Giordana Segneri - Page 2

The far flung often breeds the bizarre, and Martin McDonagh's deliciously dark A Skull in Connemara capitalizes on its setting in the wild west of Ireland to weave a contemporary tale that's at once peculiar, touching and hilarious. Centerstage's offering brings together a remarkably even cast of four top-notch, talented actors, all making their debut at the theater and bringing to life the strange story of a motley crew who keep each other company in their misery.

Eugene O'Neill lived a strange and somewhat sad life during the first half of the 20th century, and despite the playwright being exceptionally lauded for his written works (he was the first American ever to win the Nobel Prize in Literature), O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, running at the Fells Point Corner Theatre, is no less strange and sad than its author's reality.

It's been said that laughter is the best medicine, and in some cases, it may even be the best antidote. The Vagabond Players' Arsenic and Old Lace brings a 70-plus-year-old script involving the manifestations of insanity in an established Brooklyn family gracefully and hilariously into the 21st century.

With a title like Glitter and Spew, you'd think this three-act play would be highly energetic-ebullient, even-and dazzlingly polished. During a holiday entertainment season trimmed with endless renditions of The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol, the production is the Strand Theater Co.'s attempt to provide an alternative to December stage fodder that's become saccharine and trite. Disappointingly, it falls flat, and the barely one-hour performance deals in dullness rather than the glitz of glitter.

While this production borrows its title from a childish poem, it should by no means be mistaken for children's entertainment, and in fact, an early scene's full-frontal male nudity audibly takes the full house at Fells Point Corner Theatre by surprise. But the adult content shares quite a few themes with the nursery rhymes and fables that underscore our childhood: It's all about the pursuit of happiness and how our success or failure in that quest hinges on our decisions.

The Vagabond Players opened Godspell Oct. 14, nearly simultaneously with the Broadway revival's preview, which leads up to an official Nov. 7 debut (the Vagabond Players have stated, in fact, their gratefulness for not having the rights to the production pulled). In the Vags' intimate, historic space, the production takes on a very participatory quality that-in its hugeness-breaks right through the fourth wall and draws the audience in.

Anna Bella Eema would be a terribly depressing story were it not infused with such intense, infectious energy-so much so that it tumbles off the thrust stage and threatens to swallow whole the tiny, black-box space that's home to the Strand Theater Co. This energy is wild, untamed and mildly spiritual, a perfect echo of the characters that Obie Award-winning playwright Lisa D'Amour has so carefully crafted, exploring the murky corners of their personalities by allowing them to narrate their own obscure histories.

The set for Salt Luck Arts' five-act @The_Moment: #5shortplaysonlifein2011 is simple to begin with and gets no more complicated as the performance progresses. This is a plus, since the stage is small and the ensemble cast's acting is good enough-very good enough, actually-to require little in terms of props or scenery to convey the theme coursing through the five one-act shorts: the idiosyncrasies of our very-connected-yet-somehow-not-connected-at-all life in the '10s.