American Players Theatre
Spring Green, Wis.
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Director James Bohnen’s revival of Somerset Maugham’s 1921 comedy is a pleasant surprise, said Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal. Though Maugham is a canonical novelist, most of his plays have fallen into “dusty obscurity.” But as Bohnen and company demonstrate, The Circle has an “unexpectedly contemporary feel.” The play concerns a pair of love triangles, both of which threaten to derail the political career of a young prig named Arnold. His mother, who left his father when Arnold was 5, has returned with her aging lover for an ill-timed visit. Meanwhile, Arnold’s wife, Elizabeth, has herself fallen for another man. All signs indicate she’ll soon leave Arnold.
The reason this play often feels so contemporary is its unusual emphasis on female characters, said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune. By focusing heavily on the plights of the two female leads—one who’s deciding whether to break the bonds of an unhappy marriage, the other who’s dealing with the consequences of a similar decision—Maugham presciently addressed the “massive social changes coming with the dawn of feminism and increased sexual freedom.” Paul Hurley and Susan Shunk are often riveting as Arnold and Elizabeth, while Tracy Michelle Arnold finds “just the right spot between comedy and pain” in portraying his mother. As forward thinking as the play often seems, it also delivers “a reminder of how little things change.” In wry fashion, Maugham explores the timeless tendency “of the young to ignore the wisdom of the old.”
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If/Thenfeature Tony-winning Idina Menzel “looks and sounds sensational” in a role tailored to her talents.
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Rocky
feature It’s a wonder that this Rocky ever reaches the top of the steps.
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Love and Information
feature Leave it to Caryl Churchill to create a play that “so ingeniously mirrors our age of the splintered attention span.”
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The Bridges of Madison County
feature Jason Robert Brown’s “richly melodic” score is “one of Broadway’s best in the last decade.”
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Outside Mullingar
feature John Patrick Shanley’s “charmer of a play” isn’t for cynics.
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The Night Alive
feature Conor McPherson “has a singular gift for making the ordinary glow with an extra dimension.”
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No Man’s Land
feature The futility of all conversation has been, paradoxically, the subject of “some of the best dialogue ever written.”
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The Commons of Pensacola
feature Stage and screen actress Amanda Peet's playwriting debut is a “witty and affecting” domestic drama.