Creditors
Actors Theater of Louisville

Printed on the wall at the entrance to Actors Theater of Louisville's Bingham Theater, where his Creditors inaugurated a "Free Theater" series of significant plays, were these stark words of August Strindberg: "Motto: Never get married! for you can...live your life out without knowing to whom you are married." And, oh, how this psychologically-penetrating play, stunningly performed by its three principals, drives home that caveat.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
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
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
Home
Actors Theater of Louisville

Cephus Miles, the sweet-natured, simple hero of Samm-Art Williams' Home, is an African-American farmer who loves his land of hot, sticky tobacco fields in Cross Roads, N.C. He just wants to marry his girlfriend Pattie Mae and stay there always. But fate propels him into prison when, as a Vietnam War draftee, he refuses to kill because he cannot go against his Biblical teachings to "love thy neighbor." His odyssey takes him to a big city where he finds work loading trucks at a shirt factory but is fired when his employer learns he is an ex-convict.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
King And I, The
Marcus Center For The Performing Arts

Few American musicals retain their ability to enchant over the years, and even fewer of these "classics" actually improve with age. Since I wasn't born in 1951, when The King and I first took Broadway by storm, I cannot compare the original's impact to the current production now touring the United States. I can only marvel at how well The King and I has survived over the years.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
Kinks, Shrinks And Red Inks!
MeX Theater

Jefferson Ensemble, formed less than two years ago in Louisville, is currently presenting three one-act plays under the Kinks, Shrinks and Red Inks! title. With these three shows tailored to their particular talents, the group's fine actors can really strut their stuff. Local playwright Elaine T. Hackett's A Clash of Invitations is the lengthiest and most satisfying of the three.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
Kiss at City Hall, The
Pasadena Playhouse

Why doesn't romance last? asks Joe DiPietro in this "relationship" comedy, which comes off as a slightly-better-than-average TV sitcom in its West Coast premiere production. Inspired by French photographer Robert Doisneau's snapshot of a man and woman exchanging a passionate public kiss, Di Pietro gives us two New York couples grappling with issues of commitment, unwanted pregnancy, infidelity and neurotic behavior, against a backdrop of the idealized romance embodied in the controversial snapshot (which may or may not have been staged).

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
Kiss Of The Spider Woman
Rudyard Kipling

In its various formats -- novel, play, film, musical -- Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman evokes powerful emotions as two male cellmates jailed in a totalitarian country (Argentina) lay bare the politics of seduction. Who could be more different than Molina (Michael Drury), a flamboyant homosexual window dresser charged with "gross indecency," and Valentin (Andrew Pyle), a dedicated humorless Marxist whose zeal for social revolution excludes pleasure from his life?

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2000
Another American: Asking and Telling
Theater at St. Clement's

Not to rag on Naked Boys Singing yet again, but I will. There are hundreds of great stories about the gay and lesbian experience that theatergoers have yet to see, yet unsuspecting patrons are forced to watch high-school level travesties that have all the shock value of a pig rolling in the mud. One show with naked men is fine, but when a season has around a dozen, that's cause to worry.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Aida
Cadillac Palace

When you consider that the opera, Aida, was written-to-order for the Cairo Opera House, the narrative liberties taken by Elton John, Tim Rice etc. seem less heinous. Flag-crossed lovers make good, hankie-wringing drama anytime, with extra resonance for American audiences added by the interracial aspect. (Radames is Egyptian, Aida is Nubian -- tribes that would appear virtually identical to us, were the former not played by an Anglo-European actor and the latter by an African-American actress). But the political situation in the Red Sea district circa 1400 B.C.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
El Baile or, El Collar
Gramercy Arts Theater

With El Baile, Repertorio Espanol turns from Cuban playwright Abelardo Estorino's exploration of historical themes to a contemporary setting, but one where the past actively weaves its way into the present.  Nina is considering selling her pearl necklace to make ends meet until she can leave Cuba to join her married children in Miami.  This necklace can bring her some valuable dollars but with it would go her most cherished memories.  As played by Adria Santana, Nina is far from drifting into a state of reverie.  She yells at the telephone for being out of order and p

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Blues in the Night
Florida Studio Theater

Bookless but not pointless, Blues in the Night finds three ladies of the night, each in a run-down Chicago hotel room. "The Woman of the World" (Jannie Jones in boa) drinks cheap wine from cut-glass, recalls "Stomping at the Savoy" and lustily rasps for a "Rough and Ready Man." Barbara D.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Butterfingers Angel, Mary And Joseph, Herod The Nut, And The Slaughter Of Twelve Hit Carols In A Pear Tree, The
Bunbury Theater

For six years William Gibson's offbeat Christmas play with the wordy title, The Butterfingers Angel, Mary and Joseph, Herod the Nut, and the Slaughter Of Twelve Hit Carols in a Pear Tree, has been a crowd-pleasing holiday favorite for Bunbury Theater patrons. After all those years it's remarkable how fresh this seventh presentation seems under Robin Hunter's direction and with a cast that never overdoes the laugh cues.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Christmas Carol, A
Guthrie Theater

