This review starts with the same disclaimer as my last Rustic Mechanicals review: I really like the project of a dedicated Shakespeare touring troupe for West Virginia. I find their mission basically admirable. Their performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was better than their productions of The Tempest or Much Ado About Nothing, so I was …
Continue reading Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare–10 July 2016
I’ve seen two productions of Neil Labute’s The Shape of Things, but this was the first time I had seen Fat Pig (or any other Labute play) produced. Labute seems to be a playwright of odd, dysfunctional relationships and the difficulty of finding genuine connections with people in a society that values people for their …
Peter Tolan’s Pillow Talk is a fun little comedy that explores the contours of sexuality and anxiety in modern US culture. The play spends one night with Aaron (Sean Marko) and Doug (Mack Kale Jr.) as they share a bed on the first night of their cross-country road trip. While both men are heterosexual, their …
The MAC produced the opening run of Travis Teffner’s Over Before It Began, which unfortunately seems more like a decision based on the close working relationship between Teffner, David Beach (who directed), and the MAC, than a reflection of the quality of the play itself. The acting was fine, but the play itself is plagued …
Continue reading Over Before It Began, by Travis Teffner–21 May 2016
The MAC production of Joe Calarco’s Walter Cronkite is Dead was spectacular. The acting was superb, and the play shifted deftly between laugh out loud funny (and I rarely laugh in the theatre) and deep sadness. Directed by David Beach, the show was great. The play is about two women, Margaret (Cindy Ulrich) and Patty …
Continue reading Walter Cronkite is Dead, by Joe Calarco–1 May 2016
First, I want to say that I am a bad reviewer of The Tempest because I have very definite ideas about how it should be performed, particularly how Caliban should be portrayed. Second, I want to say that I genuinely believe in the project of the Rustic Mechanicals, which is to bring Shakespeare’s works to …
Continue reading The Tempest, by William Shakespeare–20 Apr. 2016
Brian Friel is one of Ireland’s greatest contemporary dramatists. I’ve read several of his plays, and seen a production of Faith Healer a few years ago. So when M.T. Pockets Theatre announced they were producing Dancing at Lughnasa, I was keen on the prospect. Friel, like many other contemporary Irish playwrights, challenges stereotypes and idealizations …
Continue reading Dancing at Lughnasa, by Brian Friel–3 Apr. 2016
The MAC production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit—directed by Nicki Davis—was the third production of Sartre’s masterpiece I’ve seen. While there were a few hiccups, it was overall a strong production with very good performances. No Exit is perhaps the most iconic existential play. Set in hell, the play tells the story of three people …
was fortunate to see Donald Fidler’s Hijacked Lives in its premier performance, directed by David Beach. Although billed as part of a two-show evening of Existential Theatre, I wouldn’t have called this an existentialist play. Whether it is existential or not, however, the show is intriguing, engaging, witty, and fun. The story begins with a …
Continue reading Hijacked Lives, by Donald Fidler–31 Jan. 2016
WVU Lab Theatre presented Stephen Adly Guirgis’ play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, directed by Brittany McGonegal, which stages an imagined trial in Purgatory to remit Judas Iscariot’s eternal damnation and allow him forgiveness for betraying Jesus. For me, it is a play of two halves. The first half was a theological comedy, which …
Continue reading The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, by Stephen Adly Guirgis–5 Dec. 2015
Phillip Zapkin 