QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey ONE AGAINST THEBES

Not seven, just one. It turns out that one powerful woman can bring a tyrant to his knees, as we are seeing nightly before our eyes, but Sophocles’ mighty play about ANTIGONE (reconstructed by Jean Anouilh and adapted by Lewis Galantiere) was written 3000 years ago. Flat Earth Theatre, always surprising us with savvy, potent productions, is presenting a singular, resonant ANTIGONE (through this weekend only) with one of the most gripping performances of the “daughter of kings” I’ve seen in ages. Regine Vital gives a tour de force as the woman who defies the law and reigns destruction down on Thebes.

Director Lindsay Eagle’s vision for this production features yet another commanding performance. Just as it did in Sophocles’ day, the Greek Chorus takes center stage at Flat Earth to proclaim the awful truth: Tragedy will consume every living being (and the dead as well). The remarkable Elbert Joseph leads a dynamic signing chorus to warn us about the consequences of complacency and the grave cost of heroics.

When Joseph’s sinewy arms rise over his head in righteous anger, we tremble imagining the horror to come. His whole body speaks, not just his eloquent hands… and the roar is deafening. Kudos to Flat Earth for entrusting Joseph to elevate the profound weight of the story with his soaring hands. Without him and the other ASL interpreters, this would be just another ordinary retelling of the Greek classic. Instead it’s an extraordinary coup.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey So Many Steves and So Little Time

Zeitgeist’s racy new farce deliberately leads us down the garden path by overwhelming us with characters named Steve. Mark Gerrard’s cheeky comedy of manners (most of them bad) is called, you guessed it, STEVE (playing through March 24^th). I’ll try to explain, although I confess, I’m not really sure who’s having an affair, or thinking of having an affair, or who’s sexting whom. To make matters even more complicated, there’s a personal trainer also named Steve and there’s a scene at a gym with a person who’s about to work out, maybe with the personal trainer… or maybe “personal trainer” is a euphemism for body work of another sort.

So it’s Steve’s birthday and his husband, Steve, has organized a little get together at a local restaurant but Birthday Steve has discovered sexting on his partner’s cell phone. Tempers flare and drinks are spilled. (At this point I thought the naughty text message originated with one of the people at the party. I now think it came from Trainer Steve but that throws off my whole comprehension trajectory.) Not to worry. It doesn’t matter because the playwright hides a little magical realism up his sleeve and although drinks are airborne again, the sizzling Latin waiter arrives to clean it all up, no problem this time. I must admit, I couldn’t wait for Esteban, the dancer/waitperson (and so much more) to grace another scene. The hilarious Adam Boisselle has the plum role of Esteban (You guessed it, Spanish for Steve)… and he has all the best lines!

David J. Miller’s talented cast, led by the charismatic Victor Shopov (who manages to emote genuine pain beneath a hard crust of arrogance) have a field day with Gerrard’s angst ridden script. Mikey DiLoreto as Shopov’s BFF, has his trials, as well. Like the Steves (Shopov and a suave Alex Jacobs) his partner (Mike Nilsson) is having a wee bit of wanderlust. Gerrard throws in a dying female friend (Jenny Reagan) and a million show tunes, I presume, so you have some frame of reference.

I was humming along and then Gerrard alluded to THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA, which sent my mind back to a 1980s production, as well as the painting. Maybe that’s why I lost my way. Or it could have been EVERSOURCE’s fault. When I saw STEVE, it was day two (of the four days and nights) of no electricity and no heat and my brain may have been already frozen.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW Musical Balm for a Long Winter By Beverly Creasey

After a bleak and harrowing winter, aren’t we all in need of renewal? Thankfully spring is showing signs of hope: A warm February forced snow drop shoots up through the ground to remind us of a new season about to bud. Then miraculously, the theater offered transformative performances to lift us out of the doldrums.

