by Deborah E. Burns, October 2007 All that jazz! Take two gifted songwriters; three sensuous ladies; two suave tenors; and five superb musicians. Mix them up on Barrington Stage Company’s Mainstage under the deft direction of Julianne Boyd. Add some spirits: a little champagne, some Chicago bootleg whiskey, and a…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, October 2007 The tragic story of the oriental woman wronged by an occidental service man is usually told on a grand scale. Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 grand opera Madama Butterfly tops Opera America’s list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America. The genesis of this tale is…
Reviewed by Deborah E. Burns, October 2007 Everyone knows the old song, but the grandparent visit is far from what it once was. In a lively production by the Ghent Playhouse, “Over the River and Through the Woods” by Joe DiPietro examines the gulf between generations, celebrates age and family…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, October 2007 Alas, poor Mortimer Brewster (Jason Marr). A recalcitrant theatre critic for a major New York newspaper, on the very night he has to go and review “Murder Will Out” he “outs” several murderers in his own extended family. Of course, as Mortimer says,…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, October 2007. “Now listen and attend!” “BEFORE the High and Far-Off Times, O my Best Beloved, came the Time of the Very Beginnings; and that was in the days when the Eldest Magician was getting Things ready. First he got the Earth ready; then he…
Reviewed by Deborah E. Burns, October 2007 Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; Phileas Fogg and his servant Passepartout; various kings and their fools: literature abounds with odd couples. Their oppositeness clarifies their differences, often in broad comic strokes, defining the visionary, head-in-the-clouds aristocrat against the loyal, practical, feet-on-the-ground servant. In…
