Chicago
Tennessee Performing Arts Center

Why did Chicago become a cultural phenomenon? It's highly entertaining and so timeless it's timely.  Don't believe me? Go to TPAC this week and see for yourself.

In this age of instant celebrity through TV shows like "The Apprentice" and "Survivor," nothing could be timelier than a song-and-dance satire of fame come and gone quickly, even if it's set in 1920s Chicago and first hit the Broadway stage in 1975.

Evans Donnell
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Exonerated, The
Gompertz Theater - Stage III

From interviews with over 40 people who'd been exonerated from death row, the authors interweave the words of a presumably representative six. In a front row of chairs, those words in their hands, sit five who'll tell and act the stories. One representative of the accused, intellectual Delbert, effects transitions moving from a stool on one side of the row to another on the other side. (LeRoy Mitchell, Jr.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Fiddler On The Roof
Minskoff Theater

In the current production of Fiddler on the Roof (book by Joseph Stein, music by Jerry bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, choreography by Jerome Robbins), well directed by David Leveaux, the great, classic musical is brought to wonderful fruition. Harvey Fierstein is the most entertaining Tevye since Zero Mostel. His powerful presence fills the theater -- his comic timing and nuance go beyond the vehicle itself. He's moving, with great heart, and so funny that it lifts the show beyond the writing.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Get A Clue!
Lamplighters Community Theater

No doubt that Joseph Grienenberger's Get A Clue! is funny. There are enough laugh lines for two plays, with humor running the gamut of styles from slapstick to satire. The arts, especially theater, are hit with a zillion one-liners. Isn't that what comedy is all about? Yes, but the audience needs a bit of relief.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Godspell
OnStage Playhouse

Once upon a time, circa late 60s and early 70s, a phenomenon literally rocked the nation. With titles such as Hair, Jesus Christ Super Star, Oh! Calcutta!, Tommy and Godspell, the genre of rock opera came into being. John-Michael Tebelak was just 22 when his Godspell rocked New York. This Master's thesis project based on the writings of apostles Matthew and Luke is alive and wonderfully well. As the program states; "the time is now and the place is here." Godspell is truly ageless.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Hairspray
Marcus Center For The Performing Arts

More than two-and-a-half years after it took Broadway by storm, Hairspray finally makes its Milwaukee debut. Reality-takes-a-holiday in this goofy musical, which by now should be familiar to theater fans everywhere. As a longtime fan of the John Waters' low-budget 1988 film (by the same name), this reviewer was somewhat skeptical whether this campy charmer could be translated successfully to the stage. However, one should never underestimate the limitless talents of director Jack O'Brien.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
La Cage aux Folles
Marquis Theater

I caught the current edition of La Cage aux Folles, and it's easy to see why the revival won awards for the sparkling costumes (William Ivey Long) and choreography (Jerry Mitchell) - - it's spectacular: marvelous gymnastic flipping, flying, twirling, legs flying, bodies twirling, with a magnificent set by Scott Pask and brilliant direction by Jerry Zaks.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Streetcar Named Desire, A
Studio 54

Only a few American plays can compare to A Streetcar Named Desire. And of our best plays, Streetcar is arguably the most distinctly American. When Blanche arrives in her sister's apartment, Stella tells her, "New Orleans isn't like other cities." This particular New Orleans certainly isn't. This is Tennessee Williams' city, where people do whatever they want with a distinctly American freedom from tradition.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Sweet Charity
Al Hirschfeld Theater

Director Walter Bobbie has transformed Sweet Charity into a charming contemporary tale, and since old versions are not playing across the street, why compare? Christina Applegate is an adorable, absolutely delightful gamine, with both a grace and gracelessness that are totally captivating. The production (dazzling set by Scott Pask, fine lighting by Brian MacDevitt) around her is a slick contrast to her ingenuousness, with eccentric, stylized choreography by Wayne Cilento, who in some parts creates his own exciting new vocabulary.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Altar Boyz
Dodger Stages

Altar Boyz is a hot show, fun from start to finish. It's a five-man singing/dancing/jumpin' troupe with a twist: mock Christian religious content, but the irreverence is actually reverent, and the boyz are the cutest, the jokes are funny (and that's good in a comedy), and they are all fine singers.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Antigone
Sixth at Penn Theater

I turned to the lady next to me, Greek scholar and co-host of KPBS' "A Way With Words," Martha Barnette, asking for her take on UCSD Professor Dr. Marianna McDonald's very contemporary translation of Sophocles' Antigone. The script is as current as tomorrow, spiced with current slang. Ms. Barnette's comment: extremely good. 