First, Jane Staab’s life affirming production of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST for Wheelock Family Theater offers what the well-oiled Broadway tours do not: endless heart and a palpable exuberance that reaches across the footlights. You can’t help but be moved by the tender relationship of Belle (Justine Moral) and her hapless father (Bob Saoud), not to mention her ability to see the kindness in a sorrowful beast (Jared Troilo). Laurel Conrad’s spirited choreography and Steven Bergman’s sumptuous orchestra had a houseful of children at my performance singing and dancing in their seats. From Chip Phillips’ fussy grandfather clock to Brad Foster Reinking’s charming candelabra; From Gamalia Pharms’ sunny teapot to Brittany Rofs’ spitfire French maid… everyone, including the bad guy (Mark Linehan) generated welcome laughter and smiles. (Playing through March 4^th)

Praxis Stage’s remodel of Ntozake Shange’s [updated] FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENOUGH is a fresh, visceral look at the revolutionary choreo-poem. I can hardly believe forty years have gone by since I first saw Shange’s fiercely intelligent ensemble piece. Director Dayenne C. Byron Walters and choreographer Lola Remy add music, movement, dance and connective tissue to the vignettes, making each piece more than just part of the whole. The searing but often witty portraits seem even more relevant today, in light of “Me, Too” revelations. The women suffer and rebel, resist and conquer…falter and rise. I couldn’t keep Maya Angelou’s “And still I rise” from my thoughts as I watched these luminous performers: Karline Desir takes your breath away in the pleasing, rapid fire scold, “Without any assistance from you”…then she hurls you to the depths of your fears as she recounts the events of an unspeakable tragedy. Thomika Marie Bridwell, too, reclaims her strength in a commanding metaphorical twist on “identity” theft. Verna Hampton magically morphs from innocent child to righteous woman. The entire cast excells, from tiny powerhouse Ciera Sade-Wade…to Karima Williams to Tonasia Jones and Byron Walters herself. Each “poem” empowers us, as we witness women surviving the weight of the world. (Closed)

AMERICAN CLASSICS has the knack for inventing one-of-a-kind musical niches, shows that are so delightful, you wonder why no one else thought of, say, LONDON PRIDE. After all, there’s a trove of musical treasures in the “American Songbook,” composed around the people and places of London: Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Lerner & Lowe, and of course, Noel Coward, all honored his “dear, old town.” Most significantly, AMERICAN CLASSICS has the unique ability to find the ideal singers to make a revue more than just a revue. There’s the burnished baritone of Ben Sears and gorgeous piano arrangements of Brad Conner, co-founders of the CLASSICS. And their guests: Tenor Davron Monroe (who often sings with them) lifted “On the Street Where You Live” to anthem heights in the MY FAIR LADY segment. Then Teresa Winner Blume made you feel like you had seen the whole musical with her touching, exuberant “I Could Have Danced All Night.” But it was Michelle Deluise who out-Hollowayed the vaudeville star as Alfred P. Doolittle (!) performing a rousing “With a Little Bit of Luck!”…This versatile comedienne could knead a chill into SWEENEY TODD with Sondheim’s “The Worst Pies in London” and she’s able to switch gears (and wring tears from my eyes) with the somber “Streets of London” (by Ralph McTell) where children starve and desperate men drown their troubles with drink. The ensemble took us from Berkeley Square to Neverland and back… It must have been the pixie dust…because every song soared. (Closed)

QUICK TAKE REVIEW Mamet Meets Sondheim on the Road By Beverly Creasey

It’s almost the turn of the century (that is, the 20^th) when two brothers set out to make their fortune and honor their father. They don’t and they don’t…Well, they do after a fashion, but no one (except a mother) would be truly proud. One brother could swindle P. T. Barnum out of a circus while the other peddles sketchy real estate in Florida (à la Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross Estates). They part ways, travel the world and catch the eye of Stephen Sondheim almost a century later. So many adventures! So much inspiration. You can see why Sondheim and John Weidman would write (and keep re-writing) ROAD SHOW and you can see why Lyric Stage would want to produce it. Sondheim is their bailiwick.

ROAD SHOW (running through Feb. 11^th) is the sixth or seventh Sondheim show directed by Spiro Veloudos (co-directed, this time out, with Ilyse Robbins). While I was watching ROAD SHOW, I kept recalling snatches of those other wonderful Sondheim shows at Lyric because that’s where the music leads you. It’s almost impossible not to think of the more familiar song traveling along the same notes.

