by KAREN BORCHERT, guest reviewer The musical parody of the 1936 film by the same name, Reefer Madness, presented by Minneapolis Musical Theatre and Hennepin Theatre Trust, is well-timed given the sensation around marijuana legislation in recent months. The 1936 film, which warned of the evils of the “leafy green substance,” had somewhat of a cult following for its…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE For Jane Austen fans and readers of her romantic novel, Emma, the central challenge is to overcome your distaste for Emma’s patronizing, meddling matchmaking in order to understand the onerous class distinctions that characterized everyday interactions between neighbors, family members and friends in the early 1800s. For local playwrights, Savage Umbrella’s Laura Leffler-McCabe and…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Although the Jungle Theater‘s decision to produce Venus in Fur may be capitalizing on the spotlight “50 Shades of Grey” has placed on BDSM relationships, David Ives’s play – which pre-dates the publication of “50 Shades” by about a year – has greater ambitions than simply titillating its viewers. A play about a theatrical adaptation of Leopold…
by MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN The two productions that constituted “Puppet Weekend” with my toddler daughter were startlingly different approaches to celebrating the natural world. In attempting to figure how to write about the performances, I thought about Kid Enkidu’s inclusion of a bit of Walt Whitman’s poetry and the contrast between his writing and Emily…
by SOPHIE KERMAN The Minnesota Opera has done a brave thing by commissioning John Patrick Shanley and Douglas J. Cuomo to write an opera based on Shanley’s Pulitzer- & Tony-winning play (and Oscar-nominated movie) Doubt. With the amount of acclaim the play and the movie have gotten over the years, a third adaptation could be seen as either redundant or…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE The Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company’s staging and interpretation of William Shakespeare’s whimsical romantic comedy, As You Like It, is wonderfully inventive, superbly acted and suprisingly accessible to modern audiences. Everything from the mystical set design, roaring twenties costume vibe, musical interludes and the modern cadence of the monologues cleverly evokes Shakespeare’s motifs…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Though widely acclaimed as an American masterpiece and one of Eugene O’Neill‘s greatest plays, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is not a play that anyone particularly enjoys watching. The story of the Tyrone family’s struggles with addiction, money, and illness, Long Day’s Journey begins on a note of underlying anxiety and ends with the dissolution of trust,…
by LIZ PANTING, guest reviewer The Ultimate Pajama Party is advertised as “the ultimate girls-night-out show”. Going in, I admit to feelings of skepticism; pajamas, pink feather boas, and cabana boys are not my style. And how can a girls’ night out be had at a play? Well, it isn’t a play, really. What producers…
by SOPHIE KERMAN You know that quirky teacher you had in high school or college, the one whose tangents were always more interesting than whatever the lecture was supposed to be about? The teacher whose class you secretly loved going to, just to hear them ramble about their preoccupations of the day? Thom Pain (Based on…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Priscilla, Queen of the Desert the Musical is the reason why musicals were born. Adapted by Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott from the 1994 movie starring Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving, Priscilla the Musical takes the film’s original heart and love of glamour, and cranks up the volume, the budget, and exuberance to create a spectacle that takes you…
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