by SOPHIE KERMAN Memory is a complicated organism, particularly when endless streams of information (both memorable and not) are available at the touch of a button. Rachel Jendrzejewski, more a theater artist than a playwright, may be right in choosing to explore memory through looser forms of movement and linguistic collage, rather than through the stricter structures…
by MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN The Children’s Theatre productions are so masterful, so pleasurable, so dynamic and so consistently great that it can be easy to take the constant excellence for granted. Adapted for the stage by Katie Mitchell for Britain’s Royal National Theatre, The Cat in the Hat premieres in the United States here. There…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Next to Normal, winner of three Tony Awards and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is a rousing rock musical that explores mental illness, bipolar disorder, teenage angst, grief and suburban family dysfunction. Set to powerful lyrics and music, the musical balances these difficult and often uncomfortable topics with humor, humanity and raw honesty. Standout vocals…
by EMILY MEISLER, guest reviewer Appomattox, a new play by Christopher Hampton and commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, presents two distinct snapshots of American history: April 1865, the end of the Civil War; and April 1965, after the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson and just before the passage of President Johnson’s Voting Rights Act. While these…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Despite knowing and loving Kurt Vonnegut, Jr for novels like Slaughterhouse Five and Cat’s Cradle, fans should not be surprised that he was also a playwright. After all, his witty, cutting dialogue is precisely what makes his novels so readable and so incisive. In Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Vonnegut’s trademark style leaps off the page;…
By MIRA REINBERG There is nothing like the subject of women’s suffrage to remind us that society’s historical memory is exceedingly, perhaps alarmingly, short, and consequently that each battle for the recognition and institution of a fundamental human political right needs to be fought anew, in a Sisyphean enterprise of selecting the most efficient tactics.…
by MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN & EVA VON DASSOW Minnesota Opera’s 50th Anniversary Season opens with the company’s first presentation of Verdi’s Nabucco, the opera that Verdi considered to be the beginning of his artistic career. The composer fully exploited the orchestra’s expressive capacity, and the musicians give a persuasive account of Verdi’s potent score. We’re fortunate…
By MIRA REINBERG Some of playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton’s most refined plays contemplate the conjunction of history and literature. Such was the exquisite screenplay of Dangerous Liaisons, which brought to life the cynicism and manipulation of life in eighteenth-century French court and pushed its travesties to the limit. Likewise, his adaptation of Atonement dramatized…
by SOPHIE KERMAN In Sarah Ruhl‘s take on the classic myth of Eurydice, there are many ways to cross between loss and forgetting. Letters find their way to and from the underworld, where a chorus of stones silently fights the speech and song that bring memory back into dark places. An elevator transports the dead to their…
by MELANIE BOWMAN When the question of marriage equality arises, solemnity prevails. The seriousness of the issue generally excludes comedy, though derision is never far from the discussion. Better (or) Worse, presented by the Freshwater Theatre Company, takes on marriage as an institution with seriousness, realism, laughter, and hope. The play is a series of short scenes…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 