Opening the Curtain

There’s a temptation with the big stories, say a Greek myth, to embrace the epic, larger-than-life quality. After all it’s a myth, right? Take playwright Sarah Ruhle’s “Eurydice”.

The invitation to “Under the Big Top: Atlas” is intentionally a little cryptic. It’s clear it’s an immersive theater experience. It’s clear it’s $70 for a 30 minute performance. Beyond that, it invites your imagination to wander. There’s mention of 1928, some kind of flood at the circus. A mystery, someone’s disappeared, maybe I can help locate her? And that it’s a partnership with Two Bit Circus. That’s enough for me. I’m intrigued.

“Men on Boats” is a play that gets many things right… and yet somehow ends up not quite hitting its target.

Even for a classically focused theatre company like Antaeus, their new play “Caucasian Chalk Circle” feels dated.

Playwright Geraldine Inoa’s stunning play “Scraps” is haunted by a character we never meet. Don't miss this powerful production.

The Sherlock Holmes inspired play “Mysterious Circumstances” is itself a bit of mystery … but not in the way the Geffen’s Artistic Director Matt Shakman probably intended it.

Sigrid Gilmer isn’t one of those playwrights who warms up to an idea. She’s the kind of playwright who grabs you by the chest from the very first moments. 

Samuel Beckett’s plays can be really tricky. They are conceptually so full and simultaneously so maddeningly empty. It’s that emptiness that’s the key. What a production does with that emptiness is what separates a transcendent production of Beckett from a sleep-inducing one. Take the production of “Happy Days” starring Dianne Wiest at the Mark Taper Forum.

In “Invisible Tango” that magic and narrative is being crafted by Helder Guimarães. The magic is mostly a theme and variation on card manipulation and increasing elaborate versions of “is this your card?” In the intimate theater that’s configured to focus on a simple card table, the action is close enough to be dazzling and big enough to feel like more than a single trick.