By Beth Van Gelder Boston, MA - A rare opportunity exists to see “Henry VIII,” one of Shakespeare’s seldom-produced plays, at the Modern Theater at Suffolk University. Directed by Tina Packer, the Actors’ Shakespeare Project gives us a fine glimpse of this very complex Tudor monarch, played by Allyn Burroughs, two of his six wives — Katherine of Aragon (Tamara Hickey) and Anne Boleyn (Kathryn Miles) — and the proud, ambitious Cardinal Wolsey (Robert Walsh). An array of convincingly conniving nobleism and a delightfully charismatic fool (Bobbie Steinbech), complete the picture that leaves us with more questions than answers. This is not a surprise given that Shakespeare had also named this play, “All Is True.” Was Henry a highly cultured, enlightened despot, a visionary who saw through the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church? Or was he a cruel, self-indulgent hypocrite who used … [Read more...] about Henry VIII at the Modern Theater at Suffolk University
Theatre
Boston Lyric Opera’s The Magic Flute: In A New Key
By Elizabeth Michelman Boston, MA - Boston Lyric Opera presents The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart World Premiere, New English Language Adaptation (through October 13). The Boston Lyric Opera’s Magic Flute, in a new English language adaptation that world-premiered at the Shubert Theater Friday night, reveals the Tao of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart not through words but ultimately through the music itself. This contemporary reworking of Mozart’s final operatic fantasy, in performance through October 13th at the Shubert Theatre, updates the eighteenth-century libretto and resets the action among the Mayan ruins of the Yucatan. Within a mythic conflict of sun and moon, light and dark, order and chaos, four contemporary college students journey inward to find love and greater wisdom. Despite its brief eclipse at the beginning of the modern period, Mozart’s last and greatest … [Read more...] about Boston Lyric Opera’s The Magic Flute: In A New Key
Creatures at Touch Art Gallery
By James Foritano Cambridge, MA - If I seem a little out of breath, don’t worry; experimental theater does that to me. “Creatures,” staged by Boston Experimental Theatre (B.E.T.) at Pezhman Tavori’s recently opened Touch Art Gallery, worked its audience. Yours truly was obliged often to turn his neck and then his whole person to see actors who didn’t feel at all stage-bound, or even bound to a floor. Jared Wright, creature, could be found, as often as not, dialoguing with his partner creature, Lorna Nogueira, while hanging upside down from scaffolding intended to display arts and crafts. Ms. Nogeira, not to be “up-staged,” would, as often as not, attach herself to the acrobatic Mr. Wright, in order, I assumed, to keep their dialogue up-close and personal. Atefeh Nouri's bravura solo performance provided a fine coda to playwright, Mohammad Rezaee-Rad, based in Tehran, Iran. All … [Read more...] about Creatures at Touch Art Gallery
One Man, Two Guvnors at Lyric Stage
By James Foritano Boston, MA - “One Man, Two Guvnors” at the Lyric Stage resuscitates a tradition that goes back to Roman comedy and possible Greek antecedents, now lost. But the more immediate progenitor is Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni’s “The Servant of Two Masters.” Goldoni took a tradition of broad farce in 18th century Italy and up-dated it to a more sophisticated genre for urban audiences. He kept to the satiric types, instantly recognizable, that wowed the rustics but removed their masks to reveal the actor’s faces, and thus gave more scope to individual acting talent. Types such as the grasping, controlling father, the impetuous, love-lorne daughter/son; the imperious master and oppressed servant; the materialistic cleric and the cowardly braggart paraded in a universal and eternal dance of fools. A happy ending was de rigueur, but the viewer could believe it or … [Read more...] about One Man, Two Guvnors at Lyric Stage
Absurd Person Singular at the Central Square Theater
By James Foritano Cambridge, MA- Sir Alan Aycbourn’s play about three couples in the London of the 1970s climbing the social ladder through three successive Christmas parties is deliciously interpreted by the six actors who both partner and subvert each other’s efforts. Each couple, in this neatly contrived three act play, has its own act in which to star, in which to hold our attention as audience, not difficult, and their spouse’s attention almost impossible. In fact, so much mad motion does the social whirl impart to these dancing dervishes that they seem incapable of catching their own attention. In the first of three almost identical kitchens, David Berger Jones, as ‘Sydney,’ and Samantha Evans, as his wife ‘Jane,’ frenetically plan to make their Christmas party a success in terms of boosting Sydney’s nascent career as a real estate developer. Jane is determined to do … [Read more...] about Absurd Person Singular at the Central Square Theater
Q & A with Joi Gresham, Director and Co-Trustee of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust
by Lindsey Davis Boston, MA – Huntington Theater Company in Boston’s South End is currently performing Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” a play that first debuted in 1959. When Hansberry passed away in 1965, she named her former husband as her literary executor, and that man later remarried Joi Gresham’s mother. After his death Joi took on the role as the executive director of the Lorraine Hansberry Properties Trust. She manages all publications and staging of Lorraine’s work, which includes involvement in the Huntington Theater Company’s current performances. As the trustee of these important works of literature, Joi continues to speak about Lorraine, her activism and her continued relevance, even in “post-racial” America. DID YOU EVER MEET LORRAINE IN PERSON? WHETHER OR NOT YOU WERE ABLE TO, WHAT IMPRESSION HAS SHE LEFT ON YOU? At the age of 34, Lorraine … [Read more...] about Q & A with Joi Gresham, Director and Co-Trustee of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust