I’m out of town this weekend, taking in the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. It’s always an exciting opportunity to see a half-dozen new works, many of which could end up on Cincinnati stages — for instance, last year’s This Random World by Steven Dietz has been selected by D. Lynn Meyers at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati to open that theater’s 2017-18 season. Read more here about ETC’s next season, as well as Know Theatre’s). I’ll be writing about this year’s Humana productions in my Curtain Call column in next week’s issue of CityBeat.
While I’m away, there are several local shows that are definitely worth seeing.
Ensemble Theatre’s Bloomsday (through April 23) just opened on Wednesday. It’s a charming script by Steven Dietz, whose plays are among the most frequently staged at ETC: Private Eyes (2000), Fiction (2007), More Fun Than Bowling (2007) and Becky’s New Car (2010). Bloomsday is set against the backdrop of James Joyce’s legendary epic novel Ulysses, a tale stuffed full of the details of daily life in the Irish city of Dublin in the early 20th century. Robert, an American, searches for Caithleen, an Irish woman who captured his heart 35 years earlier during a “Bloomsday” walking tour in Dublin, pointing out the sites chronicled in Joyce’s novel as Leo Bloom wanders the city. Dietz’s lyrical love story moves back and forth in time fluidly with two actors portraying Robert and Caithleen at ages 20 and 55. Michael Evan Haney, who has a way with character-driven dramas, has staged the show, and his cast is letter perfect. It’s the kind of show that people will fall in love with, even though there’s a thread of heartbreak that runs through it: Caithleen says that the Irish “prefer the ache,” and that’s how this one feels — in a good way. Through April 23. Tickets: 513-421-3555.
Cincinnati Playhouse’s world premiere of Jen Silverman’s All the Roads Home (also through April 23) opened a week ago. Read my comments in last week’s Stage Door. Tickets: 513-421-3888.
The ensemble cast of Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 classic A Raisin in the Sun at Cincinnati Shakespeare makes it a compelling production of a work that’s still meaningful today. Check out Erica Reid’s CityBeat review and see it onstage through April 15. Tickets: 513-381-2273.
One of the best choices of the Broadway in Cincinnati’s season at the Aronoff this year is the Tony Award-winning musical Matilda (through April 16). It’s not your everyday family show. It features a sharp sense of humor, and it deals with anxieties that both kids and grown-ups will get. Based on Roald Dahl’s novel, it’s about imaginative Matilda who dares to take a stand and change her own destiny. Tickets: 513-621-2789.
More good choices:
John Pollono’s Small Engine Repair at Clifton Performance Theatre (through April 15) is a Mamet-like piece of testosterone-driven theater, coarse and crude with a lot of very dark humor — plus a thriller twist as the story winds up. Good cast, but this is not a show for the faint-hearted. Read more here. Tickets: 513-813-7469
Erika Kate MacDonald’s 2016 Fringe show Ice Candle returns for a two-night encore at Know Theatre. Now titled Evacuated, it’s her personal chronicle of having to beat it out of riot-torn Jakarta, Indonesia, when she was there as an exchange student in 1998. Her solo performance earned a Critic’s Pick of the Fringe, and she’s touring the show to fringe festivals in Orlando and Canada, so you have a chance to catch her tune-up before she hits the road. Tickets: 513-300-5669.
Next week on Wednesday at Memorial Hall in Over-the-Rhine (1225 Elm St.), you might enjoy “Play With Your Lunch” for A New York State of Mind, a one-act play, with lots of New York wisecracks, performed by Barry Mulholland, Susan Emerson, Brooke Steele and Justin McCombs. Why is New York New York? “The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. The people move through a hole in the ground.” Playwrights John Guare, David Ives and Israel Horowitz shed light on what it is to be in, of or from “The City.” The midday performance comes with lunch from Silverglades ($35) and features some fine local actors — Susan Emerson, Justin McCombs, Barry Mulholland and Brooke Steele. Reserve via memorialhallotr.com or purchase admission at the door.
Rick Pender’s STAGE DOOR blog appears here every Friday. Find more theater reviews and feature stories here.
This article appears in Apr 5-12, 2017.