Maybe it's the looming holiday season, but my reaction to the Guthrie Theater's 25th production of A Christmas Carol is a decided bah, humbug.  The adaptation of Charles Dickens' venerable tale has all the hallmarks of a classic, from a sumptuous set to talented actors to a bevy of special effects.  But the whole enterprise has left me empty instead of uplifted. It isn't the actors' fault.  A talented cast -- led by Philip Goodwin as Scrooge -- wrestle plenty of humanity out of the Christmas tale.  Scrooge is given some extra depth, especially in scenes with the woman

Ed Huyck
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Dinner Party, The
Mark Taper Forum

Neil Simon's new play is a dud, one that resembles a bad translation of an equally bad French drawing-room comedy by Marivaux or Feydeau. The setup we are asked to believe is that three divorced couples have been invited to partake of a mystery dinner in the private dining room of a swanky Parisian restaurant. The six men and women arrive separately and are shocked to come face to face with their respective ex-spouses.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Durlovely, Durlightful, Durang
Rudyard Kipling

No playwright writes funnier lines than Christopher Durang at the top of his form. And that's one reason the Roundtable Theater's take on his one-act, For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls, a devastatingly hilarious send-up of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, is such a riot. The other reason is the expert timing and daftness the four actors, under Dan Welch's skilled direction, exhibit as they plow through the absurdities of their characters and the plot.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Fever, The
Tsunami Bakery & Café (and other venues)

This provocative, trenchant, one-person play by Wallace Shawn (who conceived it to be performed in homes and apartments, for groups of ten or twelve -- and who performed it himself in New York for many months), is set in a cheap hotel room in an unnamed country where the hero (Paul Mackley), a functionary for a human-rights organization, lies suffering from a malaria-like illness which gives him the fever of the title and triggers a stream-of disjointed-consciousness monologue.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Hysteria
Steppenwolf Theater

You are in my study, not some boulevard farce! protests the Father Of Modern Psychology, but nowadays, the mere mention of Sigmund Freud's name constitutes a joke, and so a certain vaudeville atmosphere is unavoidable.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Kentucky Cycle, The: Part 2
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

If Kentucky Cycle II hadn't opened with another song by full cast staring out in epic manner, the second half of the story of the fates of the land and the Rowans, Talberts, and Biggeses would be, well, epically better than Part I. There's still a lot of trying to do others in, but in general the descendants are an improvement on their ancestors. One really feels sorry for those who get screwed by the coal companies that in turn screw the entire environment. Not that the folks weren't warned by smoothie J. T.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Kentucky Cycle, The - Part 1
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Going Over Jordan" the cast sings, against an abstract background of soon-to-be-varying colored sky over barren trees and earth. So opens a tale of intertwining families, beginning with the ruthless Michael Rowen (Patrick J. Clarke, in his fittest Asolo performance to date). He kills an Indian trader and, after trickery, the Indians themselves, sparing only Morning Star, whom he rapes and cripples into subjugation so he'll have a son. (Tessie Hogan gives great intensity to both her hatred of Rowen and her ever-doting love of his child.)

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Kiss Me, Kate
Martin Beck Theater

Yes, it's another op'nin of another show, but the new revival of Cole Porter's splendid tuner, Kiss Me, Kate, is anything but ordinary. Staged with nothing less than pure extravagance and cast to perfection, it is a reminder that Broadway was once big and bold, and it steadfastly tries to inject that in every inch of its boundaries. Far too many years have passed since this delightful musical has been staged, and Sam and Bella Spewack's book is still fresh and funny, proving that old tricks sometimes are the best remedy for a sluggish season of musicals.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Ghosts
Century Center Ballroom Theater

As part of the ongoing series of Henrik Ibsen plays at the Century Center for the Performing Arts, Ghosts is the fourth to be revived in this space, though it is actually the third of Ibsen's plays in chronological order, written in 1881 right after A Doll's House, perhaps his most revered work. Ghosts is an even darker look at the ultimate dysfunctional family headed by Mrs. Alving (Kathleen Garrett), a somber matriarch who tells her detailed past to the rigid Pastor Manders (Mark Elliot Wilson).

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
How The Bitch Stole Christmas
Fez

Another wonderful night will be had at Jackie Beat's Christmas special, confirming that in the acidic drag-queen sweepstakes, Jackie certainly is the one to beat. Dressed to the holiday hilt, Jackie still continues to shed her special brand of holiday joy in the guise of her razor-sharp wit and unmatchable bitchiness. A few segments of How The Bitch Stole Christmas sag, notably her reading of a poem from a fed-up housewife fan that recounts her evil revenge on a lout hubby.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Putting it Together
Ethel Barrymore Theater

To put it bluntly, Putting It Together, the Stephen Sondheim "review" that just opened on Broadway, just isn't that well put together. A barrage of 35 of his greatest hits, including songs from Company, Merrily We Roll Along, A Little Night Music and Follies among others, is given tepid treatment, despite the mega-wattage of stars Carol Burnett, Bronson Pinchot, George Hearn and Ruthie Henshall. Quite honestly, I've never experienced Sondheim's admittedly wonderful music performed in such a bitter vein.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Rainmaker, The
Brooks Atkinson Theater

