Thursday, June 20, 2013

Cutting the Cord—Or Not

Dale Carman and Wilson Bridges in The Silver Cord.

That film and television now fulfill a role that theater once played is not such a bad thing. Case in point: There's no longer a need for playwrights like Sidney Howard to be quite so overt in dispensing advice to helicopter mothers and their suffocated offspring, as he is in The Silver Cord, now being revived by the Peccadillo Theater Company.

Friday, June 14, 2013

The Great Fall

Jill Tanner and George Morfogen in A Picture of Autumn.

Lots of theaters (though certainly not enough of them) introduce their audiences to new playwrights, but not many can say they introduce their audiences to "new" playwrights who died 40 years ago. Such are the joys of the Mint Theater Company, which is presenting N.C. Hunter's A Picture of Autumn this summer. Imagine what could have happened to the Crawleys on Downton Abbey if Matthew hadn't intervened and stabilized their finances and you'll understand the sadness and struggles that confront the family in this solidly acted and moving 1951 British drama.