Hidden in the middle of a quiet, tree-lined street in Cambridge, there lies a secret gem of artistic work. Touch Art Gallery, an intimate gallery of contemporary international artwork, specializes as a haven for Iranian art and culture. Lush and bewitching paintings line the hall walls and provide a backdrop for lectures, film screenings, and, […]
One day, as a teenager, I was about to read a copy of Pygmalion and my father said to me, “Why do you want to read Pygmalion? Isn’t it just My Fair Lady?” That question struck me as odd at the time, but I’ve come to realize that there’s something of a consensus among American […]
Nothing says feminism quite like equal opportunity fat jokes; enter Theatre@First’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry the 4th. Gender-bending such a grotesque, masculine figure as Falstaff might sound unworkable, but as with most other elements of this production it’s a surprisingly serviceable and believable approach to giving the play contemporary appeal. It’s always a challenge to […]
Odyssey Opera is coming just in time. Three years ago, there were two regional-theater-sized opera companies in town, the Boston Lyric Opera (the “BLO”), which tends to stage standard classics of the opera repertoire; and Opera Boston, which specialized in infrequently-heard, along with new and experimental works. Opera Boston’s controversial and surprise closing in 2011 […]
Plays are short. Obviously, we’ve all been to plays that feel far too long, but when it comes down to it, a full-length play has only a few hours to express everything that the playwright wants to say. A novelist can ramble for hundreds of pages but a playwright must be brief, confining all the […]
How did they do all that? That was the prevailing thought left in my mind at the end of visionary director Jakop Ahlbom’s Lebensraum (Habitat), ArtsEmerson’s latest presentation of a piece of Dutch experimental theater. It’s part mime, part Cirque du Soleil-esque festivity of pictorial theatrical imagination, part alternative rock concert. The production soars with […]
Opera and subtlety don’t often go well together. Opera comes from the greatest possible highs and lows of the human experience, from the glorious pain of love, murder, and suicide. So, it is stunning to see a new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto full of subtle nuance in its direction and acting, bringing out its grandiose […]
There’ve been a lot of plays about race in Boston over the past couple of years. We had Lydia Diamond’s Stickfly and Kirsten Greenidge’s Luck of the Irish moving to Broadway and off-Broadway, respectively; last spring’s acclaimed production of Clybourne Park and the powerful The Color Purple at Speakeasy; and a host of race-themed plays […]
It’s refreshing to see a show like Spring Awakening get so much play in Boston area theaters. Even ten years ago, our theater scene would never have so accepted a musical so open about adolescent sexuality that uses actual teenagers in overtly-sexualized dramatic scenes. The Company Theatre of Norwell, the one of the few semi-professional […]
I’m surprised that American theater companies so rarely perform the plays of Roland Schimmelpfennig. Schimmelpfennig (I believe it’s pronounced “sha-ba-da-va-da”) is one of Germany’s most popular and acclaimed…
Go see this play. Do it. Buy a ticket right now. People throw around the word “must-see” a lot with new and exciting media, but Speakeasy’s production of Samuel D. Hunter’s latest off-Broadway tour de force, The Whale is something every serious Boston theatergoer should try to see before it closes on April 5. It […]
It’s funny how once in a while a drama can feel more timely a few years after its premiere. Sometimes it takes a theater culture some time to acclimate itself to an unusual new work. Sometimes current events force us to look at a play with a new social outlook. Zeitgeist Stage’s production of Alan […]
Playwrights want to be profound. One of the main reasons that we go to the theater is to experience drama so palpable that we become engaged enough to take in complex philosophical ideas and unique perspectives on the human experience. So, it makes sense that so many playwrights try to fill every line of dialogue […]
I’d been looking forward to the Nora Theatre Company’s production of Terry Johnson’s Insignificance at Central Square Theater for months. Two years ago, the company produced one of my favorite plays I’ve yet seen in Boston, Johnson’s Hysteria. That play, about a historical meeting between Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dali, was a wit-filled romp that […]