It never really became apparent to me how influential N. Richard Nash's 1954 The Rainmaker, was until watching WPIX recently where I suffered through "Three Men And A Little Lady" and noticed that Tom Selleck and Nancy Travis rehearse a scene from the play early in the picture. It is meant to parallel the Selleck-Travis budding romance, but when watching Scott Ellis' newest incarnation currently on Broadway, one finds it is just better to stick with the original source.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Amadeus
Music Box

It has been 20 years since Peter Shaffer's acclaimed play Amadeus has been on Broadway, and the newest revival is dignified, well acted and also thoroughly wrongheaded. The playwright has revamped the show to remove some of the melodrama that has always bothered him, but in the process has removed the play's sinister allure.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
Angels in America - Part One: Millennium Approaches
Southern Oregon University - Department of Theater Arts

For its final drama of the 1900s, Southern Oregon University presents Tony Kushner's acclaimed play, Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. The play, its production and its realization lift the Department of Theater Arts to a new level of achievement, integrity and artistic courage. It will draw controversy here in this small Oregon city, more than in many of the metropolitan and international locations where Angels has been presented and gained praise.

Al Reiss
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Barnum
Players

With red and gold predominating and circus paraphenalia on stage and side stages, The Players of Sarasota might be performing under the Big Top.  Problem: guests from Sailor Circus don't appear until the rousing "Follow the Band," so the antics are indeed mild for a town noted for circus.  This does not apply to Steve Dawson as the dauntless Barnum, who leaps onto the central platform to "defend the noble art of humbug." He takes our vote, and eyes, whether he's performing magic tricks, bouncing on a trampoline or skimming along a high wire.  He persuades us a kid (slick Geo

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Bash
Canon Theater

Neil LaBute's trio of riveting monologues in Bash share a common setup: a seemingly ordinary, innocent person reveals dark, evil secret in banal, deadpan fashion.  In the first monologue, "Medea Redux," Calista ("Ally McBeal") Flockhart turns in a skilled performance as a young woman sitting in a pool of harsh light and recounting for the police how and why she came to kill her small child.  The monologue describes her seduction at 13 by her high school science teacher, an act that contrasts her sweet, trusting humanity against his unctuous, cynical nature.  Pushed to

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Fame
Pantages Theater

Fame musical tries hard to seem fresh and original after its previous outings as a movie and syndicated tv series but doesn't quite make the grade. How many variations on the struggling-high school student theme can we sit through? What also disappoints in this road show production is the sameness of the music and lyrics, the sound of which is severely flattened by the electronic amplification of the miked cast.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Full Circle
Oregon Cabaret Theater

For the millennium, Oregon Cabaret Theatre offers a premiere of an original production, Full Circle. Like most Oregon Cabaret shows, this is a musical. But it isn't like other OCT musicals. It's a mix of fable, parable, myth, dream and hyper-reality in the metaphor of satire. Giancarlo draws principally from Native American myths, bringing them into circular transitions with modern life: civilization and its discontents. The show opens with a visually satiric prologue, a dance by "Modern Persons" who bridge time.

Al Reiss
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
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.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
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
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
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
It Ain't Nothin' But The Blues
Geffen Playhouse

Why it took five writers to put together a bookless musical with few spoken words is a mystery. What's not a mystery, though, is the appeal of this show, which is a joyous, rollicking, vest-pocket history of the blues, a national art form which usually doesn't get much attention from mainstream, white bread America. An eight-person cast, all of whom sing, dance and play instruments, takes the audience on a swift, finger-poppin' journey into the origins of the blues, backed up by slide projections and a smokin' six piece band.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Killer And The Comic, The
Angel Island

Paul Zegler as the comic and Andrew Rothenberg as the killer turn in very fine performances in this late-nite show that accompanies the mainstage Mary-Arrchie production of Petrified Forest.

Effie Mihopoulos
Date Reviewed:
November 1995
Kiss Me, Kate
Martin Beck Theater

New York, don't bite your nails worrying if they botched up Kiss Me Kate like they did Annie Get Your Gun. Kate is (as in the title of the show's deliciously nostalgic waltz) "Wunderbar." Although un-billed playwright John Guare has done a little tweaking of the original book that Bella and Sam Spewack ingeniously fused with William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, there is no radical revisionism at work here.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Price, The
Royale Theater

The excellent revival of Arthur Miller's The Price currently on Broadway is a fitting companion piece to this season's earlier, acclaimed production of his Death of a Salesman. In fact, it stands ever more firmly at the forefront of Miller's canon.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 1999
Rainmaker, The
Brooks Atkinson Theater

In this forever lovely 1954 play, traveling con-man Bill Starbuck brags he can bring rain to the drought-beset western town by "pitching sodium chloride up to the clouds, electrifying the cold front, neutralizing the warm front, barometricizing the tropopause and magnetizing occlusions in the sky." With Scott Ellis' magical staging for the Roundabout Theater Company, there is little doubt in our gullible minds that he is going to do it.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 1999

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