Artists should “no longer huddle in the confines of a painted box set” but instead join together to “find visible and audible expression for the tempo and psychology of our time” and dramatize “the search of the average American today for knowledge about his country and his world.” – Hallie Flanagan, Federal Theatre Project
Stick Fly [...]

Highlights on stage this month include the world premiere of a drama about evolution by a respected local playwright and an intriguing collection of plays and musicals that bring an unusual perspective to topics ranging from love and music to extinction and dehumanization. And the wait is over: a show featuring singing dinosaurs has arrived.

By [...]

Boredom is the root of all evil . . . The influence that it exerts is altogether magical, except that it is not the influence of attraction, but of repulsion. — Søren Kierkegaard, “Either/Or”
Private Fears in Public Places by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by David J. Miller. Set design by Miller. Staged by the [...]

There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
that lift and drop a question on your plate
— From “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot, 1917
Not Enough Air by Masha Obolensky. Directed by Melia Bensussen. Set designed by Eric Levenson. Staged by the Nora Theatre [...]

“Avatar” is beautiful and otherworldly, but the film is so grounded in down-to-earth concepts that it restricts the viewer’s imagination rather than broadening it. An infinitely better and more complex recent space opera, “Mass Effect 2,” comes in the form of a video game. Is it art? Yes.
By Justin Marble
Over the centuries the [...]

More than any other art, theater asks for relevance. A play that convinces us that “this is the way it is now” can be excused many shortcomings. At any one moment there is a particular quality of feeling which dominates in human intercourse, a tonality which marks the present from the past, and when this [...]

If you’re heading out toward the Berkshires and haven’t yet made plans for Valentine’s Day, consider taking your significant other to brunch at Shakespeare & Company for a five-course meal before the matinee.
By Helen Epstein
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton. Adapted from the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Directed by Tina Packer.
Presented by Shakespeare [...]

A recent piece in the New York Times provides further proof of the increasingly pernicious stranglehold marketing exerts on the production of new voices in the theater.
By Bill Marx
Let’s face it—the fastest growing segment of non-profit hiring in the arts over the past decade or so, marketing, is now pretty much in the cultural [...]

This Rhode Island theater merits praise for its courage in staging dramatist Sarah Kane’s highly unorthodox portrayal of severe depression.
4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane. Directed by Tony Estrella. Presented by The Gamm Theatre, Pawtucket, RI, through February 7.

Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb
The Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket merits praise for its courage in staging Sarah Kane’s “4:48 [...]

By Bill Marx
The coming month offers some unusual examples of theater. Finished with “exploding” Shakespeare, the American Repertory Theater has decided to present the American classics unabridged. Produced by the Elevator Repair Service, “Gatz” is an evening of drama that revolves around a complete reading of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Political point-scoring [...]