Theater/Film Reviews
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Paint Your Wagon
Forget Lee Marvin. And forget Clint Eastwood – in fact, please forget Clint Eastwood. Paint Your Wagon, currently at the Muny, is nowhere near what the 1969 movie version forced upon us. It’s far more dazzling and sounds far more professional. The show began as a 1951 Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical, before they had
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1776
Before there was Hamilton, there was 1776. Who’d have thought a musical about how the Declaration of Independence might work? That was Sherman Edwards, who worked his way through NYU as a jazz pianist. There were a few years of teaching high school history while he pulled together his career as a backup musician and
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Indecent
Indecent is a beautiful, heavy-going drama. Paula Vogel’s play, she of How I Learned to Drive and The Baltimore Waltz, among other works, tackles censorship, homophobia and antisemitism in an utterly seductive manner. It’s themes are serious-to-downright-grim, but it’s mesmerizing. The Max and Louie production of it at the Grandel gives it all they’ve got
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Kinky Boots
It's definitely a sign of how this town has changed when a big crowd at the Muny is roaring at the jokes in Kinky Boots. The folks who would have been horrified at La Cage aux Folles when it played at the Muny in 1986 certainly were nowhere to be found at this musical comedy, which began as
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Fire Shut Up in My Bones
One the (many) things Opera Theatre of St. Louis is doing right is bringing in new work. This year’s showpiece is the second one commissioned from Terence Blanchard after his success with Champion. That premiered here in 2013 and has gone on to acclaim elsewhere. Fire Shut Up in My Bones is based on the
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The Coronation of Poppea
Is it really a love affair or a case of two power-mad people connecting? The Coronation of Poppea tells the story of the emperor Nero’s second wife, a sort of How To Succeed at Empressing Without Really Trying. We meet them onstage at Opera Theatre of St. Louis while Nerone, as he’s called in the
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Guys and Dolls
Let’s cut to the chase here. Guys and Dolls, which has opened the Muny’s 101st season, is nothing short of splendid. Yes, the new stage is marvelous, including the orchestra pit, which has elevators in it. (You’ll see.) But the show, a perennial for many reasons, in this version is a peak American musical theatre
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The Boy From Oz
For years, Peter Allen was mainly known for being married to Liza Minnelli, back when she was mainly known for being Judy Garland’s daughter. The Boy from Oz tells the story of his life from well before the marriage until his death at age 48. Allen, of course, was a performer and songwriter from Australia.
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Rigoletto
Where would opera, indeed, all fiction, be without deceit, or, at the very least, misunderstanding? Rigoletto, the great Giuseppe Verdi opera, is based on deceit and love; Opera Theatre of St. Louis gives it a dark, dramatic treatment showcasing both those elements. Despite darkness, drama and deceit, it manages to be quite beautiful, no small
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Love’s Labors Lost
People who are serious about the language generally love Shakespeare. That said, “serious” is a word that probably should not be applied to Love’s Labors Lost, a comedy he wrote around the time he was tossing off Romeo and Juliet. It’s full of word jokes, although I admit lots of them are not easy to