ROAD SHOW does have moments of its own, like the touching love song, “[You’re] The Best Thing That Ever Happened [to me].” Neil A. Casey and Patrick Varner, as the two lonely souls who find brief happiness, are the main reasons to see ROAD SHOW. (However, their story line is so dramatically fuzzy in the plot turn, that you suspect something was left out of this revision.). Nevertheless, if you’re a Sondheim fan, you don’t want to miss the chance to see even a lesser work by the master.

Jonathan Goldberg, who has shepherded many of the Lyric’s Sondheim musicals, makes the tiny three-piece orchestra sound like the full complement, so I’m inclined to conclude that whatever the Lyric team could accomplish with the musical, ROAD SHOW would still need massive infrastructure improvement before it’s reliably roadworthy.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey SCUTTLED

The Imaginary Beasts are back with their annual Winter Panto (through Feb. 4^th @ Charlestown Working Theatre). Not to be confused with a pantomime show, the Beastly entertainment is fashioned after the English Panto, a motley mixture of Commedia dell Arte and bawdy British music hall burlesque. This Panto features a nod and a wink to Jules Verne’s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA.

The Beasts’ imagination is limitless, cobbling together outrageous comedy, popular song, merry dance and more plotlines than you can shake a (slap) stick at. The key for the audience is to play along, to hiss the villain, to boo their shameless puns, to warn the players when a baddie is approaching (the kids love that part)…and to grab onto as many allusions as you can. 

Mind you, these references gallop by faster than the brain can locate their origin but you may be able to snag a few TV salutes: “Kawabunga” was Chief Thunder Thud’s war cry on The Howdy Doody Show and “Papa Oooh Mau Mau” [The Bird is the Word] was the famous Ghoul’s siren song. Of course, in the Panto they’re just funny words all by themselves. You may hear a snatch of a tune that signals “The Poseidon Adventure” or a fleeting hint at Jacques Brel with the mention of “Matelot.”

Matthew Woods, The Beasts’ chief cook and bottle washer (and the narrator, to boot) points out that this is their first sci-fi Panto. Since a league is three miles, the Beasts plumb new depths of comedy, a marathon of 60,000 miles to be exact, ending up (or rather down) in the Lost City of Atlantis. I’m afraid the story line jumped ship way before we boarded the Nautalis, but the stock characters are all you need to keep your moorings.

The grand dame is always played by a man and Noah Simes is garishly, marvelously flirtatious as Mlle. Faux Pas, (that is, inexplicably, when he isn’t Raggety Anne). Luckily for mademoiselle, there are plenty of men, including audience members, for her to pursue. One of the cleverest bits is Faux Pas’ water ballet when she lands in the drink.

Michael Underhill as the loquacious, quote-acious copper is always stopping traffic à la Monty Python’s Graham Chapman. The only reference he doesn’t pinch is The Pirates of Penzance’s “Policeman’s Lot.” Kim Klasner is the sweetest of hapless heroes, who only wants to find her little, lost kitty cat, portrayed with a devilish curiosity by Molly Kimmerling. It’s the cat who almost dispatches them all, Trump-style, by pushing the big red nuclear button.

            Bob Mussett provides plenty of laughs as the pug nosed, seasick Bowery boy; William Schuller is delightfully dense as the explorer who would be adrift, if not for Jamie Semel as his doughty daughter. Amy Meyer is a ubiquitous double agent and Rebecca Lehrhoff floats effortlessly as a helpful choral nymph.

            Jennifer Taschereau first appears as a skipper with a gargantuan beard covering her whole face; then she’s transformed into a gleaming sea creature by Cotton-Minkin’s adorable octopus costume (with its manifolded skirt festooned with pom-poms). It’s Talbot-Minkin’s ingenious creations that make the show!

            The most compelling characters, of course, are the bad guys. The point of a panto is to restore “the right, the good, the true” so you know comeuppance is in the mix. Sarah Gazdowicz is a magnificent, lobster clawed “bottom feeder” who plans to scuttle the lot. Alas she can’t succeed, this being a panto whose point is that crime doesn’t pay…but I was rooting for the Lob Lady.

