Thank god for Kate Hennig. In a Stratford season where women are both underrepresented and terribly misused, she’s offered us a heroine ten times as complex as Pericles and two of the most compelling supporting female characters of the season to boot. In a season of dull period pieces and literal interpretation, she’s bent history […]
Playwright Kyle Capstick had a lot of great ideas for a new play- a glimpse into the personal stakes of a small theatre company as the life-and-death stakes of WWII loom ever-more-noisily large, an examination of grief and the way we carry on, a poetic contemplation of what makes a kiss more than just an […]
We’re in the exact opposite position from last year at this time. Poised, again, at the precipice of a new season of Survivor and facing the final days of Big Brother, we’re this time saying goodbye to a season we far-from-loved (in contrast to BB16, which topped our all-time season rankings) and looking forward to […]
I’m not sure why I stuck with the thoroughly mediocre TVLand sitcom The Exes through its entire four-season run. Maybe it was loyalty to Donald Faison despite the broad race and “player” jokes that formed the entire basis of his sports agent character Phil. Maybe it was the fact that I found David Alan Basche’s […]
“You have a brave heart and a beautiful soul and it can be clearly seen by anyone who bothers to look closely” is (loosely paraphrased) one of the last things Rebecca Northan said to her co-star at Tuesday’s performance of Blind Date at Tarragon Theatre. I don’t know if she says that every time- the […]
Oh, Peter Hinton, where would the Shaw Festival be without you? Pygmalion is exactly the sort of “ugh, this again?” play that the festival has no realistic way of avoiding, but that’s why they need Peter Hinton. A rare director of grand ambition, a Peter Hinton production is never boring, never simple, never lazy. Even […]
This is literally the only badly executed play at the entire Shaw Festival this year. Do you know how impressive that is? Most ten-play seasons have a hit or two and maybe a handful more that are merely pleasant, then at least a few duds. But Light Up the Sky, that’s it this year for […]
There are two issues to address here. 1) The Shaw Festival’s production of Sweet Charity is pretty good. 2) Sweet Charity is a piece of illogical, misogynistic nonsense and, though it has a fun song or two, no smart and interesting company should be programming it over the hundreds of wonderful (both lesser-known and far-more-popular) […]