BWW Review: Very Silly but Funny MURDER AT THE HOWARD JOHNSON'S at 2ND STORY THEATRE
2nd Story Theatre in Warren is currently offering Sam Bobrick and Ron Clark's 1979 classic MURDER AT THE HOWARD JOHNSON'S. Did I say classic? What I meant was a shallow, pithy, superficial, farcical, and light-weight comedy. Bobrick and Clarke cut their teeth writing tv comedy for some of the smartest television of all time like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Steve Allen Show. (Look these up if you have to.) This is a comedy about murder and infidelity-now who couldn't like that? 2nd Story says they were shooting for 'a pain-reducing balm' to what we've been experiencing the past months, and I think they more or less delivered. The audience was laughing and, my God, needed it.
Photo Flash: MURDER AT THE HOWARD JOHNSON'S Kicks Off at 2nd Story Theatre
After a particularly bruising election year, we offer a pain-reducing balm in the form of Bobrick & Clark's shamelessly silly, ferociously funny farce. In a line-up that promises "the ridiculous to the sublime," this kitsch '70's comedy classic serves up the ridiculous. In spades. Thank God it's sandwiched between a Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winner, otherwise we'd never be able to show our faces in this town again!
BWW Review: Love PRELUDE TO A KISS at 2nd Story Theatre
With PRELUDE TO A KISS, the current offering at 2nd Story Theatre in Warren, RI, playwright Craig Lucas came up with a realistically magical take on the Hollywood formula, boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl back. Apparently this theme predates even Hollywood: on the way home from the theater I listened to Monteverdi's seventeenth century opera, L'Orfeo, based on the even older story of Orpheus, in which boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, but oops. In this PRELUDE TO A KISS, which 2nd Story bills as a modern day fairy tale, elderly 'wedding crasher' (F. William Oakes) kisses the bride, Rita, (Lara Hakeem) and their souls exchange, which turns a perfect wedding into a white-knuckled flight of doubt and regret. All this leaves the brave but bewildered groom, Peter, (David Sackel) to reverse the curse armed only with the power of love and, eventually, the assistance of the persona-switched bride and crasher. Got all that?
BWW Review: Let CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRLS School You!
CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRLS by Casey Kurtti, the current offering at 2nd Story Theatre in Warren, follows MASS APPEAL and continues the theater's exploration of the Catholic Church in the second half of the late, lamented Twentieth Century. While MASS APPEAL concentrated on the masculine side of the Church (priests and would-be priests), CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRLS focuses on the distaff side by following the school lives of four grammar school girls and the nuns who teach them at St. George's School in Yonkers. Four actresses play the girls and each takes a turn playing a different nun. Unlike a show like NUNSENSE, which is played for laughs, Kurtti's play explores both the lighter and darker sides of the girls experience; sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it hurts. You don't have to be Catholic, but it helps.
BWW Review: Let the BUYER & CELLAR Beware
Jonathan Tolins' BUYER AND CELLAR is being performed at Downstage, which is appropriately a cellar, at 2d Story Theater in Warren, RI. I have to admit I have been putting off writing this review. In this eighty-minute one-man show directed by the estimable Lara Hakeem and featuring the multi-talented Kevin Broccoli as Alex Moore, a struggling actor recently fired from Disneyland for failing to stay in character, takes a job working in an underground mall beneath the home of Barbra Streisand. Did I say he plays a struggling actor? That is only partially correct: moving effortlessly from persona to persona, Broccoli also becomes Alex's lover, Streisand's secretary, James Brolin and Streisand herself. BUYER AND CELLAR really seemed to be hitting its stride when Alex and Streisand (Broccoli v. Broccoli) meet in one of the shops in the subterranean private mall and conduct a lengthy negotiation of the absurd, haggling over the price of a doll she already owns. At this point, BUYER AND CELLAR is laugh out loud funny. Would that it had stayed that way.
Contemporary Theater Company's BUYER AND CELLAR Begins Tonight
What would you do if you had a fortune and a mansion full of beautiful things? Barbra Streisand built a mall of make-believe shops in her basement to hold her memorabilia. This whimsical reality led playwright Jonathan Tolins to write the charming play Buyer and Cellar, playing at the Contemporary Theater Company tonight, September 11, through September 20.
Contemporary Theater Company's BUYER AND CELLAR to Run 9/11-20
What would you do if you had a fortune and a mansion full of beautiful things? Barbra Streisand built a mall of make-believe shops in her basement to hold her memorabilia. This whimsical reality led playwright Jonathan Tolins to write the charming play Buyer and Cellar, playing at the Contemporary Theater Company September 11 - 20.
BWW Reviews: VENUS IN FUR at 2nd Story Theater
2nd Story Theater is currently offering an excellent production of VENUS IN FUR by David Ives in its intimate, seventy seat Downstage. Let's not bury the lead: the play itself, the cast, the set, the lighting, the costumes and the props are all terrific, but what really makes this work is an outstanding performance by Lara Hakeem. This is the second time I have seen Ms Hakeem perform at 2nd Story (my loss-she's been there since the theater opened in 2001), and ass good as she was in AND MISS REARDON DRINKS A LITTLE, she is even better here. Hakeem is at once hilarious and sexy as her character, Vanda-an auditioning actress, slowly but surely turns the table on her putative writer/director, Thomas, played by Richard Derry. He is miserable to her at first, as she seems all wrong for the part, but she understands: 'You're a writer and director; it's your job to torture actors.' Once she comes in from the rain in a trench coat, she spends the evening in tight leather undergarments, and Derry's Thomas crumples before the charms of Hakeem's Vanda. A newcomer to 2nd Story, Derry is also very good, particularly showing his chops in the brief time he and Hakeem switch roles and he plays Vanda.
BWW Reviews: THIS Examines the Reality of Grief
The first step in any critique of a play is the play itself. And Melissa James Gibson's THIS, produced by Epic Theatre Company, is an excellent example of a well-written play.
THIS runs January 9th - 25th
Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm | Sunday 2pm
Tickets $15 General Admission
$12 Seniors & Students
Theatre 82 & Cafe | 82 Rolfe Square
BWW Reviews: It's a Bumpy Ride on THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL at 2nd Story Theatre
We've all heard 'You can't go home again.' Or how about 'Home is where the heart is'? At this time of year, it's 'Home for the Holidays.' The idea of home, what and where it is, is a powerful theme throughout all types of artistic expression, from paintings to books to stage plays. It's a universal theme that anyone can understand and relate to. And it's at the center of 2nd Story Theatre's holiday season production of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful.
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