For the fifth time, the Guthrie has brought The Glass Menagerie to its stage one of Tennessee Williams most popular and oft-performed plays. Director Joseph Haj has helmed this latest production. With a small cast and simple set, the strength of Williams’ semi-autobiographical play lies in its characters…
Tag: Joseph Haj
Review | Cyrano de Bergerac: swashbuckling romance
The Guthrie‘s program for Edmond Rostand‘s ageless Cyrano de Bergerac lists, in a first for this reviewer, a credit for “Intimacy Consultant” (Lauren Keating). Oh boy, says I to myself. Intimacy. Tantalizing, erotic, pervading the play. Giving the play a…
Review | The Legend of Georgia McBride: a joyous, charming celebration
Since taking the helm, Guthrie artistic director Joseph Haj has pushed the venerable theater into greater diversity, both in tone and in representation. With The Legend of Georgia McBride, the theater ventures into new territory on both fronts with a…
Review | West Side Story: a lovely production of a true American classic
West Side Story (at the Guthrie, through Aug 26) was first produced on Broadway in 1957 and since then it has emphatically entered the international canon, averaging 5,000 productions per year. No other play has this kind of presence. Shakespeare?…
Sunday In The Park With George: an affecting portrait of the artistic impulse
The design! The Guthrie‘s Sunday In The Park With George features richly fab work by projection designer Caite Hevner and by lighting designer Jane Cox. Their Sunday is gloriously, breath-takingly, mesmerizingly colorful. I’m unsure where the lighting leaves off and…
King Lear: a grandly produced disappointment
Shakespeare’s King Lear is a dense tapestry of a play. Themes of loyalty, insanity, blindness, compassion and even base nature are all explored. Every director must choose what to emphasize and what to allow to pass without development. Guthrie artistic…
South Pacific at the Guthrie Theater
First, allow me to express some negativity: why does the Guthrie Theater so often insist on bringing in New Yorkers to play parts that should, by rights, go to equally talented (and often even more gifted) Minnesotans? In the case of…
Pericles at the Guthrie Theater
Who wrote Pericles? Scholars argue. Some claim that William Shakespeare wrote it all. Or that he wrote none of it. Or that he wrote half of it (the last half). Or that he collaborated on the play with the well-known…