★★★★☆ When a master playwright takes on the mystery of sight (in its many senses), it pays to listen.
About Sandy MacDonald
Syncing Ink: A Crack Ensemble Revives a Hip-Hop Legend
★★★☆☆ Playwright/performer NSangou Njikam, accompanied by some gifted colleagues, gets to the heart of hip-hop culture.
Staff Meal: Chef’s Kiss for a Kooky Pastiche
★★★☆☆ Absurdism triumphs in this crazy combo meal of modern dating mores plus culinary pretention.
The Great Gatsby: All That Glitters, But Short on Depth
★★★☆☆ All the fixings – including some snazzy sets and standout stars – don’t suffice to hoist this musical into the top rank.
The Grapes of Wrath: Ricky Ian Gordon’s Opera Deserves a Real Run
MasterVoices revives their 2010 concert staging of this opera version of the Steinbeck novel
Sally & Tom: The Oddest, Most Emblematic Couple in U.S. History
★★★★★ There’s no way to sugarcoat Thomas Jefferson’s abuse of Sally Hemings, but Suzan-Lori Parks whips up an entertaining gloss.
Lempicka: A Paint-by-Numbers Old-School Musical
★★☆☆☆ Daubed with broad strokes, this sweeping bio-musical proves at once arty and inept.
Grief Hotel: A Bizarre Business Plan That Doubles as a Clever Leitmotif
★★★★☆ “Loss is fast, and grief is slow…. At the grief hotel, you get to stop time.”
Philadelphia, Here I Come: Two Aces Finesse This Spirited Revival of a Modern Classic
★★★★☆ Brian Friel’s early character study – an exercise in ego vs. id – proves surprisingly timely and compelling.
Water for Elephants: A Thrilling Throwback to the Heyday of the Big Top
★★★★☆ This “circus musical” occupies an impressively big tent, probing the power dynamics that affect the human animal.