USA Reviews

Writer: Bernard Pomerance Director: Ron Canada Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers One doesn't expect to write a negative review about a posthumous world premiere written by a Tony Award-winning playwright, but it’s 2018 and if we’ve learned anything, it’s that that which seems outside the realm of possibility is more plausible than previously imagined. Bernard Pomerance’s Spin Off shows promise in its ...

Writer: Jason Napoli Brooks & Rob Roth Director: Rob Roth Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers Rob Roth’s newest piece, SOUNDSTAGE at HERE Arts Center, is a complex fifty-five minutes. Utilizing live action, film, and live camera projection, the piece explores ritual, loneliness, loss, and chemical dependency. A camera on a track manipulated by black clad figures moving in the Butoh style reinforces focal ...

Writer: Gabri Christa Director: Erwin Maas Reviewer: Carrie Lee O’Dell TheatreLab started its Fall 2018 season, Homecoming, on September 12 with Gabri Christa’s solo performance piece Magdalena, directed by Erwin Maas with design and dramaturgy by Guy de Lancey. The performance uses dance, film, and storytelling to examine the life of Christa’s aging mother (the titular Magdalena) and her struggle ...

Writer: Jaki McCarrick Directors: Colleen Clinton & Lily Dorment Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers The Pond Theatre Company’s latest production, a world premiere of The Naturalists by Jaki McCarrick, promises naturalistic contemporary drama. It delivers on that promise with a well-crafted family drama defined by the 1979 Massacre at Narrow Water. Set years later, the unravelling of a family and the reaction ...

Writer: Geraldine Inoa Director: Niegel Smith Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers The Flea’s newest production, a world premiere of Scraps by Geraldine Inoa, is a brilliant and earth-shattering portrayal of the effects of police shootings in the black community. A strong ensemble piece, Scraps is disturbing, relentless and beautiful. Transitioning from kitchen-sink realism to abstract expressionist game-show style, Inoa’s lyrical freight train ...

Writer: Richard Saudek Director: Wes Grantom Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers Before any given theatrical performance, one can spot several patrons with their mobile devices out (and on infuriatingly but blessedly rare occasions, some audience members use their devices during performances, but that is another matter altogether). Screens illuminate faces in the house, with theatregoers sending off texts to cement post-show plans, ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Adaptor: Austin Pendleton Director: Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch Reviewer: Robert Price Come to hear a play and you will not be disappointed. Semi-scholars of The Bard will be thrilled to listen carefully to the rarely read origins of Richard III that lie in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 3. His kid brother Rutland is murdered, and Richard’s ...

Writer: Lisa Langseth Adaptor: Charlotte Barslund Director: Kathy Curtiss Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers The Scandanavian American Theater Company brings a lovely new Swedish play to the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row, with Lisa Langseth’s Beloved, in a beautiful translation by Charlotte Barslund. With heart and humor, Langseth’s play transcends cultural barriers to push against the line between love and obsession, healthy ...