Antigone is a social commentary about government dictatorial policies and has had current application every time it's been performed throughout 2,443 years since it was written.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Closer
Mark Taper Forum

Patrick Marber's caustic portrait of love in our time focuses on two intertwined London couples and their struggles to stay together in the face of their own failings: infidelity, obsessive behavior and self destructiveness.  Marber, considered the heir to Pinter and Stoppard, writes in distinctive, post-modern fashion: staccato dialogue, wise-ass humor, minimal exposition, extreme sexual frankness, sketchy character development.  He is also fixated on addiction; his first play, Dealer's Choice, dealt with gambling and booze; Closer gnaws endlessly on the bone

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Comedy of Errors, The
Hollywood Playhouse

The Hollywood Shakespeare Festival has had more success in rethinking other Shakespeare plays than it has this spring with the vaguely noirish The Comedy of Errors. The decision to costume the players in 1940s garb to a background of blues and jazz doesn't particularly add to or hurt the production, but the stark lighting too often only hides faces under broad-rimmed hats without adding atmosphere. This is bad because too many players seem incapable of projecting a voice or a physical presence.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Drunkard's Revenge, The
North Park Vaudeville

Melodrama: 1. a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization. 2. (in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries) a romantic dramatic composition with music interspersed.

Raymond Hull's The Drunkard's Revenge is a classic audience participatory melodrama as performed on the North Park Vaudeville's stage. Up front you are requested (or is that required) to boo the villain, rally for the hero, swoon over the lovely lady...well, you get the idea.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Dessa Rose
Lincoln Center - Mitzi Newhouse Theater

Dessa Rose, by Lynn Ahrens (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music), is a well-meaning musical about love and slavery. It starts in 1847 when a sixteen-year-old, pregnant slave takes part in a minor slave uprising. The story feels trite and quite melodramatic, as bad Massa kills a slave and sells young Dessa. The singing is terrific - LaChanze as Dessa, Norm Lewis, Kecia Lewis, and all the rest of the ensemble - but there is little joy in the show, which often feels like a Greek drama, with most of the action talked or sung about.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Fault Line - April Offering
Fault Line Theater

Fault Line is back on line with four more one-acts.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Forty-Five Seconds From Broadway
Lamplighters Community Theater

45 Seconds from Broadway opened to mixed reviews on Broadway, November 11, 2001 and ran a paltry 73 performances. Was it the time, just after 9/11? Was it Neil Simon's lack of last-minute polish? This, Simon's least-accepted play, was saved at Lamplighters Community theater. Why? Brilliant casting! And, for the most part, adept direction.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
From Bed To Worse
Patio Playhouse

Patio Playhouse premieres local playwright Peggy Dougherty's From Bed To Worse under Jim Clevenger's direction. Set in contemporary New York, the play places a psychologist, two of her patients, and her husband in a series of vignettes. Mary Canon (Sharon Lawson) is treating a patient, Cynthia Wells (Karen Spafford), who is having an affair with a married man. There is a great deal of similarity between her lover and Mary's husband, Dentist Richard Breyer (George Blum).

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Goat, The, or Who is Sylvia?
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

Only a playwright of Edward Albee's stature (and reputation) could get away with a play such as The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? Known for his preoccupation for "pushing the envelope" with previous efforts such as The Zoo Story and, of course, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Albee focuses here on the subject of love. What are the limits of forbidden love?, he seems to ask in this riveting drama.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
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
Island of Slaves, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

On a sandy beach (surrounded on all sides by the audience, giving Conservatory student actors a rare chance to play in the round) after a storm, aristocratic Iphicrates (Brit Whittle) in tux and long silk scarf has washed up with his Harlequin (John Long), a manservant happy that he's saved a flask of liquor. He's also not worried, as is his master, to see the sandbar sign "Island of Slaves." And he's right!

