When it Finds its Focus, Bent Becomes Beautiful

By Patrick Hurley Taking its cue from the gay rights movement of the late 1970s, when it was written, Martin Sherman’s play Bent, playing now through August 23 at the Mark Taper Forum, wants to make a statement to the gay community.

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Richard Struggles for Control

By Patrick Hurley
Richard III, Shakespeare’s history play about political posturing, manipulation, greed, and power that ultimately led to the end of the war of the roses is playing now through August 30 at the Eclectic Theatre Company.

First Love is a Tender Thing in Wonderful Girlfriend

By Patrick Hurley

The awkwardness of first love is sweetly and nostalgically captured in the Actors Theatre of Louisville Production of Girlfriend, playing now through August 9 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

Frothy Fun For Adam & Eve and Steve

By Patrick Hurley
The biblical story of Adam and Eve is given a farcical twist when Satan interferes with God’s plan, and creates Steve ahead of Eve.

Shiv Sublimely Soars to the Stars and Back

By Patrick Hurley
How do we reconcile the past? How do we see beyond our own liminal understanding of the world? Our grandiose ideas can be easily quashed by the exquisitely tiny amount of space that we take up in the universe. And yet we still seek for something new. And so we should. In the eloquent (paraphrased) words of Tennyson, we should “strive, seek, find, and not yield”. Aditi Brennan Kapil’s play Shiv, playing now at The Theatre @ Boston Court takes the idea of this self discovery, and places it in a surreal, post-colonial, post-modernist setting. It gently dances with the themes of loss, identity, and culture while maintaining the narrative of a beautifully nuanced relationship drama between a father and daughter. 

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea Shores Up a Pair of Strong Performances

By Patrick Hurley
Drawing parallels to an Apache dance, the dance of death, seeking to create a heated struggle between two lovers, this production relies on text over any revelatory staging to make such a connection.