Boy
Lamplighters Community Theater

Playwright Clifford Odets championed the underprivileged. He even joined the Communist party for eight months in 1935, eventually to be investigated by Joseph McCarthy. Golden Boy, currently at Lamplighters under the direction of E. Duane Weekly, was his most famous play. It led to a screenwriting career in Hollywood, which didn't hinder him writing for the stage. He went on to become an artist and an art collector.

The production opens with a radio announcer setting the scene.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
I Love New York: A Manhattan Serenade
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

What could have turned into a logistical nightmare - culling just the right songs out of 1500 devoted to or mentioning New York City - has become a dream for those who love that "Wonderful Town." Of course that song's included in this revue centered on the area extolled in another hit tune: "Manhattan." Two vibrant couples trip the light fantastic not only on the "Sidewalks of New York" but also in "The Bowery," on "42nd Street," right on through "East Side, West Side."

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Five Course Love
Minetta Lane Theater

In Gregg Coffin's Five Course Love, now at the Minetta Lane Theater, three vastly talented singer/comedians, Heather Ayers, John Bolton and Jeff Gurner, broadly directed by Emma Griffin, sing their way through five ethnic restaurants.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Lips Together, Teeth Apart
Poway Performing Arts Company

What happens when four blatant heterosexuals spend the Fourth of July on Fire Island? They also bring their own problems to the festivities. Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart is a challenging work. On PowPAC's stage, under the direction of Jay Mower, the challenges are met.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
In My Life
Music Box Theater

Let's hear it for Tourettes Syndrome and for sweet sentimentality. Joe Brooks's new musical, In My Life (he wrote the book, the music, the lyrics and directed it) is about the romance of a guitarist/singer who suffers from the malady. It's like a circus of non sequiturs, but its cast of marvelous singers make it very entertaining nonsense. Lovely song after lovely song, mostly ballads, almost held together by an almost plot.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2005

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