review

REVIEW | Gallows Humor Satisfies in 'Things We Want'

Erin Keane — Sat, 11 May 2013 22:44:31 +0000

The Bard’s Town Theatre continues its season of notable newer work with Jonathan Marc Sherman’s 2007 “Things We Want,” a satisfying dark comedy about three emotionally-stunted adult brothers still living in their childhood home while attempting to figure out how to overcome their various fragilities before they kill themselves or each other. That sounds heavier than the play actually is—tonally, it’s a gallows humor-charged fight between the id and the super-ego with flashes of brilliance that resists taking its characters seriously enough to let them fall apart in any kind of realistic disintegration.

REVIEW | Family Secrets Fester in 'Appropriate'

Erin Keane — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 12:08:28 +0000

As the curtain rises on Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' "Appropriate," a rattling chorus of 13-year cicadas fills the Pamela Brown Auditorium. Far from a gentle nocturne, the sound swells with the pregnant heat of a southern summer night, conjuring images of rattling bones. Low lights reveal a man and a younger woman slipping through an open window into the living room of a plantation house that had, to be kind, seen better days.

REVIEW | Smart, Funny, Tough to Love: Will Eno's 'Gnit'

Erin Keane — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:37:16 +0000

Billed as a willfully unfaithful adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic picaresque tale “Peer Gynt,” Will Eno’s “Gnit” up-ends the classic man’s-search-for-meaning quest with an ambitiously absurdist self-discovery journey that stubbornly chafes against the conventions of the genre.

REVIEW | 'Chasing Ophelia' Is More than a Romantic Comedy

Erin Keane — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:22:47 +0000

Neurotic writers manipulating their self-aware fictional characters isn’t a new device, but unlike similar stories, The Bard’s Town’s funny and engaging “Chasing Ophelia” isn’t concerned with picking the navel of the writer’s creative processes or artistic tensions. For a romantic comedy, this play’s concerns are remarkably, well, theological: is an unseen, omniscient being really in charge of us, and how do we deal with feeling abandoned by him?

REVIEW | 'Girlfriend': Fine, Fizzy Romance with Killer Soundtrack

Erin Keane — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:01:14 +0000

Let’s flash back to 1993, to the days before texting and ready Internet access, when living in a small town really could feel like living on the moon. We are in Nebraska, but it might as well be any small town in Kentucky, Indiana, England. Let us say we are dorks, friendless and stilted, moving through high school like occasionally kicked stray dogs. Or.

REVIEW | "Flashdance-The Musical" Dances for Its Life

Erin Keane — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:24:53 +0000

Broadway has seen no shortage of iconic, music-fueled films adapted for the stage in recent years, to varying degrees of success. “Sister Act” and “Footloose” met with mixed critical responses, but “Hairspray” knocked the ball out of the park, winning eight Tony Awards. “Flashdance” is the latest Eighties film to get the Broadway musical treatment, and the musical is previewing with a national tour before it makes its way to New York later this year.

REVIEW | Actors Shine in 'Topdog/Underdog'

Erin Keane — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:10:41 +0000

Actor's Choice opened Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Topdog/Underdog" Thursday in the Henry Clay Theatre. Directed by Kathi E.B. Ellis, this tense, finely-acted two-hander explores the relationship between two adult brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they struggle with a legacy of abandonment by their parents, masculine identity, racism and the lure of a life of crime.

REVIEW | Raw Truths, Compelling Performances in 'The Whipping Man'

Erin Keane — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:31:01 +0000

Meredith McDonough makes her directorial debut in her new role as associate artistic director at Actors Theatre of Louisville with a powerful production of Matthew Lopez's heartbreaking Civil War drama "The Whipping Man." Set against the backdrop of the days between General Lee's surrender at Appomattox and President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, "The Whipping Man" is the riveting emotional stor

REVIEW | 'The Kings of Christmas' Tells Familiar Story Slant

Erin Keane — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:59:27 +0000

Christmas stories take the larger Nativity narrative—the arrival of an ambassador of peace, goodwill and redemption—and put the metaphor to work on individual transformations, those personal moments when generosity of spirit triumphs over our meaner, selfish natures. The best results are both heartwarming and as unique as the transformed individuals themselves.

REVIEW | 'A Christmas Carol' Offers Consistent Message With Humor and Heart

Erin Keane — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:08:30 +0000

Actors Theatre of Louisville opened its 37th production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" last night. Actors Theatre's show is the second longest-running production in the country (the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis has them beat by a year), and while small changes happen from year to year, Actors doesn't mess with what works—solid acting paired with lovely music, a liberal dose of humor and the cozy familiarity of a timeless redemption story well-told.