Most theatre companies line up as either devotees of drama or musicals. Keegan Theatre stakes its reputation on embracing and producing both. The company’s work is often strong and compelling. However, with National Pastime, the company has fallen into the sin of bad musical comedy: the actors are having more fun on stage than we are in the audience. [Read more...]

Sometimes you just get lucky.   A small theatre, a new play, a young actor, a sleeting night. Going out to theatre can seem a gamble not worth the pains. But tonight it all came together, and audiences who ventured to Keegan Theatre’s world premiere of Basra Boy were treated to the real deal. Both play and performance are terrific. [Read more...]

The Keegan Theatre’s new production of The Weir grabs you from the start, almost before you know it. Bright yet dark, simple yet complex, emotional yet cerebral, Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s beautifully sculpted miniature masterpiece explores, with a deceptively light touch, the darker recesses of the human heart which, as Blaise Pascal observed, knows things that the mind cannot comprehend. [Read more...]

Peter Coy’s new play A Shadow of Honor strives to explore the impact of the stresses of war both directly on its participants and indirectly on their loved ones.   He portrays two families living a century apart, inhabiting the same home in Nelson County, Virginia.  It is an intriguing idea, but one that only has mixed success in its world premiere production at the Keegan Theatre. [Read more...]

We know it’s best to stay true to who we are. But we also know that it’s worth fighting a passionate fight to steer the course of who we become. On the thin line between these two truths stands Joe Bonaparte, a promising musician with sensitive hands who finds, in the boxing ring, that he has a knack for the knockout. In one hand, a violin; in the other, a pair of broken-in punching gloves. [Read more...]

Sam Shepard’s high octane physicality and rowdy text can make mincemeat out of the most seasoned directors so I frankly wasn’t looking for a lot from an actor turned director for Keegan’s production of Fool For Love.  But shame on me for underestimating the efforts of one of the finest theater companies in the metro area.  Colin Smith delivered the goods with this one.  With cowboy boots and spurs to match. [Read more...]

Stella is your average Belfast Catholic working class woman.  She worries about her son, Thomas, takes care of her two cats, and listens to dead people for a living.  While that makes her the more interesting of the two characters performing interlocking monologues in a bare bones setting at Church Street Theatre, this one act character study may not be enough to attract an audience to Stella Morgan. [Read more...]

Robin Housemonger, Britain’s old warhouse of a playwright, has reached the absolute nadir of his miserable oeuvre with Nothing On, which is apparently a farce about fish. Otstar Productions inflicts it on us for three acts, utilizing a cast which is either drunk or insane, or, in the case of Mrs. Clackett (Dotty Otley), both…. [Read more...]

There Are Little Kingdoms is a collection of stories all taking place in County Cork, Ireland on a single day.  While some are mildly interesting and artfully rendered, overall the work is disconnected and lacks dramatic impact. [Read more...]

A simple man who has lived his entire life within his books finally enters the real world, only to find it is not nearly as welcoming or romantic as he hoped. Keegan Theatre’s A Man of No Importance charts the poignant journey of Dublin bus conductor Alfie Byrne as he navigates the emotional minefield of real life and finally learns how to “Love Who You Love.” [Read more...]