by Barbara Waldinger “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.” This lament from Psalm 137 serves as the inspiration for If I Forget, the drama by Steven Levenson…
by Macey Levin First came the earthquake, then the tsunami that devastated villages, inundated farms, caused massive beach erosion and flooded a nuclear power plant along the English coast. All this occurs before the beginning of Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children, a provocative play currently enjoying an intelligent and engrossing…
by Macey Levin A college professor relates the story of one of her students demanding that she raise his grade. When she refuses he takes out a gun and shoots her. This is a dream after which she takes several non-violent and inconsequential steps to prevent such an event.…
by Barbara Waldinger Gun control, stay-at-home fathers, working mothers, breast feeding, immigration, fear of “the other,” white rage, forced retirement, a young child acting out, home invasions. These are only a few of the contemporary hot-button issues raised in Sharon Rothstein’s world premiere comedy, Tell Me I’m Not Crazy, directed…
by Macey Levin The famous tale of Beauty and the Beast had its origin in 1740 when a French woman first put it to paper. Through the centuries it has been adapted by other authors. The story was first filmed in 1946 by Jean Cocteau and starred Jean Marais…
by Lisa Jarisch As a former librarian, I am almost always wont to pronounce “the book was better” or “read the book” when presented with a film or stage adaptation of a printed or published work. And like thousands of readers, I devoured E.L. Doctrow’s best seller of 1975 and…
by Barbara Waldinger Gertrude and Claudius, Barrington Stage Company’s newest offering by Mark St. Germain, based on John Updike’s 2000 novel by the same name, might well have been called simply Gertrude, for this is her story. A prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the play traces thirty years in the life…
by Gail M. Burns “Elderly” folks like me may remember the late Dudley Moore’s classic skit (if you don’t you can watch it HERE) where he plays multiple variations on the Colonel Bogey March and then is unable to end it. He plays coda after coda after coda, but they…
