It's one thing to go into a theatrical experience and have its performers give what the audience wants. It is a far worse idea to bring in one of the biggest A-list actors out there, and underuse his talents for the vast majority of an expensively-priced production. Such is the case of The Infernal Comedy, which made its American debut at Boston's Majestic Theater.
It's a risk adapting a classic Greek tragedy into a modern-day society; even more so if you transform it into a rock opera. Yet here we are with Prometheus Bound, the latest production from the American Repertory Theater that takes (presumably) Aeschylus's first part of the Prometheus Trilogy, translated by Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) and adding lyrics that play on to the tragedy as if it happened today in some ways. Insert a rocking musical backing composed by none other than Serj Tankian (System of a Down), and what do you get? Quite possibly the first great new musical of the decade.
R. Buckminster Fuller was a man with plenty of ideas, as well as the initiative to get said concepts done to the acclaim (and ridicule) of many. The man behind the inventions of the geodesic domes and the aerodynamic automobile known as the Dymaxion -- as well the first to coins such phrases as "Spaceship Earth," "ephemeralization," and "synergetics" -- was not so peculiar; rather his portrayal on stage in the one-man A.R.T. production R. Buckiminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe showed him as a being with much enthusiasm for what he discovers, and how he manage to accomplish so much with this new acquired information. The show answers two basic questions: who was this man they sometimes called Trimtab, and what did he do to better our society?
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Im Boston Saukerl Mannschaft, au Brigade Bâtard Boston, to Boston Bastard Brigade!
There are many moments in American Repertory Theater's production of Cabaret that made it an experience unlike no other. From its pre-show shenanigans and its stellar cast (led by Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer, playing the androgynous Emcee) to the audience participation and the beautiful costumes this adaptation of the Joe Masteroff/John Kander/Fred Ebb musical knew how to raise eyebrows and create certain moods that I've yet to bear witness to until this night.