Romance wraps up Clockwork’s 35th season

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 25 April 2013 12:32

Clockwork Repertory Theatre, Oakville: There are many ways to meet that special someone these days, but no one has ever done it like Aunt Martha in “Getting Sara Married” by Sam Bobrick. Leave it to Clockwork Rep to wind up its anniversary season with a light and happy romantic comedy. 

The fun begins when Aunt Martha decides that her lawyer niece needs to get married. Sara is too busy with her case loads and content with her single status. She does not want to go online to a matchmaker site and she wishes her aunt would leave her alone. Then Sara receives a very unusual special delivery and the fun never stops.

Aunt Martha believes she has found the perfect guy for Sara. However, after unsuccessfully trying to get Brandon Cates to meet Sara, she takes matters into her own hands. She actually hires a gangster-like Noogie Malloy to bop the already-engaged-to-be-married Brandon on the head and Noogie delivers him unconscious to Sara’s East Side apartment in New York. 

Sherman Players welcome spring with a farce

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 18 April 2013 10:40

A double life means double trouble for John Smith in Ray Cooney’s English farce “Run for Your Wife” playing at the Sherman Playhouse. 

For five years, John Smith has succeeded in leading a double life because he has the perfect job. He’s a taxi cab driver with a fluctuating and ever-convenient schedule. However, when he intervenes and tries to save an old lady from being robbed by hoodlums, he takes a beating from the old lady who hits him with her iron clad purse.

This lands Smith in the hospital. When the police investigate they find John Smith living at two different addresses. That’s when the fun begins.

Trying desperately to avoid being caught by his two wives, John concocts some pretty ridiculous situations. Add to the fun a couple of bungling neighbors and a couple of inquisitive policemen and the play becomes a farce, but without slamming doors.

On opening night, the production seemed under-rehearsed. The quick pace and snappy dialogue necessary to pull off the action was lacking. Some of the performances were less than polished. Michael Wright, who plays an upstairs neighbor in one of John Smith’s homes, delivered the best performance of the evening. He painted just the right character and never failed to get a laugh in all the right places. 

Politics, sex, and an assassination at Long Wharf

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 11 April 2013 10:47

Douglas Sills plays Jack Kennedy and Christina Bennett Lind is his lover, Judith Campbell Exner, in ‘Ride the Tiger’ at Long Wharf Theatre.“Ride the Tiger” by William Mastrosimone, at Long Wharf Theatre’s Main Stage, New Haven, explores why President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The president’s father, Joe;  Jack, the President;  Frank Sinatra; Judith Campbell Exner, lover; and Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago Mafia, make up the fascinating cast of characters.

This is a behind-the-scenes, tell-all of why President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. What makes this production especially interesting is that the playwright got his information straight from Frank Sinatra’s mouth while Mastrosimone was interviewing him. The play, directed by Long Wharf’s artistic director Gorden Edelstein, capitalizes on this by featuring a Frank Sinatra character role. 

While the play and the theory are provocative and enlightening, there’s too little drama in this production, some miscasting, and the focus isn’t all that clear. John Cunningham as Joe, Jack Kennedy’s father, is well portrayed. He has all the power in his strategies and manipulations as he pushes his son to the presidency and tries to keep his son’s lovers secret. Douglas Sills, a fine actor, has no charisma on stage. Considering that Kennedy was charismatic, it doesn’t matter that Sills has a Boston accent. It’s not enough to capture the persona of a  young and dynamic president. Paul Anthony Stewart plays Frank Sinatra and is so understated that he brings none of the life and excitement of Sinatra to the stage. Jordan Lage plays the Mafia Don with gusto and delivers a believable character who is as charming as he is dangerous. Lage spells danger even as he woos his woman.

‘The Immigrant’ arrives at Seven Angels

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 04 April 2013 12:55

The cast of The Immigrant at Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury.Move over Teyva. Haskell Harelik  has arrived in America and he likes it very much. Yes, he too is pushing a cart at the beginning of the show, but it’s a cart full of bananas and he isn’t pushing that cart at the end of the show.

“The Immigrant” at Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury is a true story about Jews and Christians living together at the turn of the 20th Century and the story is specifically Haskell’s, as written by his very talented grandson, Mark Harelik, with music by  Steven M. Alper and lyrics by Sarah Knapp. Haskell fled Czarist Russia in 1909, arrived in America by himself, and found welcome in Hamilton, Texas, a small rural Christian community. This musical is about the people who made America the great country that it is. It is as much about Christians and Christian traditions as it is about Jews and Jewish traditions. It is about generosity in a deep, meaningful, and uplifting way. 

Giamatti’s comic touches heighten Hamlet’s tragedy

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 28 March 2013 12:46

Paul Giamatti in a scene from Hamlet, now at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. —Joan MarcusIt is every actor’s dream to play William Shakespeare’s most tragic figure – Hamlet. With all the complexities, subtleties, flexibility, comedy and tragedy that the role offers, it is not surprising that “Hamlet” is considered one of – if not the greatest of all — tragedies. Nor is it surprising that actors want to play the coveted and challenging title character.  Actors such as John Barrymore, Richard Burton, Richard Chamberlain, William Hurt and many other fine actors have had a go at it. Now, Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti, who graduated from Yale College and Yale School of Drama, where he is a Beinecke Fellow this spring (and whose father was a former president of Yale), returns to try on the princely role at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. 

