Results tagged “phillyistreviews”

If anybody but Nice People Theatre Company told me that they were doing a show that would be, at least in part, about rock climbing, I'd be a little skeptical. But because I've never had a bad experience with Nice People, I was willing to go with the flow, sit on the floor, and watch an activity that never especially interested me.

When I was thirteen, my friends and I went to a haunted maze at the mall. I was so annoyed by the end, with the predictable gimmicks and cheap thrills, that when Freddy Kreuger jumped out at me a few feet from the exit I may or may not have punched him in the face. (The statute of limitations on assault has passed by now, right?) That wasn't the only time time I'd found myself decidedly unimpressed, or even annoyed, by a haunted maze, so I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical about Brat Productions' Haunted Poe, a sort of theatrical house of horrors, all centered on the life and work of a little-known writer by the name of Edgar Allan Poe.

Wednesday's opening performance of Chicago: The Musical at the Academy of Music had it all: Signature Fosse moves, an infectious soundtrack, a little razzle, a little dazzle, and of course... Springer.

            

It's sort of easy to see why Chevelle is oft mistaken for a Christian band. And by "see," we literally mean . The band consists of three wholesome, clean-cut, good-looking, All-American boys—nay, brothers—who just happen to know how to play the rock-n-roll. The music, however, bared no real resemblance to what's generally expected of "Christian Rock." Now, we know we're stereotyping (give us a break, the our knowledge of Christian rock is sort of limited to the horrific spectacle that is Creed and the surprisingly cool Jars of Clay), but there wasn't anything especially glorifying or redemptive about Chevelle's songs. No, in fact lyrically and musically, we'd say it's more gnarled and brooding. Gnarled and brooding being a good thing. Radio staples "The Red," and "Send the Pain Below" were aptly performed live.

Love musical theatre? Want an hour and a half's worth of laughs? Has the Walnut got a treat for you!

Despite a record-setting twelve Tony Awards, is really a star vehicle. And by that, we don't mean that it's not an exceptional show; but, it's a deceptively difficult show to pull off, at least in terms of the delivery of its humor. If the actors aren't top-notch, the slapstick can overwhelm the show if not well-executed. So we were a bit skeptical when we learned that the Walnut Street Theatre was doing the show. Without the right balance of indulgence and restraint, the show can go awry—it's a tough balance, even for seasoned performers. So it wasn't really surprising that, after stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick departed from the original New York production, audience numbers dwindled; and although the show managed to remain open on Broadway for six years, it ceased being New York's "must see" ticket without its original stars.

Perhaps the thing with which I've struggled most, when it comes to Terry Johnson's Hysteria, onstage through this weekend at the Wilma Theater, is how to describe it. What starts off as a traditional door-slamming farce—albeit one tinged with Freudian overtones—that presents the unlikely pairing of Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dalí eventually vacillates between absurdism and the completely surreal, the farce all but forgotten by the show's close. Taken in parts, these elements work, but combined, it becomes difficult to determine whether the play is clever or disjointed, let alone to determine whether I actually enjoyed it.

Poor Hamlet (the play, not the character). It's one of those plays that just can't catch a break. Hell, there's even a play called I Hate Hamlet. And yet, it manages to be one of the most quoted plays in the canon, one of the most frequently taught plays from its time, and (one could argue), one of Shakespeare's most analyzed (and over analyzed!) works.

Our experience with BCKSEET Productions is that they like to defy the rules of traditional theatre. They take a very top-down approach to this, usually starting with an unconventional (or at least a very new and very modern) script, and go from there. Usually, (Hung on a Blonde Ponytail, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll), that works well, but Raised in Captivity, despite an excellent cast, was not nearly the triumph of past BCKSEET shows the Phillyist staff has been fortunate to catch. Nicky Silver's script, though it had its moments, felt on the whole unwieldy and unpolished, asking more questions than it answered and clocking in at about half an hour too long.

There's something immensely satisfying about a well-constructed play—something that ensures that you will like the play, even if you don't enjoy every moment of it.

Is it just me, or is comedy even better when it's done with a Cockney accent?

Going from the title of the show alone, William Shakespeare's Land of the Dead isn't exactly a play you'd expect to take seriously. The script, written by John Heimbuch, is "a true and accurate account of the 1599 zombie invasion at the Globe Theatre," and juggles iambic pentameter with George C. Romero references, often to great comedic effect.

It's an interesting idea, casting some of Philadelphia's most recognizable musical and comedic actors in a play that's certainly neither of those things. But perhaps so dramatically recasting Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, as director Malcolm Black has done at the Walnut Street Theatre, is a smart idea: it distances us from the Marlon Brando/Vivien Leigh/Kim Hunter/Karl Malden casting we all know and allows us to take a fresh look at the show.

