Billy Elliot The Musical (at the Ordway through Oct 14) is an example of how plays, like photographs, can lose clarity and intensity the farther from the original they stray. This Billy is a remount of a remount of a…
Author: John Olive
Next To Normal at Mixed Blood Theatre
Music theater purists may not find Next To Normal (Mixed Blood Theatre, through Nov 11) to their liking. Production values are not high, the clunky bass drum stage at MBT does not lend itself to musicals and the sound system…
Appomattox at the Guthrie Theater
The Civil War. A crucible struggle. An informed citizen must study the war and understand that it wasn’t the Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys, a war fought simply to end the vicious institution of slavery. The questions raised –…
The Cat In The Hat at the Children’s Theatre Company
The Cat In The Hat (on the Children’s Theatre Co.‘s Cargill Stage, through December 2) is a remount, helmed by the estimable Jason Ballweber, of a production that originated in the U.K., at the National Theatre. CTC utilizes the National’s…
Red at Park Square Theatre
John Logan‘s Red (at Park Square Theatre, through Oct 7) suffers from a problem often afflicting two character plays: sameness. Indeed, in Red, the same basic scene gets played and replayed. Mark Rothko paces his NYC atelier, contemplating the large…
The Way Of Water by Frank Theatre performing at the Playwrights Center
Even in the best of times, the characters in Caridad Svich‘s intense The Way Of Water (Frank Theatre performing at the Playwrights Center, through September 30) lead a close-to-the-bone life: living in shacks, enduring the choking humidity of southern Louisiana,…
The Brothers Size by Pillsbury House Theatre performing in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio
Tarell Alvin McCraney‘s The Brothers Size (a Pillsbury House Theatre and The Mount Curve Company co-production, performing in the Guthrie‘s Dowling Studio, through September 29) is, on a superficial level, a troubled-young-brother drama. Oshoosi Size, recently released from the penitentiary,…
Waiting For Godot at the Jungle Theater
Lord preserve Samuel Beckett (and Harold Pinter, and Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee, et al) from the predations of literary theorists who have declared him “important,” a practitioner of something called, airily, “theater of the absurd,” a playwright with deep…
Chicago at the Ordway
The dominant creative force in Chicago (at the Ordway, through Aug 12) has been dead for 25 years: Bob Fosse. Fosse directed and choreographed the original 1975 production (and co-wrote the book with Fred Ebb). The present touring show takes…
Fringe 2012
A wonderful festival: 160 plus performances in ten delightful days. It’s hard to know which to see. I’ll be averaging at least two shows a day. Check here for reviews and keep checking back. I will indicate at the top…