Theater/Film Reviews
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Faceless
Some people toss off the descriptor “ripped from the headlines” as though it’s a bad thing. I don’t agree. Creative people get their juices going from all kinds of places. Works of art addressing contemporary problems can get other people’s juices going too, ruminating on the story and then the general subject while they’re driving
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Fences
If anyone needs to consider whether August Wilson may have been America’s greatest playwright of the Twentieth Century, please go to the Black Rep’s production of Fences at Washington University’s Edison Theatre. The Black Rep was the first theatre to perform the entire Pittsburgh Cycle, ten works from Wilson, one each for a century’s worth
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The Marvelous Wonderettes
One can’t help but wonder what, say, 15-year-olds make of the love songs that form most of the score of The Marvelous Wonderettes, longing and wistful and full of sentiment and hormones spoken of mostly in coded words. The Rep’s current Mainstage show features music sung by female artists, particularly groups, in the Fifties and Sixties.
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Oddville: a love story?
The Playhouse at Westport is a good venue for small, often one-person shows that are, to varying degrees, not the same old thing. The current offering is Oddville: a love story?, from the creative team of Dave Shirley and Robert Dubac. If Dubac’s name is familiar, it’s because he’s been in town with his shows
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Remnant
A somewhat more subtle message about the meaning of Christmas comes from Remnant, the holiday offering of Mustard Seed Theatre. In the play, by Ron Reed, it’s 75 years into the future after some sort of plague, whether literal or figurative, has swept North America. We find Barlow Sho’r (Ryan Lawson-Maeske) and his wife Delmar
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A Jewish Joke
In the years after World War II, there was a lot of Jewish humor. People in small towns in the Midwest heard words like schmaltz and saw The Goldbergs on television, to say nothing of late-night shows with Borscht Belt comedians. Television was, even more than movies, a precursor to the internet in that it provided a way to
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A Behanding in Spokane
St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s newest offering is in its tradition of off-kilter shows. Artistic Director William Roth obviously has a taste for work that’s absurdist or close to it, and it’s come to be something regular audiences at SLAS expect. A Behanding in Spokane fits right into that. The uninitiated might expect from the title
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Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley
There’s a delightfully good time being had at the Rep this month. How so? Let me explain We live in an era in which Jane Austen has once again become popular. For the young, in particular, that’s a good thing, reading fiction that’s so well done and learning (whether by print or film) that the
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Steel Magnolias
Steel Magnolias isn’t your usual holiday play. But as Stray Dog Theatre’s artistic director said opening night about the play he directed, “It’s about closeness, it’s about celebration, it’s about family, both blood and chosen. And isn’t that what the holidays are, really?” He’s right, of course. And why shouldn’t a play set in Chinquapin,
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The King and I
The Fox has kicked off the holiday season with – well, not quite a bang, but the sound of a gong being struck, thanks to its production of The King and I. This is the Lincoln Center production that won a Tony in 2015 for Best Revival. “Revival” hardly begins to describe it. It’s a