            She’s joined on the scoundrel side by a charismatic Kiki Samko as the diabolical Captain Nemo. Samko seemed to channel James Mason from the Hollywood movie… Or maybe I was just punch drunk from the long haul conscription. Their sea battle is spectacular but you’re under water for so long, you risk getting the bends.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey LOST and Found in Translation

There are a lot of smart plays about working class families but Take Your Pick Productions has found one with a nice kick for their second outing. (They scored last season with THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED.) John Pollono’s LOST GIRLS (playing at the BCA through Jan. 21^st) is ostensibly about a runaway teen who may be making the same mistake her mother (and her mother’s mother) made. The wiseacre grandmother (a formidable Christine Power) quips that they’re improving with every successive generation: Her mother was fourteen when she became pregnant; She herself was fifteen but her daughter waited until she was sixteen!

The dialogue is saucy and sardonic—but also sweet. A sixteen year old boy (a charming Zach Winston), in love for the first time, tells the object of his affection (the brassy Lesley Anne Moreau) that it feels like “chewing on an electric cable.” Director Melanie Garber has a spirited cast to deliver Pollono’s punches, chiefly Audrey Lynn Sylvia as the intractable mother of the runaway, a woman who does not want to accept help from her ex (an earnest Terrence P. Haddad) and least of all, from his cloying new wife (a very funny Lauren Foster).

You’ll find that Pollono’s script keeps you guessing, not going where you think it will, which is a treat nowadays when most new plays are predictable and shopworn. Lucky us. Thanks to Take Your Pick, we get to see the New England premiere!

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey A NEW MAN

How refreshing to find a smart new way to approach MAN OF LA MANCHA. The classic musical by Dale Wasserman, Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion has been streamlined, simplified and tightened in director Antonio Ocampo-Guzman’s stirring new production for New Repertory Theatre. Please pardon me for saying I’ve found revivals of the musical rather stodgy in recent years but I’m delighted to find that this MAN (playing through Dec. 24^th) works beautifully in New Rep’s mid-size, perfect-size space. (You can see and hear in every seat in the house.)

Ocampo-Guzman may call up allusions to Spain under Franco but the musical set during the Spanish Inquisition resonates right now with its “enemies of the state” mentality—and its sardonic take on the rule of law. Don Quixote’s “Facts are the enemy of truth” will have you thinking of the extreme right wing’s “alternate facts,” not to mention the travesties which now pass for truth. For example, the director silently indicts the Catholic Church for its collusion with torture and murder by having nuns accompany the police whenever a prisoner is summoned before the auto-da-fe.

Cast members play instruments (solving the problem of where to hide an orchestra), making this MAN much more intimate. Music director David Reiffel and choreographer Judith Chaffee move the performers around seamlessly, making the story much more cohesive. I’ve seen many a company knock themselves out with elaborate set pieces in an effort to make the “mirror” scene work (when the Knight is forced to see “reality”) when it turns out, less is more…and makes more sense.

And how brilliant is it to forego a chubby dolt of a Sancho Panza in favor of a clever secretary for Cervantes, who then becomes the compadre of Don Quixote. How lovely it is to see the devotion and friendship of the two. Kudos to Maurice Emmanual Parent as the foolish but noble Don and Michael Levesque as his thoughtful companion. When Levesque sings “I Like Him,” it’s touching and eminently believable. (And turning “A Little Gossip” a little vaudeville does the trick.)

How thrilling it is to go “operatic” with the musical: Sometimes it doesn’t pay to mix “regular” (pop) voices with full out operatic singing but it truly heightens the drama in this production. Ute Gfrerer is a stunning Dulcinea and Stefan Barner makes the Psalm aria downright chilling. New Rep has some of Boston’s best leading actors in secondary roles and that pays off, too. Shonna Cirone and Todd Yard are splendid as Inn Keepers; Paul James Lang is first rate as the Barber and Davron Monroe broods and frightens as the “Duke.”

I left the theater heartened that our current “unrightable wrongs” perhaps may be righted… Maybe the world can “be better for this.” Thanks, New Rep, for the engaging uplift.