Alice Does Wonderland: The Sol Theatre is a dirty place filled with dirty people. In Alice Does Wonderland, you will see a puppet give a man analingus. You will see Alice going down on the Cheshire Cat. You will see the Red Queen deep-throat a light saber, which is dangerous…
Sin Full Heaven: The third installment of Ricky J. Martinez’s Island Trilogy is a good example of everything that can go wrong with homegrown, indie theater. The writing is a mess of clichés and hideously tortured sentence structures (Q: “Haven’t you kissed women before?” A: “Never the lips of an…
Puccini was not alone in loving this woman. The public first fell for her as the heroine of the sexy novel The Tale of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost. It was the saga of a fast girl’s rise and fall that was turned into operas…
Sin Full Heaven: The third installment of Ricky J. Martinez’s Island Trilogy is a good example of everything that can go wrong with homegrown, indie theater. The writing is a mess of clichés and hideously tortured sentence structures (Q: “Haven’t you kissed women before?” A: “Never the lips of an…
Ricky J. Martinez does not deserve the following review. Martinez is a nice guy, all comfy pats-on-the-back and easy laughter, and he’s obviously passionate about his work. He gets giddy while discussing it, and that’s fine. I wish his work would provoke some giddiness in me. It doesn’t. Sin Full…
Romance: A filthy, filthy courtroom farce in the grand Mametian tradition of filthy farces, Romance contains moments when the Jew jokes, pedophilia jokes, and gay jokes make even the hip audiences at GableStage gasp instead of chuckle. This is all to the good: Although the story seems like an afterthought…
If you’re a tiny little theater with a tiny little budget, there is no better play to tackle than Three Angels Dancing on a Needle, by exiled Iranian playwright Assurbanipal Babilla. You need no sets, no props, no costumes. All that’s required is a director as perverse as Square Peg…
It’s asinine to think any human being can truly know the heart or mind of any other, but I’ve got a theory about David Mamet anyway: He thinks all human beings are deaf-mutes. At first glance, Romance appears to be a play about peace; either that or it’s about nothing…
Dear New Times Reader: You are hip and young, or so we tell the advertisers. In 2006 you turned the entertainment culture on its ear with your bloggings and YouTubings. You whipped Congress like it was an obstinate mule and burned America in effigy at the altar of Sacha Baron…
City Beneath the Sea: The story of a young girl who saves an underwater metropolis from the powers of evil, played out through sparkling marionette sea creatures, is Pablo Cano’s ninth marionette production at the Museum of Contemporary Art. This musical production consists of hand-crafted puppets made from cookie cutters,…
When a theater is packed with children instead of adults, it becomes a site not of high culture but of mass fidgeting. On a recent Wednesday morning, the Shores Performing Arts Theater was filled with an audience whose heads barely topped the backs of their seats. The crowd was neatly…
Down the Road: To blame society’s problems on celebrity culture is shallow beyond contempt, but it will always appeal to those more interested in bitching than thinking. The same can be said for Lee Blessing’s Down the Road. It’s the story of Iris and Dan Henniman (Margie Elias Eisenberg and…
Don’t be fooled. Although Lee Blessing’s usual eloquence gives Down the Road the look and feel of Devastating Cultural Analysis, its heart is pure pop psychology. The subject under discussion is that old canard, The Commodification of The Individual and The Ascendance of Celebrity Culture, but Blessing can’t seem to…
Just a Kiss: In Catherine Bush’s new play, making its world premiere, two beautiful but struggling actresses are excited to land costarring roles in an off-Broadway play. The enthusiasm of Zee Scott (Caroline Edelen), a guarded, eccentric loner; and Annie Howard (Elise Girardin), one half of a conservative cohabitating couple,…
Up Wake: The stage is set: three blank walls, one actor, and no script. For this performance be prepared to go on a sensory journey. Natasha Tsakos’s show synchronizes the disciplines of animation, music, and acting, exploring a completely original style of theater that integrates technology and performance. As the…
I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love. On the surface, the Caldwell’s decision to house the production seemed like the most awesomely cynical move imaginable, coolly calculated to pacify the antediluvian nostalgia junkies who pay the theater’s bills. I thought the show would be theatrical comfort food,…
Zoo Story: Written in 1958 and steeped in shades of economic disparity and dehumanization in a materialistic world, Edward Albee’s searing one-act play still retains its power to shock nearly a half-century later. The Edge Theatre stages the numbing encounter between a middle-class publishing exec and a disturbed transient at…
It’s difficult imagining a more idyllic way to enjoy an afternoon of stimulating theater than spending a Sunday in the park with Ed. During a recent matinee, Edge Theatre staged a minimalist production of Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story outdoors, on the lawn of the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, under…
Attention, all twelve-year-old boys: Krysten Batlle is looking for a dance partner. Batlle, an attractive brunet with a ready smile and an infectious giggle, is one of the most accomplished competitive ballroom dancers in Miami, if not the state. She’s also a seventh-grader at Arvida Middle School in Kendall. Only…
King Lear: Aaron Spelling certainly injected Shakespearean ambition into his glittering prime-time soap operas — Melrose Place was a total tragicomedy — but here’s a theatrical mashup we never could have envisioned: Ted Lange starring in a touring production of King Lear. Lange, he of the red tux, perfectly spherical…
Mr. Marmalade: Teetering on the edge of reality, Noah Haidle’s play takes you to the playground of make-believe for emotionally disturbed children. Yes, four-year-old Lucy’s imaginary friend is a bipolar coke addict who also has a personal assistant. And the little girl’s real friend, Larry, is suicidal. (Life sucks when…
Among the many splendors of Florida Grand Opera’s thrilling new Aïda, not least of them the arrival of a young powerhouse named Angela M. Brown in the title role, is this fact: For the first time in its adventuresome 65-year history, the company and its opera fans have the venue…
