A month ago I traveled to Louisville to see Millennium Approaches, the first part of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America at Actors Theatre. I returned last Saturday to see Part Two: Perestroika of this tale “Gay Fantasia on American Themes,” set in 1985 at the peak of the AIDS crisis. It’s one of the finest theater productions I’ve seen in a long time — a cast of excellent performers (especially Mark Junek as the wry, unwilling “prophet”) and swift, cinematic staging by director Meredith McDonough. The two parts add up to seven hours of compelling, demanding theater, so Angels is seldom undertaken in its entirety.
Between now and Oct. 15 you still have a chance to see both parts of a piece of theater that many call the greatest play of the late 20th century — a work of humor, pathos and great humanity. It’s definitely worth a trip to Louisville. By the way, a recent, much-lauded London production of Angels (with Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane) will transfer to Broadway for an 18-week run starting in late February. I’m sure it will be excellent, but I doubt it could be any more satisfying than this Louisville production. Tickets: 502-502-1205.
Of course, heading to Louisville means reducing your opportunity to see some great theater currently onstage here in Cincinnati — on a weekend when Music Hall is re-opening. Too much good stuff, too little time, I’m afraid. But here are some tips:
The Cincinnati Playhouse’s production of Mr. Joy is a one-actor piece, but you’ll feel like you know an entire Harlem neighborhood after you experience Debra Walton’s outstanding performance. She plays nine distinctly different people whose lives have been touched by a Chinese man who repairs shoes. We never meet Mr. Joy, but the takeaway is a very clear picture of his impact. Onstage through Oct. 22. Tickets: 513-421-3888.
Your chance to see a rolling world-premiere is at Know Theatre, offering just the second-ever staging of Jacqueline Goldfinger’s The Arsonists. It’s about a father-daughter team, descendants of a long line of fire-starters in the Florida Everglades. An accident means that the daughter is wrestling with her grief over the loss of her dad, whose spirit continues to haunt her. Underscoring the play’s Southern Gothic ambience are about a dozen rootsy, Americana folk tunes, energetically and soulfully performed by actors Erin Ward and Jim Stark. Through Oct. 14. Tickets: 513-300-5669.
A quick tour stop by Martin Luther on Trial might be worth a look at the Aronoff’s Jarson-Kaplan this weekend only, Friday (8 p.m.), Saturday (2 and 8 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m). The production marks the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a cathedral in Wittenberg, Germany. In the play’s fantasy setting in the afterlife, St. Peter presides over the case for Luther’s soul; Lucifer prosecutes and Luther’s wife Katie defends. Witnesses from St. Paul to Hitler to Freud to Pope Francis argue for and against Luther’s undeniable influence and equally undeniable faults. The show has already had stops at New York’s Pearl Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington and Playhouse Square in Cleveland. After Cincinnati it moves on to Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis and Tulsa. Tickets: 513-621-2787.
Quick Takes: If you’re eager to see Hamilton when the tour shows up in Cincinnati next season, you can get a fix of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s creativity with a touring production of his first Broadway show, In the Heights at Dayton’s Schuster Center. Through Sunday. Tickets: 937-228-3630. … Falcon Theater in Newport has kicked off the Halloween season with a production of Frankenstein. Through Oct. 14. Tickets: falcontheater.net … Did you miss Cincy Shakes’ staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Another production of it, this one at Northern Kentucky University, will be onstage through Sunday. Tickets: 859-562-5464. … Also finishing this weekend are Guest Artist at Clifton Performance Theatre and Typhoid Mary, staged by Queen City Theater at the Carnegie in Covington. …You have one more week to see Wicked at the Aronoff and Cabaret at the Incline. Both productions wrap up on Oct. 15.
Rick Pender’s STAGE DOOR blog is posted every Friday. Find more theater reviews and feature stories here.
This article appears in Oct 4-11, 2017.
