Guthrie’s Pollard Theatre Company presents Christopher Sergel’s dramatization of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. This is interesting, because Guthrie in 1935 may have been much like the fictional Alabama town where Lee set her classic tale. Who hasn’t read the Pulitzer Prizewinning book or seen its 1962 movie version? When a theater company […]
Larry Laneer
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Cave dwellers
In Defending the Caveman, now being presented by Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre in Civic Center Music Hall’s Freede Little Theatre, playwright Rob Becker says civilization is divided into two genders: women and assholes. It stars the affable, but bland John Venable. He hits his marks, speaks his lines and leaves little lasting impression. One could […]
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Enchanted anniversary
With Lyric Theatre celebrating its golden anniversary this year, it marks the occasion by looking back with the musical revue Some Enchanted Evening, a compilation of more than 50 songs from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musicals. The Rodgers and Hammerstein link bears historical significance: Lyric’s first show, in 1963, was Oklahoma! When Some […]
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Full of ‘Heart’
The Tempest 1. The theatrical event of the year was hardly a play and barely was produced. Nevertheless, Dustin Lance Black’s 8 boasted wonderful acting and able staging (by Stephen Hilton) at the Freede Little Theatre under the auspices of the Oklahoma Theatre Guild, a loosely formed coalition of state theater companies and individuals. The […]
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‘Marley’ and me
Unable to resist the temptation to do something Yuletide-related, Oklahoma City Theatre Company has revived Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol. In it, playwright Tom Mula has adapted Charles Dickens’ tale from the perspective of Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner, Jacob Marley. Already dead when A Christmas Carol begins, Marley finds himself in a kind of purgatory. Much […]
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‘Heart’ rates
It’s odd that Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre’s production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, about the beginning of the AIDS crisis, is the state’s first staging of this 1985 drama. Now at the Freede Little Theatre under the fine direction of René Moreno, it was worth the wait. The play was once topical and is […]
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Missed a ‘Step’
The Pollard Theatre currently presents The 39 Steps, Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film and John Buchan’s unreadable novel. Englishman Richard Hannay thinks he has stumbled upon a ring of Nazi spies who are trying to steal some vital state secret from the sceptered isle. But that’s only half of Hannay’s problem; the […]
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Tragic Moor
After a brief summer hiatus, Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park is back at the Water Stage with Othello, directed by D. Lance Marsh. It’s not W. Jerome Stevenson’s first time playing the title role of the Moor for OSP. He’s fine, although the accent is a little annoying, making him hard to understand at times. […]
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Parent hood
Carpenter Square Theatre has opened its 29th season with Yasmina Reza’s comedy God of Carnage, translated by Christopher Hampton. This is not a play that should be put on by amateurs, and director Rhonda Clark has assembled a cast of seasoned pros who do it justice. Whether this particular work is the best use of […]
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Bad politics
An election year may not be the best time to stage David Mamet’s presidential-election comedy, November. The play pales in comparison to the real thing. But I’m not sure any time is good for staging this insipid, tedious slog of a show. Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre is giving it a go at CitySpace under the […]