Portland Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 15

BWW Review: Ancestry, Identity Collide in BLUE DOOR, at Profile Theatre
by Krista Garver - April 14, 2016

Are we the products of our cultural history? Or can we create ourselves from scratch as something new?...

BWW Review: THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE Melds Music, Storytelling, and Inspiration, at Portland Center Stage
by Krista Garver - April 13, 2016

Chalk up another winner for Portland Center Stage this season -- THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE is one you don't want to miss! Mona Golabek's one-woman show about her own mother's escape from Nazi-controlled Austria on the Kindertransport is part-concert, part-storytelling, and all magic....

BWW Review: Love, Loss, Loneliness, and Figuring Out How to Be a Person in THE FEW at CoHo Productions
by Krista Garver - April 05, 2016

In the middle of Samuel D. Hunter's THE FEW, Brian - a long-haul truck driver recently returned home after a four-year absence - slumps in a chair and says: 'I'm really terrible at being a person.' That statement perfectly encapsulates the struggle at the center of this play, which is about people t...

BWW Review: triangle productions! and Staged! Bring Us a Very Very HEATHERS...THE MUSICAL!
by Krista Garver - March 20, 2016

You remember Heathers, right? The 1988 cult classic movie starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater that gave the high school lexicon such classics as 'What's your damage?' 'That's so very!' and 'F**k me gently with a chainsaw.' (I wasn't allowed to see it, but I had a friend whose mom let us watch...

BWW Review: This is Why We Need Theatre: WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT… at Artists Rep
by Krista Garver - March 18, 2016

When Jackie Sibblies Drury wrote WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT A PRESENTATION ABOUT THE HERERO OF NAMIBIA, FORMERLY KNOWN AS SOUTHWEST AFRICA, FROM THE GERMAN SUDWESTAFRIKA, BETWEEN THE YEARS 1884-1915 (yes, that's the complete title), in 2012, she couldn't have known the maelstrom that would be upon us i...

BWW Review: Don't Judge! Do Go See STUPID F**KING BIRD at Portland Center Stage
by Krista Garver - March 11, 2016

In Chekov's THE SEAGULL, writer Constantin Treplev says: 'We need new forms of expression. We need new forms, and if we can't have them we had better have nothing.' And, with THE SEAGULL, the first of his four great plays, Chekov did indeed introduce a new form of theatre -- one that replaced the me...

BWW Review: Well Arts' BREAKING RANK Brings Women Veterans' Stories Powerfully to Life
by Krista Garver - February 29, 2016

Women have served on U.S. battlefields since our country's beginning. Women were nurses, cooks, and even saboteurs in the American Revolutionary War. In the Civil War, women disguised as men were soldiers. In 1866, Dr. Mary Walker was awarded the Medal of Honor, becoming the first and only woman e...

BWW Review: (Re)Discover the Joy of Real Live Human Relationships in EACH AND EVERY THING at Portland Center Stage
by Krista Garver - February 26, 2016

At the beginning of his one-man show, EACH AND EVERY THING, when Dan Hoyle makes the mandatory 'turn off your cell phone' announcement, he jokes that by the end of the show you might want to just throw the darn thing away. You may scoff. But he's right. After 80ish minutes of watching Hoyle tell his...

BWW Review: Keeping Up Appearances in 1950s Cuba: CONTIGO PAN Y CEBOLLA at Milagro Theatre
by Krista Garver - February 22, 2016

Covering up the dinner table to hide the modest meal, talking about buying a piano, insisting that her son goes to art school -- these are just a few of the things Lala does to hide her family's dire financial straits in award-winning Cuban playwright Hector Quintero's 1962 comedy CONTIGO PAN Y CEBO...

BWW Review: MOTHERS AND SONS Celebrates 20 Years of Progress on LGBT Rights, at Artists Rep
by Krista Garver - February 17, 2016

Twenty or so years ago, gay Americans were second-class citizens and gay men were dying of AIDS. Today, members of the LGBT community can get married and adopt children, and AIDS is a controllable disease. That's a heck of a lot of change for one generation, and not everyone has accepted it....

BWW Review: Third Rail's MR. KOLPERT Takes Black Comedy to a Whole New Level
by Krista Garver - February 16, 2016

In his review of MR. KOLPERT's premiere at the Royal Court, London, in 2000, Michael Billington wrote: 'Comedy doesn't come much blacker or better than this.' IMO, he nailed it. MR. KOLPERT, now playing at Third Rail Repertory Theatre, is one of the best examples of very-funny-meets-very-disturbing ...

