Camelot (at the Ordway, through May 17) harkens back to a simpler age, when a sturdy chap like Lancelot could be an arrogant, egotistical, sword-twirling, overweening and preening [your carefully chosen word here], and still get the girl. Nowadays a…
Author: John Olive
forget me not when far away by Ten Thousand Things Theatre
In Kira Obolensky‘s delicious forget me not when far away, John Ploughman returns from an endless War (it feels like WWI, but who knows), limping into a town populated entirely by women. John is looking for Flora, his sainted ex,…
The Reagan Years, The Workhaus Collective performing at The Playwrights Center
Do you, like me, remember the 1980s as a heady combination of amnestic hedonism and unapologetic avarice and acquisitiveness? If so, I bet you’ll enjoy Dominic Orlando‘s zippily paced The Reagan Years, a celebration (if that’s an appropriate word) of…
Pussy Valley at Mixed Blood Theatre
Katori Hall, to her credit, does not, in Pussy Valley (Mixed Blood Theatre, though May 10) have an agenda. No authorial condescension is in evidence. As a straight forward portrait of the denizens of the Pink Pony, a gritty titty…
Mr. Burns, a post-electric play at the Guthrie Theater
We live in apocalyptic times: permanent droughts in Australia and California (the state from which Mr. Burns, a post-electric play playwright Anne Washburn hails). Ocean acidification, disappearing icecaps, Bangladesh soon to be 60% under water, Pakistan 18%, large Chinese rivers…
And The World Goes ‘Round at the Jungle Theater
Miss Latté Da’s exquisite production of Cabaret last year? You can atone, by betaking yourself down to the jewel box Jungle and taking in the sophisticated and entertaining revue of John Kander and Fred Ebb songs, And The World Goes…
Death Tax at Pillsbury House Theatre
Death Tax, by Lucas please-buy-a-vowel Hnath (Pillsbury House Theatre, through April 4) is an entertaining play about a super-serious subject: death. Do subjects get seriouser? Bed-ridden nursing home resident Maxine has acquired an unholy obsession, that her daughter is attempting…
Huck Finn at the Childrens Theatre Company
CTC presents us with a seriously Bowdlerized version of Mark Twain‘s difficult masterwork, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (Childrens Theatre Co., through April 4). Calling their version Huck Finn, versatile director/adapter Greg Banks (he did CTC’s marvelous Pinnocchio a few season’s back)…
Hir at Mixed Blood Theatre
“Let’s put the fun in dysfunctional!” exclaims playwright Taylor Mac and – for a while, anyhow – he succeeds. The Mixed Blood stage for Hir (at MB through Mar 22) swirls with a wild scatter of dirty laundry (“I don’t…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Guthrie Theatre
The Guthrie‘s production of William Shakespeare‘s delightful A Midsummer Night’s Dream clocks in at a bladder busting three plus hours. Loud and long, massive and ambitious, this show entertains – does it ever – but doesn’t pull you in. One…