Ann Lemons Pollack
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Equivocation
A fast tip of the cap to West End Players Guild’s Equivocation, which I was able to see only very close to the end of the run – at this writing, there’s one more show, the afternoon of October 6. It’s a work of speculation, based on what might have happened had Robert Cecil (the
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Cry-Baby
At a time when the world around us is, if not in flames, then beginning to emit worrisome odors and was that smoke?, there’s Cry-Baby. New Line Theatre has brought it back after they staged the very first regional production in 2012. It’s a John Waters work from his film of the same name, and
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The Agitators
The Agitators, currently on the boards from Upstream Theatre, was almost surely named to stir interest and opinion and possibly even prejudice from its potential audiences. It’s a story about the relationship between Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. Frederick Douglass (?1818-1895), to refresh the memory of anyone who might be unaware after a recent
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Whammy!
Young Liars has done it again. Literally. They’ve resurrected their 2010 production of their own work Whammy!, subtitled The Seven Secrets to a Sane Self. If you’re not familiar with Young Liars’ work, it’s performance art, so don’t expect, for instance, a plot line or standard song-and-dance. Whammy! is, theoretically, based on self-help books, but
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Fifty Words
Adam opens a bottle of sparkling wine to mark a night for him and his wife Jan without their 8-year-old son, who’s doing his first sleepover. Jan dutifully takes a tiny, tiny sip and within a few minutes asks for some white wine. A behavioral cue, indeed. Can This Marriage Be Saved, as the old
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Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika
The story woven in Angels in America finishes in Part Two: Perestroika. Part Two is definitely far more understandable if you’ve seen Part One. You can read about it here. Pryor Walter is still ill, but, as Monty Python sang, not dead yet – I suspect that sort of humor might appeal to Pryor –
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A Model for Matisse
In a small town in the hills above the Mediterranean in 1943, the artist Henri Matisse moved to the villa La Reve. Reve translates as “dream”, and it was his way of moving further away from the difficulties of war. He had refused to leave France when war broke out – his son was an
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Man of la Mancha
It’s a sign of the times that one of the biggest laughs on opening night of Stages St. LOuis’ Man of la Mancha was the line, “Facts are the enemy of truth”. The show, a mainstay since its arrival on Broadway, takes a lot of work to seem fresh after appearing so often in both
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New Mexico, Part 2
One of the evenings in Santa Fe began with a stop at the Gruet Winery Tasting Room in the historic Hotel St. Francis. (If you want to sound knowledgeable , Gruet is pronounced Gru-AY, in the French manner.) The Gruet family is from the Champagne-Ardenne region of France; they came to New Mexico in 1984
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Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope opened in 1971, and in some ways is a near-perfect reminder of what life was like. Now The Black Rep has given us a chance to look at the revue again and admire what it does. Yes, the giddy clothes, the heightened political awareness, the rapidly evolving music scene,