David MacDowell Blue

Every notice how humor so often feels uncomfortable? The reason is simple enough--even when we laugh with someone, rather than at them, laughter tends to feel cruel. Whether a pie in the face or an unbelievably uncomfortable job interview, our reaction is to people's suffering. But the best laughter includes laughing at ourselves, not out of denial but recognition of our own faults, our own need to deal with pain by making it into something else. Squirrel!!! pretty much does that with the sto... full review

It bears says--I have had a very nice Fringe this year. Wrote only one pan, with two mild disappointments, but the rest of the shows I've seen veered between just plain good to soul-shakingly excellent. Most, though, have also proven...well, heavy. No complaints! Still, no use pretending this delightful variety show didn't act as a breath of fresh air! So much fun! So many laughs! Such a delightful array of different talents on display! My personal faves were the skits, partially because ... full review

We all have our journeys, our own terrors and regrets, victories and failures, accomplishments and lessons learned. Nine times out of ten this makes up the substance of nearly any one person show, so the question comes up--how akin to our own lives does this person's story feel? Sink or Swim accomplishes this very well in the most straightforward way--by sharing what happened, how he felt, and in an engaging manner let us in on his life. His methods proved clever, even interactive (btw the man... full review

I can but applaud a resurgence of interest in the classics, especially those we don't see that often, as in this case Seneca's Hercules Insane. This production does something even more startling that the revival of an Ancient Roman tragedy (we more often see people do the Greeks--possibly in hopes of seeing ourselves as in a Golden Age) in a pretty close approximation of how it was originally staged! Actors wore masks, spoke in meter, permeated stylized movements in every moment, and never shie... full review

My favorite acting teacher once gave me words to live by. "Theatre" he said "is revolutionary in nature. It changes you. You are no longer the same person you were before seeing a play." I am of course paraphrasing since he said this in the 1980s. But this play makes a fine example of exactly his point. Just in terms of a weird, dreamlike situation--three strangers meeting for reasons never made totally clear in a graveyard--we the audience listen in on a fascinating, perplexing and unresol... full review

A woman. A grand piano (or any piano really, this one happened to be grand). Some songs. Such a simple, yet challenging premise. One Laura Jo Trexler meets with talent, passion and panache! In this case the conceit lies in the pov from each original song she performs. Each one has a female character from the works of Shakespeare, from Gertrude (in Hamlet) to the Dark Lady of the Sonnets and beyond. Along the way, we experience enough passion, humor, tragedy, silliness and the like for a fu... full review

Lights Out at the Hermit's Cave comes from a place of pure fun. An ensemble of very good performers demonstrate over-the-top means "good" if done well and in the right context. This company, The Hermit's Cave, stages in a dark room horror radio plays from the 1940s. Not as radio plays, but rather acted out all around you the audience, albeit with a foley artist and live musician to add ambiance. It works! It works delightfully, even in a simple meeting room with most of the lights turned off.... full review

Certainly the destruction of PanAm 103 certainly counts as a tragedy. But this play transforms it into a Tragedy (note the capital T), one of the most powerful I've ever seen. Its focus remains squarely not upon the event, which after all lies in the past, but in the aftermath--and by extension such for all the evils, all the pain in the world. Here, during an anniversary event in the Scottish lowlands village where so many died, a New Jersey housewife gives way to her grief. Her husband trie... full review

The High Captain feels not unlike a blend of Waiting for Godot and Gilligan's Island. And maybe a fairly political version of Alice in Wonderland. Maybe. Actually there's also more than a dash of Monty Python as well. The survivors of a tanker ship crashing onto a desert island somewhere in the Caribbean try to live out their lives. Not easy under the best of circumstances it is all made better and worse by the fact enough barrels of gas that send people high as a kite survived the crash to.... full review

This show has a simple but delicious conceit--adapting the hit action movie not only into a musical but a Christmas musical, taking music from a variety of holiday specials and movies. This alone works. Add to that a tiny mountain of pop references, easter eggs, wonderful theatrical flourishes worthy of farce and the recipe then waits only for a good production. Wisely, TU keeps changing up the cast each year, which helps keep in fresh--especially in terms of the villain Hans Gruber, as juicy ... full review