When the Actors’ Playhouse invited me to review their production of playwright Jane Wagner’s dramatic triumph, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, I took several deep breaths and said a prayer for Donna Kimball, the local actress slated to star in the one-woman show. A skilled…
A few empty parking spaces suddenly and miraculously available on Ocean Drive, combined with the paucity of openings around town, tell this reviewer it’s time for the 1992-93 season wrap-up, an annual offering that enables me to put the growth of South Florida theater in perspective. This year, since both…
Susan Karrie Braun appears to be obsessed with the letter A. She’s taken the classic nineteenth-century Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, The Scarlet Letter, in which the initial worn on a young woman’s chest stood for adultery, and updated it to signify AIDS in a performance art/play/polemic called ‘A’ Scarlet Letter, currently…
Along with passing out at the wheel because the car’s AC abruptly conks out at high noon, and showering six times a day, one of the charming oddities of the summer months in South Florida is the opportunity to view eccentric types of theater otherwise not presented or generally overlooked…
I never cease to be pleased by how much I learn on this job. When I first saw one of my personal favorite plays A Lanford Wilson’s lust story Burn This A in 1987 on Broadway, I would have sworn that above and beyond the brilliance of the work itself,…
When I was much younger and wanted something badly, such as a cable- knit sweater or a parakeet, I used to tell my mother that everybody had one. “Everyone?” she would inquire, with an arched left eyebrow. “If everyone jumped off the Woolworth building, would you do it, too?” I…
Snowbirds swiftly flying the co-op believe that the soggy South Florida summer results in nothing more than lethargic attempts at action and lazy, hazy days spotlighted largely by sweaty naps. Juan Cejas and Maria Romeu of the ACME Theater and Mario Ernesto Sanchez of Teatro Avante don’t agree. For these…
The term “unsung hero” usually applies to volunteer firemen or people who tend to the sick without compensation or publicity. But there is another unsung figure of import: the artistic hero who lives and dies in obscurity, who skips the occasional family dinner to wander down to the beach and…
When we found out that I might not grow to be taller than five feet, my family took to reminding me that “good things come in small packages.” This overused aphorism came to mind as I sat in the Miami Actor’s Studio A which holds no more than 50 people…
In the time I’ve occupied this position, I’ve seen dozens of shows A some good, a few excellent, and many fair, poor, or simply awful. However, I’ve only twice found it necessary for the maintenance of my sanity to leave at intermission after experiencing just one of two acts: first…
Before heading to see the newly formed Florida Playwright’s Theatre present a penny-dreadfully fine rendition of Charles Ludlam’s 1984 classic camp parody, The Mystery of Irma Vep, implant three words firmly in your mind: courage, ambition, facetiousness. The first two refer to the company, which boldly takes on a brash…
Occasionally I’ll have a few nighttime beers in a bar on South Beach. It’s a place filled mostly with locals and European tourists, the large majority of them men. Every once in a while a tall, Spandex-wrapped blonde will jiggle her way through the crowd, and all eyes turn toward…
The truest comment made by a politician in recent history was uttered by Jimmy Carter, when he stated flatly, “Life is not fair.” Indeed. Take the case of the ACME Acting Company, struggling through scores of financial difficulties, versus the Coconut Grove Playhouse, with its multimillion-dollar annual budget. The state…
That creaky adage about writing A 10 percent inspiration, 90 percent perspiration A should be heeded carefully by would-be authors. Students eagerly approach writing instructors with what they believe is the key to any novel, play, or short story: THE IDEA. Surely, once they know what they want to say…
One of the major brain twisters of the current decade has got to be sexuality: should you do it, with whom, and which sex. Whereas in the past sexual peccadilloes and debates largely remained confined to straightforward scandals A pre- or extramarital dalliances A in the Nineties the carnal issue…
Successful dramas tend to deal with similar themes — lost romance, identity crises, loneliness, family tensions — partly because some subjects lend themselves more easily to the stage than others. Extraterrestrials (and other types of space matter), pornographic activity, gang warfare, and the like are difficult to translate into live…
Few dramatic scholars would argue against the assertion that Hamlet remains one of the greatest plays ever written. Unlike such masterpieces as Home Alone and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Shakespeare’s tragedy about the Prince of Denmark was not exactly crying out for a sequel. And few audiences, scholars or…
If you’re feeling lethargic, spend an hour with Michael Hall, the artistic director and founder of the Caldwell Theatre Company, one of South Florida’s two state theaters. Immense funds of energy, optimism, and creativity fill the room from the moment he steps in. Immediately you understand why Jim Caldwell, the…
Donald Margulies, an already solid playwright, committed a strange and wonderful act a few years ago: he wrote an honest-to-goodness play. Not the usual cheesy sitcom disguised as drama, or a wild experiment in masturbatory avant-garde that no one understands but the author. He constructed instead a work of art,…
How’s this as the basis for a cute musical? A struggling but earnest theater group needs major structural renovations and secures grants from the county Cultural Affairs Council, among others. Things look bright. But just as the construction crews are about to begin, a major weather catastrophe A a hurricane…
Especially before the age of information-packed technology, historians tended to obscure a great deal. Lately, in the new decade of “the woman” (thanks, Hillary!), scholars and artists appear to be discovering a whole crop of creators previously overlooked or completely ignored. Ask for the greats of the arts and you…
In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess’s brilliant novel (later made into an equally stunning film by Stanley Kubrick) about the way society controls individual thought, the violent lead character is captured by government officials and forced to undergo a unique form of torture/behavior modification. With eyelids forced open so that…
