Only whipsmart playwright David Henry Hwang could have written Chinglish, the new biting comedy of manners that depicts the gulf between Chinese and American cultures through the misadventures of language in translation.

This article is filed under China, Performing Arts, Theatre.

In Woody Allen’s Honeymoon Motel, young bride Nina Roth (Ari Graynor) enters a gaudy roadside inn with not-so-young novelist Jerry Spector (Steve Guttenberg). They’re excited to get away from all the wedding hoopla and take pleasure in simple joys like pizza and tacky furniture. Obviously, this is no typical pair of newlyweds. In fact, as it is soon revealed, they aren’t a couple at all. Nina was betrothed to Jerry’s stepson, but has run off with Jerry in an impulsive moment.

This article is filed under Performing Arts, Theatre.

The practice of blessing mass entertainment with the bard’s prose confers a kind of loftiness upon it, or at least that must be the idea. A quick glance indicates that Shakespeare has provided titles for an alarming number of Star Trek episodes, just for starters. This week, lend your ears to Brett Harrison Davinger and me (Dan Fields) as we look at some of our favorite films to borrow a title from the works of Shakespeare.

This article is filed under Best Movies, Horror, Literary Themes, Movies, Mystery, Poetry, Satire, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Television, The Fourth Wall, Theatre, Thrillers, Writers.

For Stephen Sondheim’s 1971 Follies, however, the Broadway revival creates the perfect situation to reflect on the musical’s themes of regret, nostalgia, and getting older. With a book by James Goldman and music and lyrics by Sondheim, song and story intertwine to reveal that a show-stopping musical number is the only way these characters can express who they really are.

This article is filed under Performing Arts, Theatre.

For its world premiere of Heart of a Soldier at San Francisco Opera, the creators chose to concentrate on the personal story of Morgan Stanley’s security head Rick Rescorla, whose actions led over 2,700 World Trade Center South Tower workers to safety, only to lose his own life when he reentered the building to search for stragglers. The opera focuses on his journey from childhood in Cornwall, England, to his role in the tragic events on 9/11. An exploration of a life that culminated in those heroic actions is a story worth examining.

Unfortunately, it was poorly told.

This article is filed under Music, Opera, Performing Arts, Theatre.

Book and lyric writer Anna Marquardt and composer Britt Bonney capture the exuberance of the time with a menu of tuneful, cleverly worded songs that incorporate tango, foxtrot and jazz motifs

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Theatre.

Collins’ strong suit is suspense tinged with bafflement. When it works, you’re reeling from the last twist in the plot, and wondering where it’ll go next. When it doesn’t, you’re still trying to work out whose will has just been overturned by the return of the mysterious stranger who looks exactly like the missing heiress whose marriage records…and so the next twist is rather a moot point.

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Theatre.

In the age of equality, is it bad to be sexy? Fun to be bad? Which costume is more empowering: the corporate suit or the Victoria’s Secret intimates? The troubled protagonist of The Tutor doesn’t quite find the answers, but attracts plenty of fun and trouble as she embarks on her quest.

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Theatre.

Glyndebourne: one of the names in the British calendar. Up there with Wimbledon, Henley and other occasions which involve large quantities of strawberries being consumed in extremely specific clothing. With the added attraction of some of the best opera in the world.

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Music, Opera, Theatre.

Despite the subject matter, and the evident success of the play, the particular style of performance the Globe encourages seemed to throw the play off kilter a few times. There was too much “playing at naughtiness”, an easy iconoclasm feeding off the sense that jokes about sex are risky and daring in a play about the Renaissance in Shakespeare’s “own” theatre.

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Theatre.

Where West’s incarnation as Detective McNulty was part of a sprawling, panoramic vision of a social and political system in crisis, Butley hones in on one man frenetically working his own destruction in an academic office. Gestures are made towards student radicalism and changing mores, but Butley’s existential battle is conducted on viciously hand-to-hand terms.

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Theatre.

The fact that it can now boast of being the longest-running comedy currently in the West End suggests that it taps pretty successfully into a tradition as firmly British as Hannay himself: a need to mock the idea of hearty “Britishness”, even as we celebrate it at one remove.

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Espionage, Great Britain, Theatre.

Jason Nahum, an up and coming actor of considerable talent, opens up about his recent foray into the downtown scene, appearing in Axis Theatre’s Hospital 2011 written and directed by Randy Sharp.

This article is filed under Blog-Theater, Theatre.

Despite the fact that the producers of this spectacle have been changing their minds for months now, throwing out directors and story lines, reworking songs and dance numbers and dialogue, the heart of this superhero musical flutters weakly, pumping worn out clichés—and millions of dollars—through its veins. As the Green Goblin croons cannily at the beginning of Act Two, in a rare moment of clarity, this is a “65 million dollar circus tragedy.”

This article is filed under Performing Arts, Theatre.

The escalating one-upmanship led to some truly bizarre innovations, such as casting famous boxers in the lead roles. Reynolds described how Peter Jackson, a famous black boxer, figured into the entertainments: “Uncle Tom, between acts or just before dying, would momentarily trade his slave costume for boxing trunks and spar for three rounds with another actor before resuming his tragic role.”

This article is filed under African American, Books, History, Non-Fiction Reviews, Theatre.