The Train Driver (Athol Fugard)

A moving exploration of responsibility and guilt, of regret and redemption, and ultimately of forgiveness and forgiveness once again. Fine performances of a conundrum particular to post-apartheid South Africa but easy to universalize to any peoples anywhere.

Title and Deed (Eno)

This fascinating production is the result of a close collaboration between Will Eno and Gare St Lazare, the theatrical company energized by Conor Lovett and Judy Hegarty Lovett. 

Conor Lovett plays an unnamed someone "not from here."  The not-quite bare stage, the man's uncertain posture, and his hesitant delivery place the audience in an ambivalent position that wavers between sympathy and amusement. 

The talk-back with Lovett and Eno was intimate and revealing.

Highly recommend.

My Children! My Africa! (Athol Fugard)

(We sat next to Allie Gallerani's family.)

Highly Recommended.

Medieval Play (Kenneth Lonergan)

Solipsistic silliness or sly satire? Either could be possible in Lonergan's Medieval Play, though the first scene goes a long way toward establishing the first possibility as the dominant one.  Despite certain lapses into (somewhat tedious) absurdity, the satire frequently cuts sharp.  By infusing the dialogue of his medieval characters with the locutions and sensibilities of Gen Y'ers, Lonergan persuasively argues for our inability to act outside our historical constraints, no matter how self aware we are, no matter how much we are able to think outside those constraints.  Energetic acting by Anthony Arkin and Tate Donovan playing the two knights, and a special nod to Heather Burns playing Catherine of Siena.

Recommend.

The Lady from Dubuque (Edward Albee)

Signature's Theatre's revival of The Lady from Dubuque is an excellent production of an intriguing, moving, yet nevertheless flawed play.  The characters from the first scene, three couples, none of whom seem to like another, suffer from a dearth of kindness and intelligence.  None of the witty repartee that we expect in an Albee play.  That appears, like a breath of fresh air, when the Oscar and Elizabeth (The Lady from Dubuque played by Jane Alexander) arrive to bring comfort to the hostess Jo, who is dying. Though Elizabeth claims to be Jo's mother, her husband Sam vehemently refutes that claim.  Jo, reduced to whimpering pain, merely embraces Elizabeth without identifying her one way or the other.

Elizabeth and Jo are more than the charming urbanity that we've been wishing for.  And they are more than Jo's mother and her friend (or not). They are allegorical representations of Death, who confront the reality of Jo's imminent death (which neither her husband nor her guests are willing to do) and gently usher her beyond the pain.

Fine performances by all..though I can hardly imagine what it's like to inhabit such distasteful characters eight times a week.

Highly recommend. 

Hurt Village (Katori Hall)

I learned a great deal from the play set in a condemned housing project in Memphis, Tennessee.  Though parts of the play didn't work as well as others, I'm glad we saw it.

Recommend.

The Illusion (Tony Kushner from Pierre Corneille's L'Illusion Comique)

One of Kushner's early works, this adaptation of the 17-century orignal play combines romance and tragedy with a heavy strain of magic in order to explore the boundaries between the real and the illusory. Set in the cave of a magician, it opens with Pridamant searching for the sorceress in order to obtain her help to locate his son, whom he had banished from his household 15 years prior for being too caught up on his fancies. In answer to Pridamant's request, she presents him with 3 scenes, each featuring his son. In each illusion, his son has a different name, and each time the son is seen working through the travails of being a penniless man and of love. By the 3rd scene, the son is revealed to be a cad, just in time to be killed by his lovers' husband. As Pridamant bewails his loss, Aleandre the magician reveals that indeed they have been watching the son's life, but with this catch: the son is a working actor in Paris , and the three illusions were all scenes fr plays on which he acted. Rather than being dead, he was indeed alive and working in Paris.
This embedded explanation doesn't filly account for everything the audience had observed. Consequently, we are given (at least) three ways to understand what we have seen.
First, we accept the initial narrative that a magician is allowing Pridamant to view retrospectively the past 15 years of his son's life. Second, we believe the magician's last minute story: the son is an actor, and we've been watching his performances. Three, that all three scenes have been performances that have nothing to do with the son; the magician has simply provided some theatrical scenes to fulfill the father's wish and to take his coins. He has been duped, as has the audience. Clues to the third possibility: the magician's servant moves back and forth between the two settings; one of the scenes' characters returns to the cave; father cannot remember the son's name, so how do we believe that he recognizes his face; and, most poignantly, the magician mentions that the roads were muddy enough that spring to keep anyone from traveling to Paris. That is, the magician's ruse worked because she was certain the father's curiosity had been satisfied and he would not make the effort to reunite with his son.
In the end, the play explores how we desire to reclaim what is lost--and how much we will fool ourselves into believing we can.

Highly recommend.

Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (Kushner)

This is the third play in Signature Theatre's season devoted to Tony Kushner. Clocking in at 3.75 hours, the play is 3 times longer than many dramas now performing on off-Broadway. It is also 3 times more intelligent and thought provoking than most drama performed anywhere.

IHGCSKS delivers a compassionate look at the difficulty of living up to our ideals and our commitments.

Highly recommended.

Angels in America (Tony Kushner)

Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is my favorite American play of the past twenty-five years. So, when Signature Theatre announced it would produce both Part One: Millennium Approaches and Part Two: Peretroika as the first of its season-long celebration of Kushner's work, I set every alarm I had in order to log on the moment tickets went on sale. I was not disappointed. Fine performances and well-executed production of a stirring play.