Theater/Film Reviews
-
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
Sometimes gimmicks are overrated. Sometimes all you need are solid music, a semi-lucid story and the people to carry it off. That's what the Muny is giving us this week in "Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn". It's a new musical – this is only its second staging, the first being at the lovely little Goodspeed Opera
-
Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenaged Blockhead
"Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenaged Blockhead" is an odd and somewhat disturbing play currently on offer from Stray Dog Theatre. Based on and definitely not authorized with rights from the "Peanuts" cartoon strip and related material, it follows the characters as adolescents. None of these characters are using what we can't help but
-
Smokey Joe’s Cafe
Someone left "Smokey Joe's Cafe", now running at Stages St. Louis, complaining that there was no story. Well, no, this is a revue. It showcases a fraction of the popular songs written by Stoller and Leiber that became the sound track for a generation, maybe two. It ran more than 2,000 performances in New York
-
Threepenny Opera
Okay, show of hands, please. How many of us know nothing about "Threepenny Opera" except Bobby Darin singing "Mack The Knife"? (You count if you didn't know the song came from that show but remember it anyway.) The opening number from New Line Theatre's production of the show will make even diehard Darin fans –
-
Circus Flora
There's no comparable experience in St. Louis to Circus Flora. The tent is up, the band is in place and children of all ages are wiggling in their seats ready for the show. This is the 29th edition of the small European-style spectacle that's so intimate that when the show is over, the performers are
-
Antony and Cleopatra
Harbingers of the season in St. Louis: Ted Drewes begins selling Christmas trees. Opening day for the Cardinals. Shakespeare Festival St. Louis opens. This year's offering, "Antony and Cleopatra" opened Friday night on one of the most beatific opening evenings I recall, and I've only missed two of them. Most of us looked at the
-
My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding
It's a mark of how far St. Louis has come that the New Jewish Theatre is staging "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding" in a quiet suburb and the opening night audience was not only plentiful but having plenty of fun. This Canadian musical, which began at a fringe festival, hits a topic that's suddenly
-
Art
It's always difficult for me to remember that Yasmina Reza's play "Art" is a comedy. It's always seemed as I looked back on it that it's a drama about friendship. So the current staging at St. Louis Actors Studio felt fresh to me. Director Wayne Solomon has given us a particularly emphatic version of this
-
An Invitation Out
A drawing room comedy set in the late 21st Century: That's "An Invitation Out", a new play by Shualee Cook at Mustard Seed Theatre. It's about virtual reality and real reality, the "out" of the title, and the widening gap between them. Cook makes no secret of her admiration for Oscar Wilde, the emperor
-
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Looking for a rowdy evening? Hie yourself to Stray Dog Theatre's "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". Based on the unfinished last work of Charles Dickens, it uses the play-within-a-play concept set in a late Victorian music hall. The large cast – Dickens novels absolutely teem with characters – roam the audience before the start of