Upshot X 2

By Luke Edward
Publisher’s note — This is our second review of this play, both Luke and I attended the production.
Spotlight center — a Man atop a stone, gun in hand, as music reminiscent of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odessey plays about. It is a gloomy beginning, creating a mystique about the stage [...]

Vamp Style

Dracula
By Walter Ruff
Synetic Theater’s unique performance style is a composite of the arts, blending drama, movement, dance, mime, and music — it is no wonder then that its production of Dracula is swarming with erotic imagery and sensual choreography. It is unfortunate though that this show never defines itself as either an erotic tale of [...]

The Trial – Scena

By: Luke Edward

Terrence Heffernan and Christopher Moss terrorize Christopher Henley in “The Trial.” Light.
A steady gloom settles casually to our shoulders, and suddenly twelve step upon the stage. As the white of the overhead artificial sun sets, we feel as though this dozen has stepped up to the gallows, awaiting their demise, as though [...]

More Than Just Laughs at Clark Street

By: Walter Ruff

The Boys Next Door by Tom Griffin is the kind of play that makes you laugh in an uneasy way. One question this wonderfully acted production asks is pointed and direct — can a play about four mentally challenged men living together in a small apartment be humorous without the focus of the [...]

Alexa’s Necklace: the Trick is Context

By: Luke Edward

Suffering can be humorous; this the Three Stooges understood. The trick is context. Generally, being involved in a car wreck is not funny. Curly, sprinting from a knife-wielding gorilla, is. Natural Theatrical’s latest presentation, Alexa’s Necklace, an original work by Paula Alprin (of Natural Theatricals) and directed by Susan Alison Keady, is a [...]

It Had To Be You – ACT

By: Walter Ruff

Do you ever just want to see a good comedy, one where the laughs come easy and the characters are like people you know or wish you did? I suggest you get on the phone and buy a pair of tickets to It Had To Be You currently being staged by American Century [...]

Top Performances For The Girls

Top Girls
By: Walter Ruff

Margaret Thatcher’s England of the 80s has a lot in common with George Bush’s America of 2005. It is those similarities that make Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls a play that is relevant today and quite possibly into the foreseeable future because, while times have changed, the basic human desire to be successful [...]