Transforming major novels into viable stage plays presents challenges for adapters and performance companies, alike. Aside from the need to condense entire chapters into scenes without making the play appear like a Cliff Notes version, preserving the tone and voice of a novel in stage form and delivering the conflict/resolution aspects of viable theatre within … Continue reading
Posted in October 2013 …
Mucking About with Sir Kenneth Branagh: “Macbeth” on NTLive
Sir Kenneth goes mucking about, and offers nothing new or exciting for his pains. The National Theatre Live screenings present William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, co-directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford for the Manchester International Festival, produced in a deconsecrated Victorian church. In his cozy pre-show chat with NT Live’s host, Ashford reveals that … Continue reading
Solid Gold in “Hank Williams: Lost Highway” at WaterTower Theatre
Hank Williams, or Kurt Cobain? Nobody held guns to their heads and forced them to overdose on booze or drugs. But we still wax mournful over their untimely deaths. Car and airplane crashes, jealous fans, drugs, booze, depression, suicide. Americans find the often sordid, sad lives, and deaths, of celebrity idols ideal subject material for … Continue reading
NT Live’s “Othello”: The Beast in the Desert
NT Live makes good once again on its bold promise of quality, audience-accessible stage performance. London’s incomparable National Theatre offers a contemporary “concept production” of William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy “Othello” that makes the 16th century play feel as if it were written today, as edgy and raw as anything composed fresh on the latest version … Continue reading
Trigger Happy at Theatre Three: Assassins
Squeeze that little finger. “Sic semper tyrannis!” shouts John Wilkes Booth from offstage. It’s not just killing. It’s assassination…. Is there a creepy chill in this theatre? Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins really bothers me. It’s not just the subject matter, which is pretty disturbing. It feels disjointed, with the characters and scenes disconnected … Continue reading
Happy Days for Stephanie Dunnam: Sparking A Thespian Connection
As ephemeral, astonishing and palpable as a sudden flare-up of aurora borealis: bask in the glow of the special chemistry some actors brew up on stage. When WingSpan Theatre Company’s Producing Artistic Director Susan Sargeant decided to mount Samuel Beckett’s two person play “Happy Days” (opening October 11 at the Bath House Cultural Center), she … Continue reading
criticalrant.com Alexandra Bonifield 