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My take: The play is based on a remarkable true story of a spontaneous truce between Allied and German forces in No Man's Land during Christmas of 1914. In some areas it lasted only one night while elsewhere it lasted until New Year's Day. While it was in effect, soldiers laid down their arms, shared Christmas carols (as well as food and drink), buried each others' dead, and even played soccer. Playwright Peter Rothstein, artistic director of Theater Latté Da where the play was developed, wanted to tell the story in the words of the real soldiers who experienced it. "I created the drama," he relates, "primarily through found text including letters, official war documents, autobiographies, World War I poetry, grave stone inscriptions and even an old radio broadcast." Reviewing the world premiere production in Minneapolis in 2010 for Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine, Lani Willis called it a "dramatic, real-life musing about the power this season has to make us stop, reflect, and decide to operate in a mode of peace."
My take: Most classical music lovers will know the classic Chinese folk tale as the basis for The Butterfly Lovers' Violin Concerto (the Lian Zhu Violin Concerto in Chinese), a 25-minute work written in 1958 by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao. The Shanghai Ballet's production has music by Xu Jianqiang and story by Luo Huaizhen. If the images and excerpts on YouTube are any indication, this should be a pretty impressive show.
My take: I've always had a soft spot for this funny and touching tale of four aging sisters in a small Midwestern town in 1938 and their eccentric families—even more so since I played the role of the sarcastic David in the Stray Dog Theatre production a few years ago. Originally produced on Broadway by Joshua Logan in 1939 (with a cast that included Dorothy Gish and Jean Adair), the play got a new lease on life after a 1980 Broadway revival sparked productions all over the country, including one locally by Act Inc in 1982. This is family friendly fare in the very best sense of the term.
Held Over:
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| ©Photo by Jerry Naunheim, Jr. |
My take: As I wrote in my OnSTL.com blog, the world premiere of Trey Ellis and Ricardo Khan's drama Fly at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis is the most inspiring, enraging, and sad thing you can see in a theatre this week. Inspiring because this story of the legendary Tuskegee Airman—an all-black fighter pilot unit who escorted an unprecedented 200 of 205 bomber missions without losing an aircraft and earned a raft of medals in the process. Enraging because the white Americans whose lives and freedom they were protecting treated them as subhuman. Sad because we seem to have learned so little in the intervening seven decades." Other critics have been equally effusive. This is definitely a "must see."
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| Zach Wachter as Mr. Gibbs, Roger Erb as Lush Photo: John Lamb |
My take: I'm on the board of West End Players Guild and was the one who first proposed that the group take on this rarely-seen (the last local performance was over 30 years ago; I was in it) Pinter. Now, as then, I was amazed at how much like a Monty Python sketch (albeit a very dark and odd one) this play is. I don't know whether Pinter was influenced by the Pythons at all, but it's hard to read this and not visualize specific Python actors in the roles. Graham Chapman, for example, would have been an ideal Roote, the asylum director. But what the heck—go and see for yourself.
My take: For many local theatre companies, not having a fixed abode is a problem. For OnSite, it's a mission. Their site-specific productions have taken them to bars, restaurants, a bowling alley, and a laundromat, among other non-traditional locations. In her review for 88.1 KDHX, Andrea Braun says The Trivia Job "is clever, fun and surprisingly moving. Anna Pileggi had her hands full directing this complex operation, and she pulls it off with apparent ease."
My take: if your only exposure to this creepy little masterpiece is the recent film version with Daniel Radcliffe, you're in for a bit of a surprise. Stephen Mallatratt's stage adaptation of the original Susan Hill novel—still running after 25 years in London's West End—is a tour de force for two actors. "The Woman in Black," says the London production's web site, "combines the power and intensity of live theatre with a cinematic quality inspired by the world of film noir. It gives audiences an evening of unremitting drama as they are transported into a terrifying and ghostly world." Yep. And as a neat bit of chamber theatre, this should play to SATEs strengths.
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