by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE and ERIKA YASMEEN SASSEVILLE The Guthrie Theater’s new musical production of Roman Holiday, based on the iconic 1953 movie and book by Paul Blake, has all the glamour, glitz and stylish corniness you would expect from a romantic comedy set to classic, toe-tapping Cole Porter tunes performed by a fabulous live pit orchestra (under…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” were certainly ground-breaking in 1996, but the contemporary conversation about gender – and all the many fluid forms it may take – makes Ensler’s focus seem a bit narrow. After all, some people have no particular affinity towards their vagina, while others ardently wish that they had…
By MIRA REINBERG Western audiences have been indulging in farcical sketches since the times when the classics of tragedy were being performed in Greece although most extant manuscripts date to the Middle Ages. Undoubtedly the magnetism of farce derives from the genre’s capacity to cast an oblique look at the chain of circumstances that generate…
By MIRA REINBERG The common dictum of the romantic comedy genre is premised on the boy meets girl situation, an encounter which necessarily engenders altercations and misunderstandings culminating in some composition of accord and communion. In some ways Phoenix, written by Scott Organ and presented by the Anchor Theatre Collective, adheres to the prevailing schema,…
by SOPHIE KERMAN The program for Savage Umbrella’s latest production, Care Enough, cites quotes from Vaclav Havel, John Berger, Susan Sontag, and Cat Power (among others) as the play’s inspiration. If that does not immediately seem like a red flag to you, let me explain why it should. Works like Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the Pain of Others”…
by MIRA REINBERG How are we made aware that the uniform and prosaic image of a “production line” folds within itself elements of priceless nuance? Can the indistinguishable members of a column of dancers challenge the impression that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? Thirty seven years and 6,137 Broadway performances…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Memorial Day weekend might officially kick off the wedding season for most of the population, but for same-sex couples in most states, all those weddings are just a reminder of one way that their love can not be legally recognized. And despite all of the political rhetoric about rights and principles,…
By ANNA ROSENSWEIG “A woman playing a woman. What’s the trick in that?” So wonders Edward Kynaston, a star of the London stage in the 1660s most renowned for his skill playing female roles. Kynaston has good reason to cast aspersions on the idea of women playing women, as his fame and fortune threaten to…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner (directed by Penumbra Theater’s Lou Bellamy) tackles faith, poverty, racism and sexism in a superbly acted ensemble performance at the Guthrie Theater’s Wurtele Thrust Stage through June 17. The beautifully rendered 1950s Harlem neighborhood set comes alive immediately upon entering the theater, with assorted street characters wandering on and off stage…
by SOPHIE KERMAN When it comes time to justify their work, the testimony of an artist speaks to much more than simply the words on the page. Although Are You Now or Have You Ever Been… is framed around Langston Hughes’ 1953 hearing in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, it is not Hughes’ sympathies…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 