62 stories by "Ernest Kearney"
A HYMN WITHOUT THE HALLELUJAH A polished, well-acted drama that never quite ignites Hymn by playwright Lolita Chakrabarti is a well-crafted piece, with detailed characters and dialogue that …
THE KISS OF DEATH A drama overloaded with “dots” that just don’t connect The Ruskin Group Theatre’s production of Stephen Fife’s Blue Kiss starts off with promise. Todd (Casey Morr…
KAFKA IN AMERICA— AND LOST AT SEA Striking visuals adrift in an overlong adaptation Who isn’t familiar with Franz Kafka (1883–1924), the tormented Czech writer? Or The Metamorphosis, K…
LOST IN TRANSLATION— AND INTENTION Pulitzer winner that provokes, puzzles, and occasionally frustrates. Is it a scream into a void or a play? English, by Sanaz Toossi, won the 2023 Pulitze…
FOUNDING FATHERS, FOUND WANTING A promising historical premise undone by uneven writing What Price Freedom, by Tony Blake, having its world premiere at Moving Arts Theatre, recounts one of t…
SUPERSTAR STILL RISES Nocturne Theatre's high-concept staging proves that even a familiar rock opera can still feel fresh, fierce, and electrifying First, a Biblical passage…"Jesus Christ …
CIVILITY ON THE BRINK OF CHAOS Jack Heller's polished production reveals Pinter's menace, even if it could use a bit more disorder First, a joke: "How many Harold Pinters does it take to cha…
A GENDER-FLUID RICHARD III ROOTED IN HISTORY AND PERFORMANCE TRADITION A commanding central performance anchors a sharp, theatrically confident staging The Tragedy of Richard the Third, Will…
MOZART MEETS THE FINAL FRONTIER Pacific Opera Project boldly goes where singspiel has gone before Begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1789 complex and comic singspiel Die Entführung aus …
POETRY AS ACTIVISM, MEMORY, AND INVITATION A moving, participatory tribute to June Jordan that insists poetry still matters June Jordan was a seminal feminist poet and essayist who"beyond ge…
ZANDER RAPHAEL SPINS PUPPETRY INTO GOLD Gilded Spindle offers Shannon L. Reagan's retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin tale with a slight #MeToo twist. While the talents and artistry of Reagan, …
Kind Stranger … A Memory Play, conceived and performed by Rick Simone-Friedland is successful as a historical rendering of Playwright Tennessee Williams' life. It is also successful as a r…
A SOLO HAMLET BUILT ON PRECISION AND VELOCITY Inside the White-Box World of Izzard: One Performer, Twenty-Two Roles, No Safety Net Suzy Eddie Izzard"formerly known as Eddie Izzard until 2023…
A MURDEROUSLY FUN MUSICAL SEND-UP OF KIDS-TV STARDOM Nathan Wang and Matthew Leavitt turn wholesome childhood icons into gleeful chaos" fast, filthy, and ridiculously entertaining. Sets are …
A HOLIDAY PANTO THAT KNOWS WHAT IT'S DOING The Actors' Gang offers a family-friendly fairy tale with teeth Children of the Winter Kingdom " The Bonkers Adventures of Holly and Spruce, now fr…
THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD " IT RINGS THE DOORBELL Priestley's prophetic 1945 masterpiece glows with fierce clarity at Theatre 40 Masquerading as one of those staid drawing room mysteries Agatha…
Bluebeard's Castle, A Medieval Musical Thriller by Russian director and playwright Sofia Streisand, making her U.S. debut at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, displays immense ambition that achi…
SUPER ZEROES UNITE! Aging heroes, flat jokes, and laughs that need life support Golden Age by Thomas J. Nisuraca is the roughest of rough theatre. Staged by Force of Nature Productions and d…
THANKS TO ANTAEUS, CYMBELINE RIDES AGAIN Who knew Cymbeline could gallop? Director Nike Doukas's new staging at Antaeus Theatre Company turns one of Shakespeare's most notoriously unwieldy p…
A MILD CASE OF THE CREEPS Ah, Halloween " All Hallows' Day, Allhallowtide, Jack-o'-lanterns, the madcap lads of West Hollywood, the troops of pint-sized witches, Iron Men and Disney princess…
INTO THE WORDS Entering The Other Space at the Actors Company Theatre Complex, I was immediately taken by Fritz Davis's well-crafted video projections cast on Joel Daavid's set of three wall…
OH, WHAT A NIGHT Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana (1961) may be viewed as the finish of a journey the playwright began twenty years earlier with The Glass Menagerie (1944). The on…
A GEM OF A PRODUCTION FOR THERESA REBECK'S DAZZLING SUNDAY ON THE ROCKS Solid. Diamond Solid. Strength and luster. That is what's most striking about Sunday on the Rocks by playwright Theres…
FLY ME TO THE SUN… AND LEAVE ME THERE I confess, playwright Brian Quijada was an unknown quantity to me, and after attending Fly Me to the Sun at the Fountain Theatre, I was of the mind th…
ACHILLES' HEEL IN ARCADIA There is a misunderstanding of critics among some circles, a sense that they are all cast in the mold of Ellsworth Toohey, the sniveling, Machiavellian art critic f…
