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When the epilogue ended and the house lights came up in the movie theatre where I saw Love & Mercy, no one moved. The real Brian Wilson was on screen in unflattering close-up as he sang the title song, live and imperfectly, accompanied by barely a breath of sound from the audience watching the credits […]

Director Jim Mezon’s staging of this GBS classic is full of light and laughter though its thematic consequences are limited once you excuse the dated gender politics (which, at a certain point, one learns to do automatically with dated texts). At one of the higher points in the play’s tumultuous central romance, frosty “New Woman” […]

 

There’s a reason my precocious 14-year-old cousin Reagan rolls her eyes when I try to tell her about her badass Shakespearean namesake. Shakespeare’s boring, people. It’s dated (in the case of Taming of the Shrew, offensively so) and irrelevant and sort of hard to follow. Why would I go see Hamlet when I can see […]

 

Performing with a symphony orchestra is a tricky thing, especially for a musical theatre performer. On a stage that likely has better acoustics than your usual proscenium, in a space traditionally occupied by concert cellists and world-class operatic sopranos, without the help of your costume or your co-stars, the story or the special effects, you […]

Take a bow, Imelda Staunton. The national treasure is mesmerising as Mama Rose in this perfect West End revival of the 1959 classic, Gypsy. Having been lucky enough to see the production at the Chichester Festival Theatre prior to its West End run, I couldn’t wait to see it again at the Savoy and certainly […]

 

A storm was supposed to be coming. Said forecast moved Desiderata Theatre Co’s production of Lot and His God from the Citizenry Cafe patio to its limited indoor space for one night only. Citizenry is too nice to really pass for the dilapidated Sodom cafe described in the text but, trapped inside with too many […]

Episodes three through seven (“Empathy is a Boner Killer,” “Finger in the Dyke,” Fake it Till you Fake it some More,” “Ching Chong Chang,” and “Tongue-Tied,”) saw some big changes at Litchfied. First of all we need to get Nicky’s horrible exit out of the way. During “Empathy is a Boner Killer,” we saw the […]

  Steve Waters’ new play Temple is invigorating, and that is a surprise considering its subject matter. Temple reveals the trials of the administration of St. Paul’s Cathedral during the 2011 Occupy Movement. It is set on the day the building reopened following a two week closure. It also tells of the drama surrounding the […]