Apr 28, 2020
Dispatches From Elsewhere
seen from Japan
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Mexico
seen from Switzerland
seen from France
seen from Switzerland
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Switzerland
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Yemen
seen from Yemen
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Japan
Dispatches From Elsewhere
12 Chairs and 2 Actors = 1 Enjoyable Play
12 Chairs and 2 Actors = 1 Enjoyable Play
I saw a play last weekend that I’d like to recommend. It’s called 12 Chairs (not to be confused with the Russian story with a similar name), and it’s playing at Buttonwood Studios in the Callowhill or Loft District just north of Chinatown.
12 Chairs, a one-act play written by John O’Hara,tells the story of daughter Louise and her mother Ann from the time Louise is seven years old until Ann…
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The It Girl -- Simpatico at the Lou Bluver Theatre at the Drake
The It Girl — Simpatico at the Lou Bluver Theatre at the Drake
It’s called “It.”
It’s undefinable. Different people would characterize it in different ways. You can’t acquire it, rehearse for it, copy it.
“It” is “it.” You know it when you see it, and if the right person sees it, the person possessing “it” is headed for success.
The discovery of “It” changes the life for the young woman Amanda Schoonover plays in a new piece, “The It Girl,” that Schoonover…
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Rizzo -- Theatre Exile at Christ Church Neighborhood House
Rizzo — Theatre Exile at Christ Church Neighborhood House
Frank Rizzo is such an indelible figure, 24 years is not enough time to erase his image or the force of his personality from the people who followed his exploits as cop, police commissioner, and mayor of Philadelphia.
Capturing all Frank Rizzo was, or even the essence of what he was, in a stage production is a gargantuan effort. You have to contain a larger-than-life man in a finite space. You…
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The Hairy Ape -- EgoPo Classic Theater at The Latvian Society
The Hairy Ape — EgoPo Classic Theater at The Latvian Society
Fueled by an extraordinary performance by Matteo Scammell as Yank, Brenna Geffers’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Hairy Ape” for EgoPo is a magnificent example of how expressionistic stylization can perfectly match a dramatist’s script and lead to powerful, exciting theater.
“The Hairy Ape” is a tricky play. Though it comes in the middle of O’Neill’s prolific early period, and O’Neill was…
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The Glass Menagerie -- Act II Playhouse
The Glass Menagerie — Act II Playhouse
The sad lucklessness of the Wingfield family of FDR-era St. Louis resonates deeply through James J. Christy’s production of “The Glass Menagerie” for Act II Playhouse.
All of Amanda’s plans and efforts go awry more inevitably and poignantly in this production of the Tennessee Williams classic than in most. Tom’s opening speech, in which he introduces the memory play to unfold seems to emphasize…
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La Bête -- Arden Theatre
All begins well with Emmanuelle Delpech’s production of “La Bête” at Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre.
That is if you don’t count the gratuitously bizarre antics of Amanda Schoonover as Dorine, the maid, in David Hirson’s treatise on the arts, presented, like French comedy, in rhymed couplets.
Or the clanky, circusy tone of the music in Jorge Cousineau’s sound design.
Ian Merrill Peakes and James…
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