by SOPHIE KERMAN “Provocative” is too cliché a word to describe Neighbors, the Mixed Blood‘s season opener. Although the publicity materials for this recent play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins use words like “subversive,” “real,” and “scathing,” the Mixed Blood has earned the right to tell it like it is: this ensemble will sneak up behind you, rip you…
Welcome to Aisle Say Twin Cities, the new offshoot blog of AisleSay.com, an internet resource for theater reviews across the country. At Aisle Say Twin Cities, we strive for reviews that push Minneapolis and St. Paul to provide consistently high-quality theater. You can read more about us on the “About” page. We hope our reviews…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Whether you want to spend two hours at the Walking Shadow Theatre Company‘s production of reasons to be pretty depends entirely on the company you keep. As one would expect from a Neil LaBute play, reasons is centered on four unpleasant people and the unpleasant things they do to one another. If…
by SOPHIE KERMAN A good director knows his or her audience, and although the Guthrie Theater‘s latest Shakespearean adaptation failed for me on several levels, I have to give director Joe Dowling credit where credit is due. As far as I could tell, the audience at the opening night of Much Ado About Nothing mostly consisted of…
by SOPHIE KERMAN and ANNA ROSENSWEIG Theatre Pro Rata made an interesting choice by producing Cat’s Paw, a play about domestic eco-terrorism, in the midst of our nation-wide remembrances on the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. The play, updated in 2010 by playwright William Mastrosimone from the 1985 original, turns out to be quite…
by SOPHIE KERMAN and ANNA ROSENSWEIG With a subtitle like, “An edible opera touring to a community garden near you,” we didn’t necessarily expect to come away from a performance of Alcina’s Island: A Picnic Operetta wondering if it might just be the best thing we’ll see all season. Staged in gardens across the Twin…
by SOPHIE KERMAN As I scanned the crowds while waiting in line for tickets at this year’s Minnesota Fringe Festival, listening in on conversations and taking mental notes on which of the 168 productions I really should not miss, it occurred to me that aside from its obvious entertainment value, going to Fringe is a…
by SOPHIE KERMAN and ANNA ROSENSWEIG The Flying Foot Forum, a percussive dance/theatre company directed by Joe Chvala, took on a very ambitious project with Heaven: to portray the complicated politics and deep suffering of 1990s Bosnia through dance, music, and drama. It was clear from the outset of this production, which played at the…
by SOPHIE KERMAN and ANNA ROSENSWEIG While navigating the winding road to the Centennial Showboat for the Frank Theatre production of Cabaret, we remarked that one of the things that makes theater-going special is the process of getting there. Unlike reading a book in your living room or going to a convenient showing at your…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Sometimes, it’s good to leave a theater a little bit dissatisfied. The Sandbox Theatre‘s interpretation of Fargo– which they rightly call “more inspiration than adaptation” – is highly unsatisfying for exactly the right reason: there isn’t enough of it. The production, just an hour long, is so varied and unexpected that the…
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