August Wilson’s probing and evocative portrait of Black America and the African-American experience can be seen in this searing and inspired production of Two Trains Running (Penumbra Theatre, through October 30). It is the seventh play of Mr. Wilson’s 20thCentury…
Category: Theater
Burial At Thebes at the Guthrie Theater
First you see Monica Frawley‘s astonishing set: raw crumbling concrete walls, soaring, high and deep, inset with urn and coffin-holding cubicles, incense smoke rising up. The set is simultaneously ancient and modern, late 21st century catacombs – and very creepy,…
“A Wrinkle in Time” at the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre
The Children’s Theatre Company’s fall offering for the grade-school set is a staging of the popular Madeleine L’Engle’s science fiction fantasy, A Wrinkle in Time. This production plays on a relatively simple unit set with well-placed levels, saving the wizardry…
“Neighbors” at Mixed Blood Theatre
Mixed Blood has opened their season with an outrageous play and an equally outrageous concept, and I am equally impressed with both. The play is Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a biting satire of every Black stereotype you’ve ever heard of;…
“Cat’s Paw” produced by Theatre Pro Rata at the Gremlin Theater
“Cat’s Paw†by William Mastrosimone, Theatre Pro Rata’s new offering showing at the Gremlin Theater, paints a “what if†world ignited by pressing ecological issues and fueled by the media’s obsession with ratings. Eco-terrorists—or “eco-warriors,†as the leader (Victor) of…
reasons to be pretty by Walking Shadow Theatre Company performing in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio
Steph is angry. Angry is to put it mildly. Steph is furious, screaming, in a state of howling rage, throwing pillows, stomping around the bedroom, spewing the fuck word and various other obscenities with machine-gun-like abandon. Her boyfriend Greg, the…
“Much Ado about Nothing”
The Guthrie Theater opened its 2011-2012 season last night with a new Joe Dowling production of Much Ado about Nothing. One of Shakespeare’s more serious comedies, it is rich in life lessons as the work of a seasoned playwright. The…
The Pride at the Pillsbury House Theatre
Ooh, a good one. Alexi Kaye Campbell‘s taut The Pride (Pillsbury House Theatre, through Oct 16) is a modestly scaled play on a huge subject: the nature of sexuality. Campbell creates three main characters, Oliver, Phillip and Sylvia and then…
A Short Play About 9/11 by Workhaus Collective
Nine-eleven. It’s no longer just a date, it’s code, for an impossible-to-describe national catastrophe. Even at this remove nine-eleven remains a series of jangled images: a jet plane slamming into a tall building. Conservatively dressed businessmen hurtling to their deaths…
Mercy Watson To The Rescue at Childrens Theatre Co.
Mercy Watson gets where she’s going in Act 1, Scene 1, page 1: “Toast!” she cries. “Toast and butter!” Mercy, a pig, says this, oh, seven or eight hundred times during CTC’s charming Mercy Watson To The Rescue (at the…