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…
by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Fairy tale adventures, good versus evil and self-empowerment are the allegorical threads woven into local playwright Kira Obolensky’s Vasa Lisa, a highly entertaining play presented by Ten Thousand Things Theater at the Open Book (8:00 p.m. every Fri., Sat. from May 4 until May 13). Just in time for Mother’s Day, the play ultimately celebrates…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Whether because of the country’s harsh climate or its historically significant peasant population, the Russians certainly know how to deal with life’s hard knocks. Even the relatively privileged characters that inhabit Anton Chekhov‘s The Three Sisters do not have it easy. In many ways, The Three Sisters is all about the inevitable compromises we make –…
by MIRA REINBERG Long before Elizabethan comedies of error and late medieval or early modern French farce there was a genre of popular comedy that we recognize as the picaresque novel or “story-telling.” The earliest and rare example of such a picaresque tale is a second-century AD novel by Lucius Apuleius, entitled The Golden Ass,…
By CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Learn to be Latina at the Mixed Blood Theatre throws political correctness out of the window and presents the notion of “palatably ethnic” entertainment to post-9/11 audiences. In the hysterical comedy written by Enrique Urueta and directed by Mark Valdez, the Lebanese-American heroine, Hanan Mashalani, played charmingly by Jaime Elvey in…
by MIRA REINBERG, Guest Reviewer Once in a while we – the media, readers, and spectators – allow ourselves to open up the questions that are inherent to reportage of modern war: in what ways is war journalism ethical? And whom does it serve? Do photographs and descriptions from the war zone effect change…
by SOPHIE KERMAN It takes a lot of guts to put on a Charles Mee play, and even more to stage it in Burnsville, a city not known for its experimental theater scene. Well, with its production of Mee’s True Love, the Chameleon Theatre Circle shows it has the courage and the chops to tackle the…
by SOPHIE KERMAN Good news: Osseo really isn’t that long a trip down I-94. This is good news, because whatever mysterious force drove the Yellow Tree Theatre to set up shop in a suburban strip mall does not prevent the company from putting on downtown-quality theater. In fact, The Glass Menagerie is better than a lot…
by ANNA ROSENSWEIG How do we talk to children about race? With its recent production Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, The Children’s Theatre Company provides an answer to this question by rejecting its premise. In this new play, an adaptation of Gary Schmidt’s 2004 Newberry Award-winning children’s novel based on a true story, it…
by ANNA ROSENSWEIG There’s a ceiling fan that slowly turns throughout the entire production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, currently on stage at the Jungle Theater. The fan, one of the many subtle touches of Joel Sass’ beautifully shabby set, marks time steadily and faithfully, and this constant rhythm underscores the deceptively quotidian nature…
Aisle Say - Twin Cities 