Attending Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of Othello, directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary, staged at The Modern Theatre at Suffolk University, I focused on John Kuntz’s Iago. He didn’t go for hand-rubbing evil villain; he didn’t laugh maniacally during his many asides to the audience. He wasn’t particularly smooth-talking or violent. In fact, he was mostly […]
The Huntington opened its 34th season in September with Stephen Sondheim’s romantic, waltz-infused musical A Little Night Music. Full of sumptuous tunes, gorgeous costumes (design by Robert Morgan), and great performances, the production does justice to Sondheim’s dreamy, romantic tale of, as director Peter DuBois puts it, “sex and death.” Led by the warm […]
Interviewed by dramaturg Jessie Baxter, young playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel spoke about how writing a certain distance from the past helps her produce convincing work: “In high school I wrote a play about middle school, and in college I wrote a play about high school…I like to write when I have a bit of perspective, […]
While perhaps counterintuitive, staging a once-successful revival does not guarantee present-day success at the box office nor an audience enamored with the subject matter presented. The cold, harsh truth is that some plays simply do not age well. The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn, currently running at the Golden Theatre, is one such production that […]
“What the hell just happened?” My first words when the curtain closed are indicative of where this piece is headed, so take a deep breath with me. Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of The Old Times may be unintelligible, but the fault does not necessarily lie with the director, Douglas Hodge, the three-person cast of […]
This is not the youthful adrenaline shot that it sets out to be. Stoppard’s abridgement of Shakespeare tragedy-laden comedy is marred by poor direction choices, although the performances, as in the NYT’s other shows, are of a remarkably high calibre given the REP cast is handes their hardest material yet with the Merchant of Venice. […]
This is a tricky and charming work. The National Youth Theatre has made something first-rate and empoweringly original with Consensual. It is a discussion of sex but simultaneously a discussion of that discussion, critical of the current discourse yet accepting of a world transformed by porn and marketed sexualisation. Evan Placey’s script is punchy: […]
It is no easy task to turn a book into a play, especially when the book is one of the most beloved pieces of English literature. Stephanie Street’s script brings a modern twist to Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights in her adaptation. While the story is well adapted, the language is quite different from that of […]