Directed by Yale’s artistic director, James Bundy, this is by far one of the most approachable and easily understood productions of “Hamlet.”  With great clarity, the story of the Prince of Denmark’s dilemma of dealing with his beloved father’s death, his mother’s lack of loyalty, his uncle’s betrayal, and visits from his father’s ghost unfold. Of course, it’s enough to make anyone go mad. In many other productions, it is the madness that defines Hamlet, but this is not so with Paul Giamatti’s interpretation. He is quite in control and aware of his actions. He plays the mad man, but only to serve his well-thought-out purpose. Giamatti does so by incorporating a great deal of humor into the usually somber role. The results of this choice vacillate between being effective and ridiculous. 

Neil Simon’s ‘Rumors’ is a laugh a minute at the Thomaston Opera House

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 21 March 2013 13:34

The cast of Neil Simon’s ‘Rumors’ are a riot at the Thomaston Opera House.If you want a really good laugh, the kind where you laugh so hard you cry, then you absolutely must get to the Thomaston Opera House. Here, you’ll enjoy one of the all-time funniest productions of Neil Simon’s farce, “Rumors.” Watch an upscale group of people come together to celebrate a 10th wedding anniversary for two of their friends, Charlie and Myra. The problem is that the celebrated groom has been shot in the ear; his wife is missing, and the servants are nowhere to be found. 

The first to arrive on the scene are Chris and Ken Gorman. They find Charlie covered in blood, a suicide note, alive but in shock. Since Ken is a lawyer and Charlie is the Deputy Mayor of New York, Ken wants to keep the goings-on a secret. His wife Chris agrees. However, as the three other couples arrive, things get complicated. That’s when “rumors” really start to fly. Since they all belong to the same country club, everyone seems to have heard gossip about someone. While they want to keep the police out of it, they manage to keep pulling the on-call doctor in to it. 

Claire and Len arrive next and though it’s hard for the first couple to keep a secret, their efforts to hide the truth get funnier and funnier. What’s even funnier is that this couple just got a brand new car and it got into a scrape on its first time out. Lenny claims to have whiplash and calls his doctor, the same one that the others have. 

Distractions are in the spotlight at Square One

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 07 March 2013 13:30

Betty McCready, left, and Lillian Garcia share a conversation in Square One Theater’s production of ‘Distracted.’What are parents to do when their child is having problems at school, won’t obey at home and is diagnosed with ADD? According to Lisa Loomer’s play “Distracted,” currently playing at Stratford’s Square One Theatre, the choices range from many to none.

Mama, played superbly by Lillian Garcia, wants to do what’s best for her 9-year-old son, Jesse. She sets out to investigate her options. This includes visiting a homeopath, a neuropsychologist, an environmental physician and trying drugs like Ritalin. Along with this investigation, she tries out recommendations from professionals and even from neighbors, none of whom are “normal.” 

Dad, played realistically and convincingly by Pat Leo, wants his son to be free to be himself. He doesn’t want his kid on drugs. He feels so strongly about this that he tells his wife that if she continues to give their son Ritalin, he will divorce her and ask for child custody. Dad insists that kids should have a childhood and for boys that means being boys. 

Judith Ivey shines in Shepard’s ‘Curse’ at Long Wharf

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 28 February 2013 13:50

Judith Ivey give a powerful performance at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven. —T. Charles EricksonJudith Ivey steps into Sam Shepard’s play, “Curse of the Starving Class,” with such honest emotion that the audience cheers for, jeers, or fears for her, depending on the scene. So powerful is her performance in this production that she manipulates the audience response with every gesture and snide remark. Her character, Ella, is on to the curses within her family. Although this family is hungry for “something,” each member claims that it is not starving.

First Ella talks about the curse of menstruation which her daughter is just experiencing. Then there’s the course of alcoholism, and especially there is the economic curse, which this family cannot get beyond. As the matriarch in the family, she is quick to point out the many curses this family has to overcome. She describes these curses as inherited. She sees the curse every day of her life. 

“I can see it coming. And it always comes. Repeats itself. It comes even when you do everything to stop it from coming...And it goes back. Deep....to tiny little cells and genes. To atoms. To tiny little swimming things making up their minds without us. Plotting in the womb.”

Moon Over Buffalo is wildly funny

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Friday, 22 February 2013 11:53

When it comes to a grand comic moment, playwright Ken Ludwig knows just how to set it up. He brings together a screwball husband/wife actor team with a hard-of-hearing mother-in-law, a pregnant mistress, conservative daughter, a shy fiancée, an ex-boyfriend, and a lawyer. Put them together and you end up with a wickedly wild comedy. 

The husband/wife team of George and Charlotte Hay is performing “Private Lives” and “Cyrano” in repertoire in a rundown theater in Buffalo. As fate would have it, a Hollywood movie opening becomes available to them, but oh, they are so not able to answer that door when they hear opportunity finally knocking. 

Not only has director Lynn Paulella Beard pulled together the dream-team cast for this hilarious comedy, but she has an impeccable sense of timing. Like a line of dominoes, everything falls neatly into place with synchronized symmetry. 

‘Stones’ — Smooth and polished at Yale

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 14 February 2013 14:08

Fred Arsenault and Euan Morton in Stones in His Pockets. Photo by Joan MarcusWhen Hollywood travels to County Kerry, Ireland, two very different kinds of people come together head on. Irish movie extras are star-struck and Hollywood stars love the Irish countryside. Here, the ugly American is the movie industry that is so focused on creating an illusion (a movie) that it doesn’t realize how much damage it is actually doing to its onsite location.