Greg Kerestan - Page 7

A talented cast give their all, but Simon Levy's adaptation of the Great American Novel seems unsure of what it wants to be.

You couldn't write a play like this today, but with the right, light touch, you can still get an immensely entertaining evening out of it.

Is Hamlet mad or sane? Should Denmark be ruled by the melancholy Dane, or by Claudius? Ted Pappas's production bravely casts all accepted answers into uncertainty.

Addiction drama is passe, author/main character Sean says. But here, in Sean Daniels's three-person dramedy, the journey from addiction to recovery is a journey well worth taking.

Alan Stanford's masterful adaptation of an often-grim Bronte novel balances melodrama with humanity, horror with levity.

The five-person, three-musician comedy is a throwback, both to the Golden Age of comic books and the absurd silliness of 1990s family comedy.

The Pittsburgh Public production of Simon Stephens's play is a tug of war, both between its two characters and between light comedy and weighty drama.

Even without big-name stars, 'Waitress' proves itself to be the right show at the right time.

Vaudeville, burlesque and television variety shows may be dead, but Ted Pappas uses the classic Sondheim musical to exhume the bodies and bring them roaring back to life.

There are some things it's hard to joke about, but the tasteful crime tragicomedy of James Lecesne's one-man show somehow holds it together.

If you want to discuss mystery, and I think we need to at this point, there are two essential tropes that must be considered. First, we have Chekhov's gun- if a seemingly important thing is brought up, even casually, near the beginning, it will prove to be important by the end. (Case in point: Chekhov introduces a gun early in Hedda Gabler, and somebody gets shot by the end of the evening.) Second, we have the opposite of Chekhov's gun, the red herring- sometimes, a seemingly important thing is brought up, even casually, to divert attention and create misdirection from what is truly important. (Case in point, Sigmund Freud stated that anything longer than it is wide represented a phallic icon, but justified his own smoking by stating 'sometimes, a cigar can be just a cigar,' not emblematic of anything else.)

Peter Shaffer's genre-busting psychodrama gets a bracing production, featuring a revelatory change of pace by Daniel Krell.

Putney and McGeever both nail the sitcom rhythms of their dialogue, Putney channeling Kristin Bell's frayed-around-the-edges perkiness while McGeever strongly recalls Jesse Tyler Ferguson's squirmy tragicomedy in cult classic The Class. The rapport between the two of them is realistically uneasy, feeling alternately welcome and pathetic in both antagonistic and romantic moments. As directed by Joshua Kahan Brody, the balance never slides to firmly for too long to the 'funny' or 'dour' side of the sadcom scale, assisted by the intermittent interjections of Kendra McLaughlin's taciturn Geena.

Classy, frothy, smooth and swingin', this Sinatra revue feels like a cruise ship nightclub show in the best possible way.

If you've ever wondered what a farce by Agatha Christie would be like, St. Vincent's annual summer farce will satisfy your curiosity- not to mention showcase all the local favorites in their triumphant returns.

In lesser hands, this Off-Broadway two-hander would be nothing but a long comedy sketch. But the never-a-dull-moment CLO Cabaret and a bona fide triple threat celebrity wring gold and unexpected emotional depth from the lightweight piece.

Marcus Stevens finally finds a role he can truly sink his teeth into, in this fluffy but unexpectedly dark Biblical farce.

When the tunes are this infectious and the cast this endearing, little things like plot and characterization are secondary concerns.

Disney's jungle tuner is all about stunts and spectacle, and PMT's production delivers both, with some spectacular singing thrown in.

As blasphemous as it sounds, Arthur Miller's classic American tragedy is almost as good as peak television.