Registered Critic: Kelsey Goeres
WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME
If young Heidi and Shek can believe in the constitution then so can I. I did not leave the theatre feeling frightened and crazed. I felt hopeful. And excited to go home and review my pocket constitution.
Waiting for Waiting for Godot
At its core, Waiting for Waiting for Godot is a play for actors. It's a fun, interesting evening at the theatre that gets to the heart of what it means to wake up every morning and need to create. Artists will wait as long as they need to–to perform, to share–because they have no other choice.
ON BECKETT
The last thing I want to listen to is a pretentious intellectual tell me how to interpret Samuel Beckett for 90 minutes. Irwin makes it clear that that's not what this is. You see, Bill Irwin can't seem to get Samuel Beckett out of his head. 'On Beckett' is the result.
Deadly
Sacred Fools Theater Company's world premiere of Deadly, a new musical by playwright/lyricist Vanessa Claire Stewart and directed by Jaime Robledo, is about the victims of notorious serial killer H. H. Holmes [...] Stewart set out to create a show that focused on the stories of the women gone too soon at the hands of Holmes. And she did just that.
The cast, collectively, is extremely talented and truthful. It was evident that each performer believed in the story they were telling.
Happy Days
When life starts to feel monotonous, when you start to feel alone in your marriage, when the earth begins to pile up around you and you fear you might be buried alive, remember the gun in your purse.
ROTTERDAM
Romans's portrayal of Fiona/Adrian is honest and exposing. This show would not work without an unapologetic Fiona/Adrian at its center. It was blindingly clear that Roman trusted her castmates, the script, and, unflinchingly, herself, and the integrity of the story was better for it...
THE ELEPHANT MAN
The moment Walker first graced the stage the audience collectively perked up. And not simply because, at the time of her entrance, the show is starving for a greater female presence. The actress and character alike are poised, graceful, charismatic. We in the audience hung on her every word. Walker, in addition to being a skilled actress, is a skilled listener. Every bit of dialogue she listened to felt heavier because of how finely she was tuned in.
The sparse set and costumes are reflective of the time period, Victorian England. The set pieces looked small and swallowed up by the size of the stage the show is presented on. A smaller space would have suited the piece better, both for staging purposes and to take in the careful facial expressions of Vitorino...
Matthew Bourne's 'Cinderella'
1940s London has little use for a fairy godmother, but a devilishly handsome angel who takes on the role of fate fits right in. Not only does he guide Cinderella to her soldier, he also encourages the city's inhabitants to dance as if they could die tomorrow–they could. Bourne is the same creative mind who brought us Swan Lake featuring male swans. A Beauty School Dropout Teen Angel posing as Cinderella's fairy godmother only makes sense...
LACKAWANNA BLUES
Lackawanna Blues: "a magical, musical reminiscence," the Mark Taper Forum program promises...
Lackawanna Blues is a master class in what it means to embody characters. Santiago-Hudson is an artistic powerhouse. The stage is minimally set save for a jagged brick wall that crawls upstage and a lone fan that spins lazily above the two men performing. As an audience member, I didn't need anything else. Darden and Santiago-Hudson provided the rest and then some.