Reviews

Theater review | "Spring Awakening" delivers a rollicking wake-up call

Susan Hilferty — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:28:00 +0000

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
By Misha Berson
Seattle Times theater critic
Theater Review

Blake Bashoff as Moritz in the touring cast of "Spring Awakening," on stage at the Paramount through Sunday.

From "Mama Who Bore Me," the plaintive, sweetly sung lament that opens the show, to the wild eruptions of thrashing angst in rockin' stompers like "The Bitch of Living," the musical "Spring Awakening" is an enthralling theatrical bash that ratchets the stakes of so-called youth musicals way, way up.

'Spring Awakening'

Susan Hilferty — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Angela Reed (left) and Christy Altomare in "Spring Awakening." (Katy Raddatz / The Chronicle)

Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

A young teen croons plaintively about the wonders of her blossoming body as she dresses for school. Her schoolmates rock the song into an intense chorus of frustration. A classroom of ramrod-stiff boys erupts from their desks in Bill T. Jones' explosive choreography to the dynamic rhythms emanating from musical director Jared Stein's onstage band.

Hilarity and horror thrive in 'Bette and Boo'

Susan Hilferty — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:24:00 +0000

The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

NEW YORK: Abject misery has never been choreographed with such wit and pizazz as it is in the new production of Christopher Durang's "The Marriage of Bette and Boo."
This Roundabout Theatre Company revival, now on view at off-Broadway's Laura Pels Theatre, is ebulliently directed by Tony Award-winner Walter Bobbie. The difficulties of their union, presented in 33 swift scenes over the course of 30 years, play like a candy-coated therapy session. As narrated by Bette and Boo's son, Matt (a stand-in for playwright Durang) the plot dips and twirls from hilarity to horror in equal measure.

Do You, Bette, Take Boo for a Life of Misery That We’ll Laugh At?

Susan Hilferty — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:00:00 +0000

July 14, 2008

THEATER REVIEW | ‘THE MARRIAGE OF BETTE AND BOO’

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
"The Marriage of Bette and Boo," Christopher Durang’s dark comedy, has Kate Jennings Grant and Christopher Evan Welch, center, in a Roundabout show at the Laura Pels.

“Little blessings!” titters one of the female characters in satisfaction in “The Marriage of Bette and Boo,” Christopher Durang’s carousel of horrors masquerading as a bubbly comedy. Little blessings? You would need a superpowered microscope to detect the glimmers of benevolence, charity or happiness glinting amid the misery in this breezy cavalcade of scenes from a dreadful marriage, first produced in 1985. It should be noted that the affable woman who makes that exclamation about life’s sweet gifts has just gone deaf, and this affliction is among the cheerier events in the play.

Vengeance Revisited, With Singing

Susan Hilferty — Sat, 31 May 2008 22:35:00 +0000

May 31, 2008

THEATER REVIEW | 'THE VISIT'

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

ARLINGTON, Va. — The macabre and the misty-eyed vie uneasily for supremacy in “The Visit,” a musical adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1956 tragicomedy about vengeance and venality, at the Signature Theater here.

Chita Rivera, celebrated for her long career as a Broadway dancer-actress, plays Claire Zachanassian, the much-married megamillionairess who returns to her hometown with more on her mind than happy reunions. Claire, you may recall, has lost at least an arm and a leg — literally — as she has piled up husbands and oil wells in the course of a long, profitable life. That is a pity, given Ms. Rivera’s ability to rivet the eye with the flare of a calf muscle, even after more than a half-century onstage. As Claire, she shimmies and slinks glamorously, but only hitches up her long skirts and lets loose for a few lively moments in the second act.

Dancing in The Dark: 'The Visit' With Chita Rivera

Susan Hilferty — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:24:00 +0000

By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 29, 2008

You get Chita Rivera, you expect a bit of razzle-dazzle. For the longest time in Signature Theatre's austere musical adaptation of "The Visit," the show obscures this essential facet of its star's appeal -- until partway into Act 2, when she's allowed to shed some of the production's stony resolve and finesse her way through a comical little tango.
The warmth of the dance number -- snazzily choreographed by none other than Ann Reinking -- is intentionally out of step with the macabre progress of the rest of this admirable if not consistently embraceable musical, created by composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb and librettist Terrence McNally a few years prior to Ebb's death in 2004. And so it's doubly gratifying to behold a hoofer of terrific gams and mature vintage (Rivera's well into her 70s) beguiling a room merely by jogging the collective memory of her fabulous leg extensions.

Spring Awakening Tour

Susan Hilferty — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:40:00 +0000

By: Dan Bacalzo
Mar 20, 2008
Touring Productions

The Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening will have a pre-national tour West Coast premiere at San Diego's historic Balboa Theatre, August 15-31, before officially launching at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco on September 4. Casting will be announced at a later date.

Who Will Stop a Tyrant if His Enemies Just Sit and Sulk?

Susan Hilferty — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:26:00 +0000

March 12, 2008

THEATER REVIEW | 'CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM'

By BEN BRANTLEY

Brian Dennehy, left, and Aidan Quinn in “Conversations in Tusculum.” The play is set in villas outside of Rome in the months before Caesar’s assassination.

These guys look awful: haggard, unsmiling, glassy-eyed. As convincingly embodied by an illustrious crew that includes Brian Dennehy, Aidan Quinn and David Strathairn, the noble Romans of Richard Nelson’s “Conversations in Tusculum,” which opened Tuesday night at the Public Theater, have a ragged aspect that insomniacs will recognize immediately. It comes from sleeping too little and thinking too much.

What Cicero, Brutus and Cassius haven’t stopped doing is talking, exhaustingly and in circles, which is both their strength and their weakness. The same might be said of this quiet, angry play about political paralysis in a republic headed for hell.

He’s Seen the Enemy, and It’s Here at Home

Susan Hilferty — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:49:00 +0000

From left, Stephen Barker Turner, Matt McGrath, Johanna Day and Samantha Soule.directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman.

January 29, 2008
THEATER REVIEW | 'THE EVILDOERS'
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

NEW HAVEN — With the dollar plummeting in world markets, a recession looming and America-bashing on the rise abroad, the time is ripe for plays discussing the sick soul of the country and offering prescriptions for its cure. One of the first out of the gate is “The Evildoers” by David Adjmi, having its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theater here in a slick, hard-charging production

Sex and Rock? What Would the Kaiser Think?

Susan Hilferty — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 21:17:00 +0000

December 11, 2006

THEATER REVIEW | 'SPRING AWAKENING'

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

Lea Michele, left, and Jonathan Graff star in "Spring Awakening," which opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater.

Think of the Broadway musical, its past, present or future, and any number of phrases may spring to mind, depending on your affection for this embattled but persistent form of popular entertainment.

The great American art form. Karaoke nightmare. Bring the kids, leave the I.Q. at home. Another op’nin, another revival.

Probably nobody thinks: pure sex.