Posted May 1, 2006 This is an enlightening e-mail I received from David Lane, director of Like Home, a new full-length play by Jennifer Mattern (Lane’s wife and the “Jenn” to whom he refers), running through May 14 at Main Street Stage in North Adams. I always welcome response and dialogue about my…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, May 2006 Joan of Arc (1412-1431) made her first appearance as a character in a play within five years of her victory at Orléans in a pageant of thanksgiving staged by that city. Even then, with the Inquisition that put Joan to death still very…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, April 2006 Click HERE to read the letter I received from director David Lane. I do not understand this play. I think it is beautiful, I think it is well acted, and I think it is very funny, but I do not understand it. That is very…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, April 2006 You place an object on the table and ask me to identify it. “That’s an apple,” I say, because my five senses tell me that it looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sounds like what I have been taught to call an apple. Even…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, March 2006 I have to say that I was disappointed to learn last month that I would not be seeing A New Brain, the show long-advertised for this slot in the Ghent season. Alas, auditions didn’t turn up enough people to produce the show properly, a…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, March 2006 Okay, this will sound really dumb, but all I could think as I watched Looking for Elizabeth was: “This sounds scripted.” Now I am fully aware that everything I review is scripted, so what made this play specifically sound that way? Well, let’s start at…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, March 2006 During World War II the Danish Resistance managed to smuggle about 7,000 of the 8,000 Danish Jews over the sea to safety in Sweden, which remainded free of Nazi domination. Lois Lowry’s Newberyy award-winning young adult novel, Number the Stars tells the fictional story of…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, February 2006 Last August, as a special treat, I took my then-sixteen-year-old son Brandon to New York to see Monty Python’s Spamalot. At intermission I turned to him and, indicating the 1,519 or so members of the unwashed masses with whom I was forced to share…
