★★★★☆ It has to be said: Dave Malloy’s Melville adaptation is a whale of a show
Beyond
From Boston: Quixote Nuevo, Modern-Day Man of La Plancha
★★★☆☆ Octavio Solis’s modern-day take on Don Quixote taps into the current crisis along the U.S./Mexico border
From London: Well-Measured Measure for Measure, Giddy Groan Ups
Measure for Measure ★★★★ Is Gregory Doran currently our most accomplished director of anything William Shakespeare wrote for the stage—or is believed to have written? As artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he’s in a good position to jockey for the rating. He can assign himself as many productions as he likes and then do…
The Feingold Column: Good Grief, America!
The cultural forms and images that make us human, that give shape and meaning and memory to our collective life as a species, are being increasingly forgotten.
From Providence: Its Prince Proves a Pretender
★★☆☆☆ A city celebrates its legendary political rascal, leaving open why he should matter to the rest of us
From Boston: The Purists (and Director Billy Porter) Keep It Real
★★★★☆ A Sunnyside, Queens stoop is the unlikely setting for a thrilling affirmation of how we can learn to get along
The Feingold Column: How the Musical Won
If music, as we’ve often been told, is the universal language, the Broadway musical seems at present to offer that language one of its broadest reaches
From Massachusetts: The Joy of Six
★★★★★ The “Divorced, Beheaded, Live” tryout tour of Henry VIII’s wives makes a turbocharged Cambridge stop
From Massachusetts: Fall Springs, A Fracking Good Time
★★★☆☆ Stale environmental satire is offset by sprightly songs and a swell cast at Barrington Stage
From Williamstown: Ghosts and Before the Meeting
At Williamstown, an O.K. revival and a superior modern premiere explore humanity at lowest ebb.