AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

The Times UK

Shun-Kin, Barbican, London
This is a fascinatingly ambiguous piece, finely staged by Simon McBurney and complete with his Complicite-style effects

The Guardian

Shun-kin, Barbican, London
The excitment you so often get from a Complicite show is missing here, writes Lyn Gardner

Daily Telegraph

Shun Kin at the Barbican, review
Rarely have the usually sure-fire dramatic ingredients of sex and violence seemed so dull as in Shun Kin, finds Charles Spencer.

London Theatre Guide

First Night Feature: Shun-kin
Pioneering theatre company Complicite returns to the Barbican theatre to weave its magic with an epic Japanese myth, Shun-kin, where love and violence, beauty and cruelty all become entwined.

The Independent

First Night: Shun-kin, Barbican Theatre, London (Rated 2/ 5 )

Whatsonstage.com

Review: Shun-kin
At the heart of Shun-kin, the latest production from Simon McBurney’s Complicite, in a co-production with barbicanbite 09 and the Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo, is a simple love story: that of a blind, wealthy merchant’s daughter and her sli...

Variety

Shun-kin, Barbican Theatre, London
...featuring puppetry, live music and fluid movement of props and set pieces by a talented ensemble -- creates a hypnotically insular onstage world. But narrative and directorial embellishments add levels of complication that dissipate the material's power...

Los Angeles Times

Review: 'In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)' at Berkeley Rep
What do women want? The question flummoxed Freud, whose erotic theories drew mostly blanks when it came to the opposite sex.

San Francisco Chronicle

Theater review: 'In the Next Room'
In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play): Drama. By Sarah Ruhl.

San Jose Mercury News

'In the Next Room': Some good vibrations on stage

Contra Costa Times

Review: You'll get a charge out of Berkeley Repertory Theatre's 'Vibrator Play"

SFStation

In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)
An Electrifying Take On A Touchy Subject

The Old Vic's acclaimed production of Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests is scheduled to begin previews at Circle in the Square (235 West 50th Street) on April 7.

"Conquests" is three full length plays – Table Manners, Living Together and Round and Round the Garden – which are ingeniously written to be enjoyed individually or as a trilogy, in any order. The action is simultaneous and each exit in one play turns out to be an entrance in another. The plays will be performed on a rotating schedule during the week and can also be seen in one day on “Trilogy Saturdays”. Tickets will be available soon through Telecharge at 212-239-6200 and www.telecharge.com.

Here are some images from the British production - which will be playing on Broadway

Jessica Hynes, Amelia Bullmore, Paul Ritter, Amanda Root (foreground),
Stephen Mangan and Ben Miles
Photo: Manuel Harlan


Stephen Mangan as Norman
Photo: Manuel Harlan


Amanda Root as Sarah
Photo: Manuel Harlan


Ben Miles as Tom
Photo: Manuel Harlan

Today, a host of new items of interest to theater fans hit store shelves. I've had a chance to preview most of them, so here are some brief thoughts.

Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway - the final performance of Jonathan Larson's multi-award winning show was captured in HD and subsequently show in movie theaters around the country. As you might imagine, it looks good and sounds great on disc and depending on which version you buy (DVD or Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures), the recorded show comes with a host of bonus features. I've spun through the ones that come on the DVD and admit to having a penchant for watching the folks as they wait on line for the ticket lottery on the show's last day. There's something about the teens and then the young adults, who've literally grown up with the show, talk about the musical that gets to me. Also, the mini-documentary about "The Final Days on Broadway" is quite satisfying.

Another Broadway performance that's been captured (sort of) is from Hybrid Recordings. It's Liza's at the Palace…, a two-disc set that preserves the songs that Minnelli performed during her limited engagement at Broadway's Palace Theatre over the holidays. The legendary performer sounds even better on these studio recordings than she did in the theater. The diction on "If You Hadn't, But You Did," a little blurry when heard live and amplified, is perfect here. Similarly, the strain of singing the full-two act piece in one night, which crept in during the second half of the show, when Minnelli pays tribute to godmother Kay Thompson, is completely absent. For those who managed to see the show, these discs will be a terrific keepsake, and for those who were unable to see Minnelli, the discs will only make them even sorrier they didn't.

