Theater/Film Reviews
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Charlie Johnson Reads All of Proust
Charlie Johnson is a retired insurance guy who lives in a small town in Indiana. He is not, to be sure, the former Big Red quarterback who completed his master’s and PhD degrees in chemical engineering at Washington University while playing here. (His photo playing in the incredibly muddy game in 1964 with the Giants
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The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro certainly is one of the classic operas, among the most frequently performed in America and world-wide. That said, if you’re a novice to this form of entertainment, this production of it from Opera Theatre of St. Louis could well be an entry-level drug. Consider it, if you will, a sort of
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I Now Pronounce
He’s just sort of stunned. She’s a bridezilla. Expect very little optimism from a comedy about a wedding. Then you’ll be all set for I Now Pronounce, the comedy now at the New Jewish Theatre. Ed Coffield, NJT’s artistic director and a guy with an active sense of humor of his own, has directed this
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Nina Simone: Four Women
Once again because of a show in town, it seems like a good time to recount some too-recent history. On September 15, 1963, in the midst of the civil rights movement, which was particularly active in Birmingham, AL, a bomb went off at the 16th Street Baptist Church. It was during Sunday school hours. Four
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Come from Away
It’s coming on to eighteen years since the awful events of 9/11. There’s a whole generation now that doesn’t remember the actual day or has only a cursory knowledge of what happened. There was so much going on and so much not going on that it’s easy to overlook one of the largest of the
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Dear Mr. Williams
For those who are suckers for storytelling, let me warn them that Dear Mr. Williams ran only over the weekend just past. The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis brought in Bryan Batt, who created the piece and performs it, for three shows. Batt, of course, is an actor who has had a SAG Award for
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A Lovely Sunday in Creve Coeur
It’s not often that one thinks of Tennessee Williams as having a light hand at drawing the human condition. But it surely shows in A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur. It’s a Sunday morning in June, the sun is up, a pigeon coos outside the window of a small apartment in St. Louis. Dorothea (Maggie
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Death Tax
You know those people who announce they didn’t like a play or a movie because,\ the uniforms of the soldiers didn’t have the right patches for whatever unit and time frame was involved? Or the style of fork in a banquet scene hadn’t come into use for another 70 years? Seems unfair to trash all
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The Night of the Iguana
The Night of the Iguana kicks off this year’s Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, and it’s a hot time in the old town. Taken from a short story which evolved into the play and then a film, it’s one of the classic Williams pieces, full of steam and drama. A seedy hotel in the rain
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Salt, Root, and Roe
Growing old is not for sissies: That saying and its variants have been around for several generations, so long there’s no good attribution for it. Like many such lines, it’s remained evergreen because it’s pretty much true. And if anyone forgets, there’s Salt, Root, and Roe to remind them. Upstream Theater brings us the American