Penning a stage review of the eminent play THE GLASS MENAGERIE by Tennessee Williams makes me feel like a humble commoner staring into my modest closet’s thrift store contents after receiving an invitation to an audience with the Queen of England. Overwhelmed. Will I reach inside and draw out anything worthy and credible, up to … Continue reading
Tagged with Bob Lavallee …
Tragedy of Convention: Cara Mia Theatre’s BLOOD WEDDING, Human Enough
Federico Garcia Lorca. Blood Wedding. Cara Mia Theatre Company. Duty v. Desire. Moments of breath-taking beauty implode into explosions of anguished desolation throughout the tragedy, burning deep into the senses of those who attend this morality masque, a ritualized soul cleansing with proto-feminist overtones. Through December 13 at Dallas’ Latino Cultural Center. An internationally recognized … Continue reading
From mountaintop to gutter: Dallas Theater Center strikes gold and out
Running through November 15 at the Studio Theatre at the Wyly Theatre, Katori Hall’s Broadway hit and 2010 Olivier Award winner The Mountaintop demonstrates how a properly mounted, carefully-crafted work of fantasy based loosely on real life events can manifest as some of the finest dramatic entertainment on a local stage. Dallas Theater Center came … Continue reading
Neither Virgin Nor Whore: WIT at Theatre Arlington
We need more plays like “W;t”, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer prize for Drama by Margaret Edson, about a professor of literature facing her impending death through the lens of her life’s embrace. Vivian is neither virgin nor whore. The only pedestal she stands on is one of her own making. She isn’t any version … Continue reading
Amphibian’s “Fiction” by Steven Dietz, A Marital Deconstruction
Not hard to tell fact from fiction in Amphibian Stage’s production of “Fiction”, Steven Dietz’s play about diaries and relationship. Fact: when two of north Texas’ most skilled, creative actors, Lydia Mackay and Jakie Cabe, negotiate the challenges presented by the convoluted twists and turns of Dietz’s 2002 script with nuanced artistry and smooth style, … Continue reading
At the Threshold of the Divine: Seeing “Red”
“What do you see?” More of a probing, raw demand than a question, the opening line in John Logan’s 2009 two actor bio-drama about American abstract painter Mark Rothko, delivered by the artist at lights up, his back to audience, demands full attention. It should rivet an audience’s eyes to the huge blank canvas upstage … Continue reading
Rambo or Gekko? Shakespeare Dallas Does “Macbeth”
Does Macbeth project as Rambo or Gordon Gekko? This is not a trick question. In Shakespeare’s tragedy “Macbeth”, an injured sergeant describes the title character’s conduct on the field of battle early in the play: ”For brave Macbeth, … Disdaining fortune, with his brandisht steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour’s minion, Carved out … Continue reading
Where Life Is Beautiful: DTC’s Cabaret
Director/ choreographer Joel Ferrell just unleashed a hair-raising Cabaret that provokes intense primal response, entertains with original creative interpretation and inspires somber reflection about man’s capacity for evil. Roiling with multi-sexual erotica and drug-laced hedonism, Dallas Theater Center’s production smokes with choreographed throbbing, pulsating groins (male, female, tranny) while revealing fascism’s gain of insidious domination … Continue reading
criticalrant.com Alexandra Bonifield 