Another new writer joins us today: Daniel Wallace. Daniel is British. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Another new writer joins our ranks today. Tabitha Vidaurri moved to Philadelphia nine years ago to study at the University of the Arts and decided not to leave after graduation. We can't say we blame her. Tabitha loves theatre, sketch comedy, soft pretzels, old books, and a good IPA. We think she'll fit in nicely. Welcome, Tabitha!

Schmucks is the second Roy Smiles play that the Wilma has produced in as many years. And between it and last year's Ying Tong, two things are obvious about the playwright: he treats the comics who went before him as Greek Gods—Greek because his characters are infinitely fallible but still worthy of reverence—and that he has a healthy love for the absurd. Last year's production largely took place inside Spike Milligan's nervous breakdown; this year's includes a visit from the dead, performed as a comic ballet. What sets the shows apart, though, is that where last year's production failed to find its mark, this year's avoided many of the same pitfalls.

Russian literature has a bit of a bad rap. Well, perhaps not bad... nobody begrudges Tolstoy his place amongst the masters. But it certainly has a depressing rap. With War and Peace and Anna Karenina setting the standard for what we consider the Russian canon, nobody thinks to turn to the Russians for laughs.

If Jim Carrey would stop being a caricature of himself then maybe it would be a little easier to enjoy his films. He shines in his non-comedic stuff (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Truman Show), but his comic performances are so over the top and deliberate that sometimes the overacting is difficult to get past. Though even if he were able to take it down a notch, this movie still would have some problems.

It's hard not to have fun with Hairspray. The show lacks much of the charm, and the story, and all of the class, of an old-timey musical, but when done right, it's so fun and engaging that you're bound to enjoy the show more than just another production of The King and I.

The Mystery Plays by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, currently being staged by the Philadelphia Theatre Workshop, is an interesting work to wrap your head around: it is, at first at least, quite literally an evening of related-but-not-too-closely-linked mystery plays—two, to be exact. Only, they're not quite mystery plays: the first one is a tale of the supernatural that combines Hitchcock with George Romero—there is mystery there, but it seems almost secondary to the creepiness; the second, a family drama, is less a mystery than the story behind a cold case. The play is simultaneously exactly what its title indicates, and not what the title indicates at all.

I'm afraid I'm doing Nice People Theatre Co. a terrible disservice by only now posting this review. After all, I saw Psalms of a Questionable Nature almost a month ago. It closed November 9. But if nothing else, I hope that this review will be a testament to the consistently solid work that NPTC does.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: Phillyist's own Don Montrey is a funny, funny guy. I'm saying it now because Don also happened to be the head writer on 1812 Productions' This Is the Week That Is: The Election Special which itself is largely a funny, funny show.

Tom Stoppard sometimes makes me feel dumb. His 1966 play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is the only work of his with which I'm familiar that I don't feel I need footnotes for—and even that's only because I'm so familiar with its source material.

Leonard Bernstein's Candide isn't performed often, and whenever it is, it's usually been given a completely new book. The songs remain the same, as they say, but the script is ever-changing. The version of the show running at the Arden through this Sunday features a new book by John Caird that seems, finally, to have captured the feel of the original Voltaire work from which it was adapted.

Imagine a world where Catholic schoolboys just becoming aware of their sexuality and sexual identity choose to spend their off-hours reading and privately performing Shakespeare rather than playing sports or locking themselves in the bathroom with pornography. Improbable? Absolutely. But it's the world in which Shakespeare's R+J, playwright Joe Calarco's adaptation of what is possibly the world's most famous love story, is set.

I have to be honest here for a minute: I was pretty pessimistic about The Walnut's production of Les Miserables, more or less from the second it was announced as the season closer. It wasn't lack of faith in The Walnut that led to my lack of optimism. Rather, it was a familiarity: nothing about Les Mis—not the music, not the costumes, not the set*—is easy, and bad productions are far too common. Not only that, the better known a musical is, the greater the chance that the audience, used to hearing the original Broadway soundtrack, or having seen the production in London or New York, will be tough to please. Perhaps I should re-phrase my initial statement. It's not that I was pessimistic about The Walnut's production—it's just that I entered the theatre with a healthy sense of reality.

I remember wondering, when I read Thornton Wilder's Our Town in high school, how the play could possibly be interesting when staged. The script calls for no set, no props, and minimal scenery. It's something that only sometimes works in modern (as opposed to "Modern") theatre, so the idea of a play written in the thirties that takes place between 1901–1913 and uses the type of set typically reserved for performance art was, I'll admit, never especially interesting to me.

Once in a while, you'll hear the Philadelphia Theatre Company criticized for "playing it safe"—choosing plays or casting actors that will fill seats, and sacrificing quality in the process. I will neither agree nor disagree with that statement, but I will pose this question: if PTC always plays it safe, how can you explain The Happiness Lecture?

Students of classical studies take note: if you're heading to The Wilma Theater for some good old fashioned Greek mythology, prepare to be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised nonetheless.

Let me just begin this review by saying, simply, that there are only five performances of Azuka Theatre's production of John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch left, and that you should make sure you're at one of them.