“The Taming of the Shrew” is infamously difficult to adapt due to its violent misogyny, but director Christopher V. Edwards flips the script with Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s gender-bending production. The setting is modernized to a red-hued ‘70s Disco with fun and colorful costuming thanks to Ben Lieberson and ​​Chelsea Kerl. The show stays faithful to Shakespeare’s text with only two major divergences that still manage to shift the entire narrative: the character of Sly and the ending. In the original’s often-cut introduction, the drunk Sly is duped into believing he is a nobleman for whom the subsequent play-within-a-play is performed. Here Sly, played by Michael Broadhurst, is instead convinced he is a woman and thrust into performing as Katherine, the titular shrew. Broadhurst has been cast as the only man playing against women and nonbinary actors. Sly is tricked by the Disco’s … [Read more...] about A MODERNIZED ‘SHREW’ ACTORS’ SHAKESPEARE PROJECT SHIFTS THE NARRATIVE

Authored by Hansol Jung, and directed by SeonJae Kim, “Wild Goose Dreams,” currently playing in the Roberts Studio Theatre of the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, is the acting out of a love affair between two Koreans. One, from the north, is Yoo Nanhee, a dutiful daughter living in the south after a tortuous escape, played by Eunji Lim. The other, Guk Minsung, acted by Jeffrey Song, tries to be a dutiful father holding a job in South Korea so that he can send money back to his wife and daughter in Connecticut, thereby enabling them to navigate the choppy seas of American capitalism. What makes their affair interesting, indeed captivating, is the balancing act both the principles must perform at every moment of their affair between eking out a living and living in a state as near as possible to romance, even, not to be corny, ‘True Love.’ On one … [Read more...] about SPEAKEASY STAGE BRINGS “WILD GOOSE DREAMS” TO THE BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS

It’s a very intelligent play, is “Jado Jehad.” And it certainly shows — especially in the character of the Pakistani grandmother, Manzoor — how powerful culture is in both protecting us from life’s vicissitudes and exposing us to the torments of our own and the bearers of other cultures — especially if these other-culture bearers are family, to wit, Manzoor’s own daughter and grand-daughter. Fatima A. Maan’s play was performed at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre from February 16 through 26. It was directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary. Manzoor, played by Jyoti Daniere, has been dunked from a childhood in less global times in an old and highly complex culture to the nerve-endings of every tip of every finger. What she is not prepared for is an American-educated grand-daughter and a daughter whose upbringing was somehow, even without a stay in America, affected by the hegemony of … [Read more...] about MAAN EXPOSES CENTRAL STRUGGLES OF SHRINKING BUT NOT YET WIDELY TOLERANT WORLD IN JADO JEHAD AT BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS’ THEATRE

It must have been coming on six o’clock, after a short Green Line ride from Comm. Ave. I alighted at the corner of our Public Garden still beautiful with greenery, water, flowers and people strolling about. Perhaps more gorgeous as the fall season was about to glow with last colors then drop to ground. It looked especially significant to me because I was heading for Park Street to catch the Red Line home to Cambridge with thoughts to chew on, thoughts of a play I’d just seen at Boston University’s Boston Playwrights’ Theater that was also full of both hope and angst, just like the towering elms, rooted deep, but heading towards winter — would they make it to another spring? “Eat Your Young,” a Boston University New Play Initiative production, and a new play by J.C, Pankratz, directed by Shamus and produced by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and the Boston University College of … [Read more...] about PREMIER OF J.C. PAKRATZ’S EAT YOUR YOUNG OPENS 2022-23 BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS’ THEATER SEASON AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre was closing a very short run here in Boston, only four performances at the Boch Center Wang Theater from April 28-May 1 when my wife Madeleine and I sat together on aisle seats, row L for the Sunday matinee. It was a gorgeously warm and sunny spring day as we walked down Tremont Street from the Park Street Red Line stop, savoring views of Boston Common budding into a feast of green as troops of students were passing us by in gossamer spring dresses with gossamer youth gaiety. It was no sacrifice at all to enter the indoor spaces of a theater since we’d already had a very pleasant walk and Alvin Ailey Dance is always a rare, complex pleasure. They always have so many layered artistic impressions that they always make it seem, to this writer, as though he’d have to have a suite of hands all typing at once to articulate his … [Read more...] about ALVIN AILEY THEATRE KEEPS AMERICAN DANCE MOVING; “LET’S DANCE BOSTON!” CAPS CELEBRITY SERIES SEASON