In some ways schlock is similar to pornography: You may not be able to define it, but you know it when you see it, and there’s a lot of it to be seen on South Florida stages this season. The Coconut Grove Playhouse seems particularly interested in schlock musicals. Earlier…
Everyone has remembrances of flings past, especially that once-in-a-lifetime first time. Playwright Richard Nelson’s take on that oft-told subject is Madame Melville, an intriguing wisp of a tale now playing at the New Theatre in Coral Gables. In it, Nelson depicts the coming of age of an awkward American fifteen-year-old…
“Nothing is inevitable,” goes the old saying, “except death and taxes.” In Park Your Car In Harvard Yard, playwright Israel Horovitz begs to differ, or at least, amend: Add “regret” to that short list. In the freezing gloom of a New England winter, an imperious old man, Jacob Brackish, shuffles…
Sometimes a good idea for a play doesn’t spin out into good theater. One such conundrum is Bach at Leipzig, a well-produced but dramatically inert talkfest now on colorful display at Florida Stage. Itamar Moses’s new play, a Florida premiere, has to do with a historical event in 1722, when…
This season has seen its share of family dramas that playwrights keep reinventing to good theatrical effect. One recent incarnation is Charles Randolph-Wright’s moody, engaging comedy/drama Blue, a semi-autobiographical account of one wealthy black family’s domestic disturbances, a tale that spans several decades. The story is narrated by Reuben Clark…
Theater has always had a rabble-rousing role at the margins of society. Plato mistrusted poets and art in general. Aeschylus got himself exiled when his plays criticized the Athenian politicos. The Puritans tried to ban the Elizabethan theaters, and Hitler burned down a number of them. Henry Fielding, the great…
The two faces of theater, as most everyone knows, are the masks of tragedy and comedy. But perhaps a better bifurcation would be between the theater of challenge and that of tradition. The theater of tradition promotes cultural assumptions. The best of this celebrates enduring values and communities, the worst…
Broadway musicals and rodeo bull riding are more similar than you might think. Trying to ride a rodeo bull basically means two things. First, you have to stay on for eight full seconds to succeed, with no second chance. Second, the bull doesn’t care whether you’re a pro or a…
When a play by Neil LaBute hits town, any town, the specifics of the production usually take a back seat to the force of the writer’s personality. LaBute’s plays and films are biting, challenging, often cruel — and by comparison, most other scripts seem bland and polite. His debut film…
Picture this: You have been invited to a party on a dark night in a strange neighborhood, and you have no idea how to get there. The host offers to meet you and lead the way. But he drives so fast, it’s hard to keep up with him. He makes…
Ahh, the dysfunctional family. We all have one or know one, and playwrights seem to know a lot of them. Feuding families have been with us at least as long as drama has existed. The Greeks had the house of Atreus. Shakespeare had King Lear and his daughters. Then there’s…
When you go to a Mad Cat show, ya rolls yer dice and ya takes yer chances. The risk-taking theater ensemble in downtown Miami makes sure that the audience takes some risk just to get in the door. Company policy establishes a “$12 plus the roll of one die” policy…
As any wine lover can tell you, an excellent vintage is really two wines in one. When first opened, it may have a lovely, fresh bouquet and a satisfying taste. But allowed to breathe, a great wine will develop subtle complexities, new depth, and lingering flavors. That’s an apt analogy…
There has been a lot of talk lately about the so-called Law of Unintended Consequences: that any course of action will produce an array of surprise results. I can’t be certain exactly what the Actors Playhouse in Coral Gables was intending with its season-opener Comic Potential, but the results are…
One of the fascinating oddities of theater in South Florida is the offbeat locations where it turns up. Local companies are found in some of the least likely places: The Caldwell Theatre and Florida Stage are in strip malls, the Broward Stage Door sits behind an IHOP. The Mosaic is…
Theater in South Florida was once the realm of musicals and light comedies, with dramas mighty scarce. Now the scene features theater of all kinds — fierce as well as frothy. But what remains rare are plays with immediate, topical subjects. Despite the disturbing real-life drama in contemporary America, most…
The last time I dropped by the Mosaic Theatre in Plantation last season, the company was presenting Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, a three-man hostage drama, to an audience of six in a bare, uninviting auditorium. Flash-forward to this month as the Mosaic presents another three-person show, The Complete Works…
I know. Life is a struggle sometimes: You’re faced with traffic gridlock, work overload, relationship limbo. But cheer up, at least you’re not Baby Doll Gibbons. Not only is her on-again, off-again romance off again, her roommates are furious that she trashed their apartment in a fit of jealous pique…
In Tom Walker, a new play at the New Theatre, a very old story is given a modern twist. The Devil appears to the title character, dupes same into a hellish bargain, and runs off with poor Tom’s soul. Playwright John Strand has performed a similar act of piracy: He…
For most South Floridians, late summer means numbing heat, hurricanes, and back-to-school specials. But for those astute and lucky New Times readers, the dog days of August also herald a revived arts scene. Within a month or so, dozens of theater companies up and down the tri-county coast will be…
Prerevolutionary Cuban thinker Felix Varela declared that intellectuals should not cloister themselves in an ivory tower. In fact he claimed their primary obligation is to take on society’s most pertinent issues, to act as an illuminator and guide for the people. In 1998 the first independent library in Cuba was…
After two months in chilly London, sultry Florida feels good. And propelled by a notebook full of observations from U.K. theater, it also seems a good time, before the fall season, to reflect on the good and the bad in our own scene. First off, the bad. Like any community,…
