New Centerstage Review Up

Posted on June 12, 2012 by lisafindley

Go see this show! You know I don’t give unqualified recommendations often, so take ’em when they come. “Gotham City” is a show that catapults narrative dance out of its ballet-heavy history and into the future. Here’s an excerpt from my play review:

Deahr has matched up dance styles with the status of the groups that use them: gangs use hip-hop and the Brazilian fight-dance capoeira, the upper-crust tourist couple uses ballet, and the clowns let their anarchic spirit show in contemporary moves with commedia dell’arte overtones.

You can read the rest of the review here. Okay, I guess I have a few qualifications: the taming of the shrew was annoying and overdone for most of it, but had a slightly interesting twist toward the end; and the voiceover can get a little intrusive. For all y’all who aren’t into hip hop, be warned that this is modern dance and a modern soundtrack is used (but it’s a great soundtrack).

Apparently tickets are going fast, so check it out while you can!

My Kind of Town Monday

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pipe organ machinery, Seminary Co-op Bookstore, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, June 10, 2012

New Centerstage Review Up

Posted on June 7, 2012 by lisafindley

“Lisa, you just put another review up on Tuesday! What’s going on?” Well, what’s going on is I forgot to post about that one ages ago, when I actually wrote it, and this one today is actually much more recent. It’s summer, my brain is fried, etc.

Arcas Productions is brand-new, and bless ’em for their ambition. Making Beowulf your first production is a gutsy move, and while it doesn’t entirely pay off here, there are aspects that make the company worth looking out for in the future. Here’s an excerpt from my play review:

Director Jeff Lynch’s history is in dance, and it serves him well here. His performers are in constant motion, acting out the monologues delivered by various characters in a way that recalls how it may have been done back when poets told tales next to fires. The fight scenes between Beowulf and his enemies are well done, especially the last one, in which the whole cast comes together as the fearsome dragon.

You can read the rest of the review here.

Where in the World Wednesday

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East Lansing, MI, May 19, 2012

New Centerstage Review Up

Posted on June 5, 2012 by lisafindley

Red Tape Theatre’s motto is “Awake Now?” and the plays they put on are all about pushing us out of our comfort zone. I’ve seen two such shows now, and my main feeling on them is: I want to like them better. The acting, the sets, the sound design, the direction–it’s all there. But they are so self-serious! Again, I’ve only seen two shows, but just glancing at the rest of their season, it’s all doom and gloom. Nothing wrong with using theater to shake people up a bit; that’s an important use for it. But I have to be gripped by the story in order for that to work, and instead I’m sitting there wondering when I’m going to feel invested in what’s going on. Here’s an excerpt from my play review:

As usual at Red Tape, the costumes (Izumi Inaba) and set design (Emily Guthrie) were a marvel of detail and atmosphere. The themes of small-town dreams, collective guilt, and American pride are clearly spelled out in this funerary tale, but the play tackles them more from the head than from the heart, and that’s where it falters.

You can read the rest of the review here.