Theater reviews

A tasty 'West Side Story'

Since Chesapeake Music Hall closed its doors near the end of 2004, Anne Arundel County has been without dinner theater. The Music Hall's demise was a loss for the subscribers who enjoyed its bargain meal-show package and for the actors who honed their skills there.

'Comedy of Errors' more than a bit disjointed

Actors wearing suits the shade of egg yolks cruise down a stage on scooters. Balloons bob on the breeze. There's a line of Keystone Cops, and performers silently mime bits of slapstick during scene changes.

Theater Review

'Art' paints complex picture

"Why do we see each other if we hate each other?" bemoans one of the characters in Yasmina Reza's comedy Art, playing at Everyman Theatre. It is a question that resounds in this witty and sophisticated piece.

'On the Town' is on the mark

Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre has opened its new season with Leonard Bernstein's first Broadway musical, On the Town, the story of three sailors on a one-day leave in New York City before shipping out to unknown destinations.

Theater Review

'Lives' takes up cause of workers

Melanie Marnich's These Shining Lives -- a world premiere based on the real-life poisoning of female workers at a watch factory -- is genuinely tragic, but it's also as one-sided and gilded as the faces of its tainted timepieces.

Knowing 'Purple' adds to enjoyment

Staging a musical such as The Color Purple shares many of the challenges of, say, making a movie of Harry Potter. Most of the audience read and loved the book. Or, in the case of The Color Purple, they read the book and they loved the movie.

'Cry-Baby' has flash, wit, but no heart

Opportunity knocked last night at the door of the Marquis Theatre, where Cry-Baby is making its Broadway debut. But nobody answered.

Theater Review

Shakespeare Festival offers uneven 'Tale'

The Winter's Tale may be the only work by the Bard that focuses on the travails and hard-won joys of an enduring marriage.

Theater Review

'Night Music': in key, in sync

Like all of the great romantic comedies, Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music is unsparing in its depiction of human folly.

Theater Review

A tough time getting at the truth

As I watched Everyman Theatre's production of The Turn of the Screw, I couldn't help thinking about the infamous McMartin Preschool case and the way that the most well-intentioned, pure-hearted adults can instill false - and immensely damaging - memories into susceptible children.