Archive for July 2017

Confronting the Paradoxes of Faith in EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL at CATF

I do not read Marcantel as indicting religion as such; she shows us how much groundedness and understanding faith gives. Every faith needs, and has, its own ‘Ordnung,’ but in order to live fully and well, Marcantel seems to be saying, believers will always need to transcend it. And then, as the play hints, believers will also need to return to it. Every faith journey will thus be a work in progress, forever.

The Bronx is Up – and Dancing to Hip Hop – in CATF’s WELCOME TO FEAR CITY

Welcome to Fear City, premiering at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV, shambles along amiably, looking as if it has no more greater object than to be a loose black family dramedy set forty years ago. That is, until it dawns on you that the play’s ambition is to be nothing less than a snapshot of a time and place where a lot of things happened, and one vitally important thing, hip hop, came into being.

A Gripping Struggle for Souls: WE WILL NOT BE SILENT at CATF

If by betraying her principles Scholl could prolong her life, as opposed to adhering to her principles, dying, and having no impact at all, which choice should she make? And this is not just her existential question: It is her interrogator Grunwald’s as well. It would appear that Grunwald has made the opposite choice. But has he? At the very end of the play, that question is reopened.

You Should Visit BYHALIA, MISSISSIPPI at CATF

The virtue of Byhalia, Mississippi lies precisely in its modesty. It prescribes no rules, apart from loving one another and telling the truth, for getting through a marital and race-inflected social crisis in a small town; it simply shows how one not-overwhelmingly admirable couple does it. And at that, the true secret here may just be the jokes. Those, and the blackout line at the very end of the play, which just may bring a lump to the throat.

A Clash of Perfectly Opposed Titans in THE NICETIES at CATF

A two-fisted drama of ideas, The Niceties may well leave you devastated, and will certainly send you out talking. Itwill keep you thinking and probably angry, regardless of where you come down on the issues very articulately debated in it.

Incandescent Youth and WILD HORSES, a Heady Combination at CATF

The group portrait of the youngsters (The Woman’s younger self, her partners in crime Zabby and Skinny Lynny, the callow young men who pursue them or whom they pursue, and The Woman’s big sister, aka The Favorite) in all their confusion, pain, and, most important, their exuberance and their desire to meet life head-on, even if they do not really know what that meeting will demand or entail, is the point.

The Offensive Offensive

Even his biggest fans would probably agree that Donald Trump is the most incivil president in our history. We may find in future, that trash talking at the White House is like negative campaigning, impossible to abstain from once the other guy has made it possible.