by LIZ BYRON Who has a bear-fighting love interest, a crossdressing sister, a father addicted to gambling, a trio of near-identical suitors, a major case of indecision, and some seriously fancy fur coats? Arabella does. The titular character of the Richard Strauss’ opera (libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal) must fumble her way through some pretty major cases of miscommunication,…
by MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN This Is A World To Live In drops the audience without net into a peculiar hybrid of event, installation and performance. Even the ushering of the attendees into the space is performative. A concierge of sorts in a white t-shirt and suspenders surveys the waiting crowd and selects people by twos…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Sure, saving the universe sounds awesome. Superpowers, space travel, battling aliens… there’s no down side, right? Well, as it turns out for Bruce and Violet Wong, all this superhero stuff is actually kind of stressful. Just as stressful, in fact, as it is to be an awkward, sci-fi loving middle schooler. In…
by LIZ BYRON Brahman/i: A One-Hijra Stand-Up Comedy Show is one of a trilogy of plays by local playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil being premiered by Mixed Blood Theatre. The series is called Displaced Hindu Gods, and also includes pieces The Chronicles of Kalki and Shiv; all three plays are based around the concept of the…
by MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN Orpheus is one of the great boneheads of literature; a man who just cannot follow directions. A musician and poet, he falls in love with Eurydice. At the wedding celebration, she dies (in the original myth, she’s chased by a satyr and falls into a nest of vipers) and ends up…
by MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN Lee Blessing’s Perilous Night is a peculiar play. There is a sensation of being pushed headlong into a combination of Octavia Butler’s time traveling race critique Kindred & Don Coscarelli‘s poignant absurdist Bubba Ho-Tep (which finds two extended care patients, who believe they are, respectively, JFK and Elvis, fighting a mummy). The…
A child of the ‘80s, I prepared for Children’s Theatre Company’s production of Charlotte’s Web by recalling the ‘70s animated movie. Templeton the rat rolling in fair food came to mind, and so too did Wilbur the runt prancing around the farm with a duckling on his snout. As the day came closer, I began singing “Lots in Common”…
by SOPHIE KERMAN David Lindsay-Abaire‘s Good People is a funny, scathing commentary on class privilege – but not for the reasons you might expect. Set in South Boston, Good People sets itself up as an answer to the classic question of whether social mobility is based on the all-American ideals of intelligence and hard work, or whether you…
The 2013-2014 season at the Guthrie Theater‘s Wurtele Thrust Stage opens with a production of the Russian classic Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov. It’s a fairly safe bet, since the play has enjoyed considerable popularity and critical acclaim since it first debuted in Moscow in 1899. This is with good reason; Chekhov‘s story is comic enough to be entertaining, and dramatic enough…
by SOPHIE KERMAN In the artistic process, from the initial spark of an idea to the final performance of a show, a lot can go wrong. Moon Show 143, in a limited run at the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio, began as an intriguing idea: an exploration of humankind’s relationship to the moon. Adding puppets and an electronic soundtrack to…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 