Solstice is funny. It is tragic without somberness, moving without sentimentality. It’s squalid, but without a trace of self-pity. … It allows its characters to be fatally screwed up and sublime at once, and the list of playwrights who can do that is short indeed.
Charles Dickens was never one to shy away from good old-fashioned sentimentality, but his A Christmas Carol is downright shellacked with it. Stage versions of the story typically either give it one more half-hearted buff, or try somewhat desperately to scrape away the goo with a little irony. Now, however, we may rightfully speak of a third option: Cram the whole damn thing into The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and populate it with Children of the Corn. Oh, and throw in a little cross-dressing for good measure.
We live in a world of two Christmases. One is a jingly, happy, merry, glass-clinking, snow-cavorting good time. The other is marred by a harsher reality.
Heavy hitting. Timely. Controversial. Necessary. Real life. But certainly not depressing. That’s the attitude of Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective managing artistic director Stephanie Hickling Beckman and the actors involved, who are committed to staging plays with a message. “Our mission is to present theatre that confronts issues of social diversity as reflected in the […]
This year’s holiday offering (by playwright trio Jones Hope Wooten) opens on the lobby of the Snowflake Inn in Tinsel, Texas where it’s Christmas 365 days a year. (The premise is that year-round Christmas is a good thing, FYI.) The show runs at ACT through Sunday, Dec. 4.
Brief Encounters was a bit like riding shotgun with a friend who has just learned to drive a manual transmission — jerky, slightly uncomfortable, but very fun.
Angels in America Part II: Perestroika is crazy in the head. If you happen upon it without having experienced Part I: Millennium Approaches, you might wonder if you’ve just lost your mind, or if the world is going mad. Then again, that seems to also be the position of many of the show’s characters. At least you won’t be alone.
The play won writer Tony Kushner a well-deserved Pulitzer, so it goes almost without saying that the script could be poorly acted or just straight-up read, and still come off as an arresting, emotional quest for truth. But, it’s a treat to see it so well-acted and well-produced as it is here at N.C. Stage.
Michael Sheldon’s presence in character alternates between a stumble and a swagger — some kickass combination of Cher and Johnny Rotten. Despite his years performing in drag, his Hedwig doesn’t come off like a drag queen so much as … well, a bitter old German lady whose sex-change operation went awry.
Part Broadway musical, part Dr. Seuss send up, Seussical is on stage at Parkway Playhouse Thursday, July 28-Saturday, Aug. 6.
The Xpress theater blog is currently being revamped, but never fear … we’ll be back.
This 2008 Outer Banks-set play by Asheville-based writing team Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten is a light and funny comedy with plenty of Southern-fried punch lines. It’s also (surprise!) a serious meditation on aging, friendships and what’s really important in life.
This month, Jason Williams directs a double-feature at Montford, and if anything at all unites the two plays, beyond the hardworking cast itself, it is that they are both done somewhat in the style of Bollywood.
I love the director and the entire cast and crew of The Witches’ Quorum — including all the designers and the handsome ticket-takers — because they stand on the winning side of what seemed an experiment in finding out how good a production you can get out of David Eshelman’s lousy script. For Quorum is, in fact, a decent evening of theater, built as if by magic on a play that seems to have nothing to recommend it but the effort that talented people expended upon it.
Otherwise, Hans Meyer’s direction reveals an admirable clarity and restraint that allow his actors to do the work the play requires. The staging is remarkably streamlined and well-integrated, with none of the directorial caprice one sees all too often scrambling a play’s signal.
At least for the 90 minutes of its life, this show owns the whole treasure of Broadway. The lyrics are smart and funny. One expects that. But they are also allusive, intelligent, challenging, and while one is laughing one’s head off, one is taking thought as well.
Twisted family dynamics grow tall in The Family Tree, written by Lucia Del Vecchio and directed by Steven Samuels.
The Family Tree continues at The Magnetic Field at 364 Depot St. Thursdays through Saturdays, May 19-21 and 26-28, with two shows per night, at 7:30 and 10:00. Tickets are $12-$14 with open seating.
If you have recurring nightmares involving venomous serpents, Rattlesnake is a show you would do well to avoid. Or perhaps a direct confrontation with your primal fears would be therapeutic?
The Montford Park Players will begin their summer season at the newly renovated Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre.
The characters are for the most part washed up, jealous, bitter, uncertain about careers, their own attractiveness, the fidelity of lovers, and in the case of the two who bring AIDS into the little loving company, their very lives.
You may not have heard of Diana Vreeland before you see Asheville Community Theatre’s current production of “Full Gallop,” but afterwards, you will never forget her.