Singer-songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway's latest CD, At Last (from Telarc Records), also hits stores today and this blues-y, jazzy disc is a delightful combination of standards, pop hits, and Callaway's original songs. On this one, I was hooked with the singer's joyous improvisations on the opening track, Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?" Somehow, a tune I've always thought to be melancholy turns into something celebratory. Callaway's take on "Lazy Afternoon" – from Jerome Moross and John Latouche's The Golden Apple - is gently seductive, The singer's delicacy with a tune is beautifully in evidence in her rendition of "Over the Rainbow," and her sensitivity as a writer of distinctive melodies with intelligent lyrics is probably best heard in the disc's penultimate track, a Latin-infused tune called "Finding Beauty." Not to be too coy, but this release is a beaut.

Also coming out today a quartet of Richard Rodgers releases that I'll be covering in the coming weeks for a piece I’m working on for TheaterMania. As most readers probably know, the centerpiece of these releases is the all-star recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro, featuring Patrick Wilson in the central role of the allegorical figure Joe Taylor, Jr., and a host of other exceptional Broadway performers, such as Laura Benanti, Norbert Leo Butz, Judy Kuhn and Audra McDonald. The two-disc set, from Masterworks Broadway, comes with a handsome booklet that includes the libretto, a fascinating essay from Bert Fink of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, and a transcript of comments that Stephen Sondheim, who was an assistant on the original production, made when the show was produced at Encores! in 1994.

Also from Masterworks Broadway and ArkivMusic and available today: a trio of first-time digital releases of three other discs with Rodgers music. For those with a taste for the tracks only, the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center's Carousel, a studio recording of Oklahoma! featuring Nelson Eddy, and a New York Philharmonic recording of Rodgers' music, with the composer conducting, are all available on iTunes. For those who want to have the actual discs, ArkivMusic is once again partnering with Masterworks with print-on-demand releases, complete with newly printed booklets.

---- Andy Propst

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Before Will Ferrell's You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush began previews, producers worked strenuously to ensure that the piece's jokes and routines were not leaked to the press. The assumption being that humor loses its impact if audiences are anticipating punch lines or certain sequences. With the show's official opening on Broadway last night at the Cort Theatre, a critic is put in an awkward position vis-à-vis spoilers. How much should he or she divulge about this frequently hilarious, consistently amusing, show? Perhaps the previous sentence is enough of a review, but maybe not.

Suffice it to say that SNL-alum Ferrell, whose impersonations of the former president are known to most of the English-speaking world, has concocted a 90-minute roast that darts from subject to subject with ease, leaving almost no aspect of Bush's White House years or personal life unscathed with one exception. In a very classy move (a sense of decency pervades the mirthful, if sometimes loony and elsewhere irreverent, show), the former first lady and first daughters do not become targets in "America."

That being said, the other Bush first family gets a fair share of ribbing, as do many of the cabinet members who were part of the just departed administration. In case theatergoers have forgotten just who some of these people may be – and some did have exceptionally short life spans – their photos are part of Lisa Cuscuna and Chris Cronin's effective and sometimes comic video design. As Bush reminisces about his cabinet, probably the best jokes, no surprise here, are about Vice President Cheney, although a riff on the "accomplishments" of FEMA chief Michael Brown are just about as funny.

Interestingly, Ferrell's script minimally relies on the former commander-in-chief's penchant for malapropisms as a source of punch lines, and it magnifies (well, over imagines), what Bush's internal life and secret doings might have been. One of the funniest segments of "America" involves a couple thousand Moroccan monkeys while another concentrates on a wonderfully playful Big Foot.

Ferrell isn't flying solo in "America" – although a helicopter of sorts is employed in Eugene Lee's simple scenic design which brings to mind the campy austerity of the visuals for the presidential conventions held by either party. Joining Ferrell in this hour-and-a-half lark are performers that help escalate the giddiness of the show. Pia Glenn makes for a particularly funny Condoleezza Rice and Patrick Ferrell is onstage throughout as the former president's humorless secret service operative.

Again, the notion of a stony-faced G-man in the midst of the playful "America" is probably enough to conjure images of what might be taking place on stage at the Cort. For those who want to find out more, a visit to the Cort and "America" is not only necessary; it's also a comic, political treat.

---- Andy Propst

You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush plays at the Cort Theatre (138 West 48th Street). Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2 and 8pm; and Sunday at 3 and 7pm. Tickets are $56.50 - $116.50 and can be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or by visiting www.telecharge.com. Further information is also available online at www.WillFerrellOnBroadway.com.