To continue my weirdly thematic Fringe experience, today I saw three plays about the things you can learn when on a journey. From the underworld to ancient Greece to contemporary immigrants, the who and the where seems less important than the what: a lot of truths get revealed when you put yourself in a different…
Like Sophie wrote about her Fringe experiences yesterday, I did not intend to have a “theme day”, but I did: I wound up seeing two one-woman shows. However, I can’t really compare them, because the similarities kind of end there. Lord of the Files, written and performed at the Theatre Garage by Lesley Tsina, is a…
Fringe 2013 has something for everyone! Katharina Von Bora, the story of the runaway nun and widow of Martin Luther, is the just the sort of play I would take my feminist grandmother to. Minnesota has its share of Lutherans, so I was not surprised to see that that the opening night was so well…
Welcome to Day 1 of Fringe, where every show looks great and you haven’t yet memorized the pre-show announcements! This is the first in a long series of posts between now and August 11, so keep checking back as we see more and more shows. I don’t like to intentionally theme my Fringe viewing experience,…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Director Joe Dowling and the entire cast and crew of the Guthrie Theater’s Pride and Prejudice can surely be proud of their stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. The play is hugely entertaining, unexpectedly hilarious–while remaining true to the novel’s more thoughtful themes–and can…
Gadfly Theatre’s newest production, QUEER! starts out as a sort of “GLBT 101”, but eventually transcends that and becomes a touching piece about the realization that many of the challenges GLBT-identified folk face come from within the queer community itself. As a reviewer, I find this a challenging piece to write about, because I can…
By MIRA REINBERG Even for those of us who are not devotees of Emily Dickinson, the life and consciousness of the poet remain a fascinating riddle. The historical period in which she lived – mid- to late nineteenth-century – was able to offer abundant documentation in the form of recorded accounts and letters, archived publications,…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Poor Sherlock Holmes! With the number of literary, theatrical, and cinematic re-imaginings he’s gone through since his inception in 1887, the man has a lot of baggage. His latest incarnation by Jeffrey Hatcher is “despondent”, as if the past century of crime-solving exploits has just about worn him out, but of course a new…
By MIRA REINBERG France in the eighteenth century was a hothouse for philosophical investigation and scientific inquiry. But in order to cultivate the mind and reap the benefits of the explosive intellectual environment of the age of Enlightenment, one would have to be of an origin that granted a title or wealth, preferably both. Certainly…
by SOPHIE KERMAN On the opening night of URINETOWN: the Musical, Jungle Theater Artistic Director Bain Boehlke proclaimed that this was sure to be the “runaway hit of the summer.” Artistic hubris? No, Boehlke is absolutely right. With a brutally sharp message and a five-star cast that can sing and dance like Lyndale Ave is the next…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 