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Glass Menagerie, The
Ethel Barrymore Theater

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a good show. Really. Quite good. Despite a total misconception in the production by director David Leveaux, and some of the worst lighting I've ever seen on Broadway (by Natasha Katz - who is usually one of the best). The play itself and most of the cast provide us with a satisfying, moving evening of theater.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Glengarry Glen Ross
Bernard B. Jacobs

Oh Boy! Want to see a demonstration of how good, how vivid real acting can be? Check out Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet's dazzling drama now revived on Broadway. It's the most exciting acting ensemble in town. Alan Alda will give you a lesson on how to do a nuanced monologue - his encounters as a nervous, failing, older salesman with the very controlled Frederick Weller as his supervisor are like a mongoose darting at a cobra. The nervous energy Gordon Clapp exudes as he tries to con the stolid Jeffrey Tambor into a crime is full pf prickly tingles.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
God Hates the Irish
Rattlestick Theater

God Hates The Irish: The Ballad of Armless Johnny, by Sean Cunningham, with music by Michael Frears, is a very black, absurdist musical comedy about the tribulations of an armless Irish man, played by the very engaging Bill Thompson, a good singer, comedian and actor with very elastic legs. The cast are all strong personas, including the bright, shiny Broadway-level Ann Bobby, Remy Auberjonois, the lovely Anna Camp, Lisa Altomare and James A. Stephens. It's all non-PC jokes, full of sexual outrageousness.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Light in the Piazza, The
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

I did not find The Light in the Piazza, based on a novella by Elizabeth Spencer, with book by Craig Lucas, music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, to be very engaging, except for the visuals and the voices of the performers. Director Bartlett Sher is very good at staging: keeping the principals and extras moving around the stage in interesting patterns. The set by Michael Yeargan gives us views of Italy that are a fascinating travelogue and a profound comment on the action in his wonderful visuals of space and light on Italian ruins, piazzas and buildings.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Spamalot
Minskoff Theater

Monty Python's Spamalot is the most entertaining excuse for entertainment since Hairspray. Director Mike Nichols has taken Eric Idle and John Du Prez's medieval spoof about Arthur and his boys, and, with the aid of the funniest, most ridiculous choreography in town by Casey Nicholaw, a brilliant set, absurd (and glamorous) costumes by Tim Hatley, and has put together a musical extravaganza as foolish and funny as The Producers.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Hurlyburly
37 Arts Theater

I don't know if the original production of Hurlyburly was a comedy. The film - over an hour shorter than the play - has bitterly funny scenes but plays as tragedy. As such, it's very effective. All the more curious, then, that this production is an extremely funny black comedy. The irony is that the three main leads - Ethan Hawke as Eddie, Josh Hamilton as Mickey and Bobby Cannavale as Phil - all seem to be doing impressions of their counterparts from the movie (Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey and Chaz Palminteri).

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
On Golden Pond
Cort Theater

On Golden Pond, by Ernest Thompson is a sentimental and ultimately very moving play about diminishment in old age, as an elderly couple spend their last summer in Maine. Thompson's words are bright and insightful in the very realistic conversations between James Earl Jones and the beautiful Leslie Uggams as Jones' character, a man who is "losing it," expresses his anger and frustrations. In the beginning, it's homey dialogue but seems to be directed, by Leonard Foglia, at a snail's pace (which picks up later).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Pillowman, The
Booth Theater

Kafka Lives! Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman is a gothic horror story of repression and cruel interrogation in a totalitarian state, and about child abuse creating Art. McDonough is a very good short story writer, and several of his graphic tales involving cruelty to, and butchery of, children are hung on the framework of a man's grilling about involvement in murders that replicate killings in his stories.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Steel Magnolias
Lyceum Theater

Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias is not a play for jaded cynics. It's a lovely production, and all you have to do to enjoy it is to sit back and let yourself be a participant in the lives of these Southern women, well played by a fine ensemble cast: Delta Burke, Lily Rabe, Frances Sternhagen, Rebecca Gayheart, Christine Ebersole and Marsha Mason. The humor is folksy Americana, the characters have a reality to them and zing lots of amusing lines as they congregate to communicate in the local beauty shop.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Streetcar Named Desire, A
Studio 54

Uh, oh. We are at the mercy of strange and foreign directors who don't understand the delicate sensibilities and balance needed in a Tennessee Williams play. Edward Hall, from across the pond, helms the current A Streetcar named Desire, and he has misdirected the talented John C. Reilly so badly, the play's real currents are lost. Williams' love of depravity, sexual tension, deteriorated people, the holes in shattered lives, the survival of the primitive, expressed in poetic terms, is undercut as Reilly shows Stanley rather that being him.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Longacre Theater

Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is one of the most perfectly constructed plays in the contemporary canon. The foreshadowings, conflicts, rising and falling actions, final climax and denoument give us a classic example (along with the brilliance and wit in the dialogue) of how to write a play. But in order for the play to really work, you need equal adversaries fencing and clashing on the stage. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the current Broadway production.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Bat Boy
Don Powell Theater

The occasional sound of bats flying overhead is heard during the pre-show for the San Diego premiere of Bat Boy: The Musical. Billed as a musical comedy/horror show, it is truly a send-up of the 1950s horror films and much more. Dr. Rick Simas directs this Off Broadway hit of 2001 for San Diego State University's theater.

Bat Boy, sired by a bat and a human, lived in a cave until his teens. He is discovered by the three trailer-trash teens (Kevin Maldarelli, Kelsey Vener, and Omri Schein) of Mrs. Taylor (Jamie Kalama).

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
All Wear Bowlers
HERE Arts Center

What can a critic say about a show which includes in its program an essay by the performer/creators, informing us that "we seemed to strike the perfect balance between talk and play, philosophy and slapstick? And with a director who boasts a "PhD from Stanford in drama theory and criticism on top of that? all wear bowlers, lowercase letters and all, presents itself as a pre-deconstructed masterpiece that has been “in development 3 years.” Only problem is, it's not very good.

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: From the Gutter to the Glitter
Theater For The New City

The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, now at the Theater for the New City, offer the real deal: unabashed, old fashioned vaudeville and sideshow, without embellishments, performed by an accomplished duo with great circus skills: Keith Nelson and Stephanie Monseu. Also on hand in From the Gutter to the Glitter are the fun musical duo, pianist Peter Bufano (who also juggles) and zippy violinist Kathe Hostetter.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Bach at Leipzig
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

Weaving historical fact with fiction is nothing new, but up-and-coming playwright Itamar Moses offers a few intriguing twists in Bach at Leipzig. The play is receiving its first major production on the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's stage.

With a rock-solid cast and accomplished director at the helm, Bach at Leipzig gradually wins over the audience. This is no small accomplishment, as the play's historical events are essentially non-dramatic. This much is known: when a prominent musician in Germany dies in 1722, a successor must quickly be named.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Boswell's Dreams
Off-Broadway Theater

The name "James Boswell" doesn't tend to ring a bell other than for historians, who may recall him as Samuel Johnson's biographer. Johnson wrote the first English dictionary and was considered a monumental figure of his time. Boswell, however, was an embarrassment to his family for generations after his death. Both men come vividly to life in this stellar production by local playwright Marie Kohler.

Like James Boswell, Kohler comes from a family of wealth and privilege.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Cats
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

The Apple's on a roll this season with truly golden dancing and delicious ensemble acting. In an intimate setting we get caught up in "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats," the Names, the prospect of the Ball, "Moments of Happiness" and sometimes discord from the likes of "Macavity" and "Mistoffelees," and finally, which of the cats will get a once-a-year chance at a new life. I've always thought the clever costumes and make-up along with spectacular (and unusual, at its debut time) set accounted for most of the appeal that made Cats such a popular show.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Coriolanus
John Jay College

Responding to the comment that Shakespeare never blotted a line, Dr. Johnson quipped, "Would that he had blotted a thousand." Johnson might well have had in mind several rocky out-croppings in the stream of Coriolanus, a decidedly rhetorical play, to change my metaphor. Much of the text is reportage: something has happened elsewhere. Still more text consists in tales to be re-told, though these, blessedly, are planned for some off stage events (in Act One, scenes 1, 4, 7, 10; nearly as much in Act Two, and thereafter).

Nina daVinci Nichols
Date Reviewed:
March 2005
Edge
Coconut Grove - Encore Room

At one point in the one-woman, multi-charactered play called Edge, Sylvia Plath, then a college student with vague aspirations to be an artist, describes her drawings as "elegant" and "precise." It's a description easily applied to the performance of actress Angelica Torn as Plath, who gave up visual art for a life of poetry, then eventually gave up life as well. Combined with playwright Paul Alexander -- who also directed and designed the evocative lighting -- Torn delivers a portrait of Plath that is aching, funny and enraging.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
March 2005

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