A few years ago, I heard a knock on my door and wavered about answering it. It was almost eight in the morning, and I should have been out the door and on my way to work already. I had stopped only to sweep my incredibly dusty hallway before hurrying to catch the 66 bus. […]
The program notes for Fort Point Theatre Channel’s double bill (Reel-to-Reel) described Samuel Beckett’s great play Krapp’s Last Tape as a play that “focuses on a difficult life choice—between doing what feels like great art and pursuing a great personal love.” That is certainly one focus of the play. This one-act, one-man-show can be summarized […]
A pale, uneven, crinkled backdrop topped with white crocheted nets (like a fisherman’s? Like jagged clumps of snow on a cliff’s face?) hung on the right wall, viewed from my seat on one side of the traverse stage; a bright line lit up the opposing “wall,” a sturdy wooden chair resting at its base. The […]
Flat Earth Theatre and director Lindsay Eagle (nominated for a 2013 Boston My Theatre Award for her excellent work directing Rocket Man), should be commended for choosing to put on a show that delves experimentally into a fictional dystopia, a world fraught with troubling issues such as the extinction of the print book, a one-sex […]
Forget the preamble. If you’re in Boston, go see this play. Right away. [Editor’s Note: We predicted this success!] Part II of my Baker weekend had me at the Modern Theatre of Suffolk University. As I walked into the space, I was befuddled to see rows of seats where Modern’s thrust stage should have been. […]
Boston College’s Theatre Department workshop production of Circle Mirror Transformation, directed by Maggie Kearnan, marks the beginning of my Annie Baker weekend (next up: Company One’s production of The Flick, at the Modern Theatre of Suffolk University). Friday night found me back at the Bonn Studio at BC, and I found it hard to believe […]
The Footlight Club started the New Year on the right foot with their January/February production of Craig Lucas’s brisk dark comedy, Reckless. The story revolves around Rachel Fitsimmons (Jenn Bean), a cheerful, talkative housewife who finds herself on the run on Christmas Eve, forced to live various new lives after being informed by her husband […]
Paradoxically, an impressive and professionally staged university theater production often receives a harsher critical glare. When indulgent excuses need not be made for technical mistakes, missed cues, or flubbed lines, almost the entire critical focus shifts to the actors’ skills and the directorial choices made regarding the performances themselves. Boston College’s workshop production of The […]