by James Foritano BOSTON, MA--It’s an unimposing facade and a small stage inside the Boston Playwrights’ Theater at 949 Commonwealth Avenue, so if you take your cues from looks and size, you’re not prepared at all for the tragic grandeur of “Brawler,” authored by Walt McGough, and directed in a world premiere collaboration with Kitchen Theatre Company by M. Bevin O’Gara. Tragedy, rightly understood, doesn’t seem to appeal to us anymore, the way it did to the ancient Greeks or to Shakespeare. We cherish our “innocence” and bad things just seem to happen to innocent people without their connivance — like extreme weather and ambushes with heavy weapons. Very bad luck, in other words, but unavoidable. The four characters in “Brawler” are, to different degrees, anything but innocent, in spite of the fact that they are all more or less dedicated to nothing more harmful than … [Read more...] about WALT MCGOUGH’S BRAWLER AT THE BOSTON PLAYWRIGHT THEATRE

by James Foritano BOSTON, MA--Claudia Rankine’s The White Card, playing through April 1 at the Emerson Paramount Center on the Robert J. Orchard Stage, is about both the privileges of whiteness in a multi-racial society and the enervating struggles of a family in conflict and confrontation. Either one of these themes is huge enough to be handled alone, but both at once, however deftly explored, seemed, to this reviewer to overwhelm rather than enlighten. “Charles,” Daniel Gerroll’s character, is a prosperous developer of everything between and including the polar opposites of hospitals and private prisons, trying to live down the conflict between the nurturing and punishing aspects of these institutions by establishing a foundation which aspires to collect and forefront black art and artists. “Charlotte,” played by Karen Pittman, is a black artist invited for dinner … [Read more...] about THE WHITE CARD AT THE EMERSON PARAMOUNT CENTER