BWW Review: YOCTOTheatre's COCKTALES Takes a Funny, Sensitive Look at Male Identity
by Krista Garver - February 15, 2016

Sometimes a total sausage fest can be a really good thing! Like in YOCTOTheatre's COCKTALES, an evening of storytelling and theatre all about -- you guessed it -- the penis. Honestly, I was a little unsure when I saw the description of this one: 'Dink - Dork - Shlong - Dingdong - Swinging Fury - Jum...

BWW Review: Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger Becomes a Patron Saint in WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW at triangle productions!
by Krista Garver - February 11, 2016

As the lights come up (though only slightly) on Monica Byrne's WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW, we hear the moans of young women discovering their bodies. They record the results of their attempts in a log book. It's awkward and funny, and it sets the stage for this provocative dramedy about four girl...

BWW Review: Dael Orlandersmith Explores the Impact of Family -- Both Biological and Chosen -- in FOREVER, at Portland Center Stage
by Krista Garver - February 10, 2016

As soon as Dael Orlandersmith walks into the room, you feel the force of her presence. This is despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that she's not even facing the audience, but rather examining a series of old photographs pinned to the wall. She makes her way around the room, eventually climbing...

BWW Review: YOU FOR ME FOR YOU is a Rich, Heart-Wrenching Play about Contrast and Sacrifice, at Portland Playhouse
by Krista Garver - February 09, 2016

In Mia Chung's YOU FOR ME FOR YOU, now in production at Portland Playhouse, trees have ears (literally), rice is a musical instrument, and bears can talk. And somehow it all makes as much sense as the modern world we live in. Or, perhaps, it's our modern world that makes no sense....

BWW Review: Art, Ethics Collide in Riveting World Premiere of I WANT TO DESTROY YOU, at Theatre Vertigo
by Krista Garver - February 02, 2016

Theatre Vertigo's world premiere of Rob Handel's I WANT TO DESTROY YOU is a riveting show about about art, danger, and being human....

BWW Review: THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE Celebrates Misfits, Words, and Finding Your Way, at Broadway Rose
by Krista Garver - February 01, 2016

Broadway Rose's THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE is full of humanity and heart....

BWW Review: Go Ahead. Have GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Portland Center Stage Won't Disappoint.
by Krista Garver - January 26, 2016

Don't miss Portland Center Stage's excellent production of Book-It Repertory Theatre's GREAT EXPECTATIONS....

BWW Review: Grace Carter Creeps Toward Insanity in CoHo's Chilling Adaptation of THE YELLOW WALLPAPER
by Krista Garver - January 20, 2016

CoHo Productions new adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's THE YELLOW WALLPAPER is a disturbing portrait of a woman driven to madness by the very thing that is supposed to cure her....

BWW Review: Milagro's BROKEN PROMISES Takes on the Hidden Problem of Teen Prostitution
by Krista Garver - January 18, 2016

Portland has one of the highest rates of sex trafficking in the U.S. BROKEN PROMISES seeks to bring awareness of this problem to the teenagers who are most at risk....

BWW Review: Experience Captain Ahab's Madness in Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble's [OR, THE WHALE]
by Krista Garver - January 14, 2016

You're in for a wild ride! [OR THE WHALE] is the center of what Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble calls The Journey Play's the Whole Thing, a 'constellation of art objects, events, and experiences' around this play, which is based on Moby Dick....

BWW Review: Artists Rep's THE MIRACLE WORKER is a Beautiful Celebration of the Human Spirit
by Krista Garver - December 16, 2015

Artists Rep's THE MIRACLE WORKER is not your normal holiday fare, but it will leave you with a profound feeling of the power of language and of the resilience of the human spirit....

BWW Review: TWIST YOUR DICKENS Lovingly Lampoons All of the Christmas Traditions We Hold So Dear, at Portland Center Stage
by Krista Garver - December 16, 2015

The Second City's TWIST YOUR DICKENS is a hilarious spoof on all things Christmas, now in its final year at Portland Center Stage....

BWW Review: Feel All the Feels of Christmas at THE SANTALAND DIARIES at Portland Center Stage
by Krista Garver - December 10, 2015

Portland favorite Darius Pierce brings Crumpet the Elf to life in THE SANTALAND DIARIES, a funny, touching adaptation of an essay by David Sedaris....

BWW Review: Hello! THE BOOK OF MERMAN's Coming Up Roses, at Triangle Productions!
by Krista Garver - December 07, 2015

What could be better than a THE BOOK OF MORMON parody featuring Ethel Merman? If you said 'nothing,' you're right! triangle productions! THE BOOK OF MERMAN is pure joy....