Review

Dependence on Strangers

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Andrew Harkins as Stanley & Meredith Hagedorn* as Blanche (member of Actors’ Equity Association)

By Ande Jacobson

Tennessee Williams is acclaimed by critics and his colleagues alike as one of America’s greatest playwrights with works including “The Glass Menagerie”, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, and his groundbreaking 1948 Pulitzer Prize winner, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, which is Dragon Productions’ current show. Arthur Miller wrote in Regarding Streetcar, his 2004 introduction to New Directions Books’ edition of “Streetcar”, that it was Williams’ “writing itself that left one excited and elevated” as he described his own experience when first seeing the play in 1947. Continue reading →

Coffee Anyone?

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By Ande Jacobson

Continuing its 2011 summer repertory series, California Theatre Center (CTC) adds “Agatha Christie’s Black Coffee” to the mix. Originally written as a three-act play by Christie in 1930, and incidentally the only Christie play featuring her indelible detective Hercule Poirot, this is a production not to be missed. While it’s a little formulaic as part of the murder mystery genre, Poirot’s application of his “little gray cells” and gentle humor keep the audience enthralled through his final resolution. Continue reading →

Pear Avenue’s Season Closes from the Inner Circle of American Classics

A Good Reed Review Review

By Ande Jacobson

The Washington Post includes Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” as part of an inner circle of ground-breaking American plays.  Pear Avenue Theatre closes its Americana season with Hansberry’s landmark work and treats it with the deference and appreciation it deserves. Continue reading →

CTC Serves Up an Entertaining Evening

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Corinne Bupp / Justin Karr

By Ande Jacobson

Commedia dell’arte, or “comedy of craft” is an old Italian style of theatre born of several stock characters related to specific social types, e.g. a merchant, a doctor, a servant, etc. Physical comedy is standard within this genre, and so it is with California Theatre Center’s latest installment of their summer repertory series. Originally written by Carlo Goldoni in 1743, The Servant of Two Masters is intended as a farce as it chronicles the antics of Truffaldino, a servant who finds himself in the employ of two masters, although the story starts before he and the audience are introduced. Continue reading →

CTC’s 80 Days Provides a Fun-Filled Trip Around the Stage

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(From LtoR) Noel Wood (Passepartout), Charlie Shoemaker (Detective Fix), Justin Karr (Phileas Fogg) and Hilary Ann Stevens (Aouda)

By Ande Jacobson

California Theatre Center’s 28th Summer Repertory season opener, Around the World in 80 Days, adapted by Mark Brown and based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, is quite a trip. Intending to appeal to the widest possible audience – children and adults alike – Brown adapted Verne’s story into his stage play and published his work in August 2007. Originally requiring only four men and one woman in the cast, any number of actors up to 39 could be employed. Continue reading →

Information Overload, What’s a Mother To Do?

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DeHart & DeHart

By Ande Jacobson

Playwright Lisa Loomer’s Distracted at the City Lights Theater Company is many things: a commentary on the Attention Deficit Disorder epidemic pervading today’s society, a view into the social morays surrounding the malady, and an intelligent and whimsical play bringing into focus the myriad distractions of those dealing with a loved one so afflicted. Treating a serious subject with humor and artistic flair, this is a production worth seeing as it chronicles a mother’s quest to do right by her son. Be forewarned though, due to strong language and adult content, Distracted is not appropriate for young children. Continue reading →

Silence Isn’t Golden

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By Ande Jacobson

South Bay Musical Theatre (SBMT) closes its current season with Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s Mack and Mabel which chronicles a fictionalized account of the real-life relationship between silent film director Mack Sennett, best known for his Keystone Kops, and his find, Mabel Normand. Continue reading →

Yankee Ingenuity Graces Pear’s Penultimate Production of the Season

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Johnson and Salzman
Johnson and Ronge’

By Ande Jacobson

What could be better than a new adaptation of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to continue Pear Avenue Theatre’s Americana celebration?   Twain, published his work in 1889.  The book is as much a commentary on his current society as it is a work of science fiction given its time-travel bent. Continue reading →

Devilish Decadence Abounds

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By Ande Jacobson

Cabaret first came to Broadway in 1966, and at the time, it was rather ground-breaking. The second of many John Kander and Fred Ebb musical collaborations, Cabaret, based on the book by Joe Masteroff, is a dark story juxtaposing two worlds – real life in 1931 Berlin, where things are quickly unraveling as the Nazis rise to power, and the devilish decadence inside the cabaret (named the Kit-Kat Klub) where our host, the Emcee, proclaims “life is beautiful”, but more on him later. Continue reading →

Galileo’s Yearning For Truth

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By Ande Jacobson

Tabard Theatre Company presents Inferno Theatre Company’s South Bay premiere of playwright and director Giulio Cesare Perrone’s fifth work, Galileo’s Daughters, at Theatre on the Square in San Jose. The Inferno Theatre Company, founded by Perrone, along with his contingent of fellow artists, is based in Oakland, CA, although it has no theatre it can call home. Instead, the Inferno contingent strives to bring the arts to the surrounding communities, viewing theatre as a collaborative process, crossing cultural boundaries, and bringing with it enrichment to all who partake, from all sides of the box. Interested in art, science, religion, and historical controversy, Perrone brings these together in this latest creation. Continue reading →