David MacDowell Blue

Imagine a burlesque combination of "Shakespeare in Love" with "The Rocky Horror Show" and you have this! Delightful, baudy, with every performer giving 110% the whole premise of William Shakespeare having this elaborate dream after a night in a whorehouse, a dream in which all his future plays more or less wander in (and usually take their clothes off). Over the top? Oh yes! And that was the point!... full review

A delicious brew of humanity--humor, surprise, tragedy, love and hate, foolishness and wisdom, insight and some madness. All performed with vast skill by the cast. ... full review

Sometimes you just want to smile and laugh and enjoy. Yeah, I love me some dark angst and horror but this show DID make me smile, and laugh, and I enjoyed it a lot! I almost got up and danced!... full review

At heart, the thing I most desired to see--a sense of genuine empathy with the title character--never materialized. Which is perhaps totally personal to be fair. Nor did he come across as particularly interesting despite quiet, firm competence (coming from me, that is NOT a put down) on the part of everyone as far as I could see. Methinks the subject matter offered too much of a challenge for what I looked for.... full review

A startling, beautiful and powerful moment in the life of a great artist. Usually one-person shows try and tell a subject's biography. This took a different turn, which startled then entranced. ... full review

Shakespeare's major works end up done so often the challenge lies in making them not only good but fresh. This company and production achieved both (although I suspect some jokes went over my head, not being a regular fan of OITNB)! In particular the really difficult roles--Miranda, Ferdinand, Sebastian and Antonio--ended up engaging and real. ... full review

A wonderful show--sharp, thought-provoking, horrifying and funny at the same time for the same reasons. I sometimes talk about what I call "Theatre of Dreams" in which a performance has the logic of a dream, as if one were actually watching a dream. This is about when life becomes like a dream. Well, after all where do dreams come from if not here, the so-called real world? What a powerful piece of theatre, in which the emotions of the characters genuinely spill out into the audience like fog... full review

A friend of mine once said those of us who like the darkness are not ourselves dark or cruel--but we don't flee from the shadows in our lives. We face them, seek to explore them. I've mentioned this to some, and gotten a blank look of bafflement in reply. But this show proves a shining (heh) example of what my friend understood. NORMAL lets us into the darkest, most terrible and yet strangely attractive aspect of human life, inviting us to at least imagine what it would be like to live there.... full review

This was a lovely show and I liked it a lot. But--and this is curious--it changed a lot once Count Orlock appeared. Gone was the dance, almost entirely. And by then I expected a wonderful interpretation of the classic silent movie AS dance. So my reaction is to still desire that dance piece, interspersed with scenes more about movement. And yet--and a lot of this springs directly from the lead actors--I never lost interest, never stopped caring at least some for those lead characters, especi... full review

An entertaining and intriguing theatrical version of a gothic classic (well, actually two). Kudos to Dracula, Lucy, Harker, Van Helsing, Mina and Seward in particular for bring so much nuance on stage. I have seen so many DRACULAs on stage so that am forever looking for an original, intriguing one. This production certainly qualifies on so many levels. Bravo! ... full review