I'm a bit of an Anglophile. I love British just-about-everything, except for the food. But I especially love British humor. And after attending and enjoying a staged reading of Roy Smiles' Ying Tong last spring, I figured I'd really love the fully-mounted production at The Wilma Theater. I never thought I'd say this about any production, ever, but I think I liked the staged reading better. There was something charming about the bare-bones production......

Walking into the Wilma Theater's transformed auditorium, draped in white fabric with cardboard chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, all drawn aside and covered in artificial cobwebs, it's impossible not to feel completely immersed in the world of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, thanks equally to set designer Robert Pyzocha, costume designer Janus Stefanowicz, and lighting designer Jerold R. Forsyth. Soon enough, you'll discover that it's intentional: you feel a part of the play because you are.......

There are certain things that I'm willing to accept from books that I struggle with on the stage. That's why for me, stage adaptations don't always work. (Okay, so I love Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, but they're more guilty pleasures than anything else. And while the Arden's done some pretty good adaptations this season, believe me when I say that I've seen some pretty rough books-as-plays over the years.) I......

The premise is simple and nothing new: a man, taken into custody for reasons he's not aware of. He is taken to a secret jail and interrogated, tortured even, by two police officers of a totalitarian state that seems like it could be Soviet but might not be. When he won't—can't?—speak, his only living brother, "special" in all the politically correct ways of speaking, is questioned too, used to bait the man who still......