Straight White Men Through Sunday, May 28 Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh www.sonorousroadtheatre.com As Straight White Men begins, it’s Christmastime, when artificial trees, gaudy decorations, and comforting bromides about universal peace and love are taken out of storage, dusted off, and briefly put on display. To the surprise of no one who saw her regional premiere […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: For Better and Worse, Hunchback Flees the Realm of the Well Made Play for Wilder Pastures
Hunchback★★★ Through May 20 Walltown Children’s Theatre, Durham Kenneth Burke once compared Dadaism to a child mimicking a disabled man hobbling down a street—not out of sympathy or mockery, but sheer curiosity. There’s more than a whisper of Dada in Hunchback, the devised work replacing the adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch originally slated […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: Curious Accidents & Unintended Consequences Explores the Dramatic, Not Comical, Side of Improv
Curious Accidents & Unintended Consequences★★★Through May 20 Research Triangle High School, Raleigh By now, it’s a set piece in action-adventure films: the sequence where two protagonists escape from a hundred-foot well by crouching, back to back, and walking their way up the walls. Director J. Chachula’s intriguing new theatrical experiment with Flying Machine Theatre Company […]
Posted inCulture
Dance Review: Rabble & Twine’s The Mesoplanets Shines in Multimedia Atmosphere but Needs Stronger Movement
Rabble and Twine: The Mesoplanets★★ Saturday, May 6 Living Arts Collective, Durham When the music, projections, and visual design of a dance performance are as strong as those in Rabble & Twine’s The Mesoplanets, the most recent offering from Durham Independent Dance Artists, it’s disappointing when the choreography lags well behind. But the polish and […]
Posted inArt
Remembering Baba Chuck Davis, Legendary Voice of the African Dance Diaspora
Baba Chuck Davis memorial services Visitation: Friday, June 2, 1-7 p.m. Fisher Memorial UHC 420 East Piedmont Avenue, Durham Community Celebration: Friday, June 2, 5:30 p.m. Hayti Heritage Center 804 Old Fayetteville Street, Durham Funeral services: Saturday, June 3, 11 a.m. Union Baptist Church 904 North Roxboro Street, Durham Baba Chuck Davis had a way […]
Posted inCulture
Common Ground Theatre Is Gone, But Some of Its Resources and Its Role Live on in Walltown Children’s Theatre
Cynthia Penn-Halal is beaming as she stands amid the clutter of construction at Walltown Children’s Theatre. The company’s executive director points out a neighborhood worker painting the wooden side rails on new risers for the audience, while theatrical carpenter Jeff Alguire puts the finishing touches on the technical booth he’s made out of what was […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: In Marjorie Prime, Human Replicas Help the Living, But at What Cost?
Marjorie Prime ★★★ ½ Through May 13 Manbites Dog Theater, Durham The theory of the “uncanny valley” has taken on increasing importance in recent years. It refers to the phenomenon that human replicas prompt feelings of distaste and distrust when they look, talk, act or move like human beings, but not quite. The idea has […]
Posted inArt
A Series of Plays at Raleigh Little Theatre Challenges Outdated Ideas About Women in Combat
WOMEN AND WAR Friday, May 5–Sunday, May 28 Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh www.raleighlittletheatre.org History remembers a number of women warriors beyond Joan of Arc. There’s Fu Hao, China’s first recorded female general in the thirteenth century BCE; Amage, who successfully defended Sarmatia eleven hundred years later; and Amanirenas, who stopped the Roman conquest of Kush. […]
Posted inCulture
Justice Theater Project and Young Students Band Together Against Arts Funding Cuts
Justice Theater Project’s Forum Theatre WorkshopSaturday, April 22 Umstead Park United Church of Christ, Raleigh A plastic, gold-painted crown isn’t part of the standard-issue uniform for public school principals. But it somehow fits the character who sits at a desk on the dais at the Umstead Park United Church of Christ. After reading a sticky […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: In On Golden Pond, Stage Veterans Contemplate What’s Gone Before and What’s to Come
On Golden Pond ★★★½ Through April 23 Theatre in the Park, Raleigh The thought, though it’s more than a touch morbid, applies as much to summer idylls as it does to theatrical productions, regardless of their ambition or achievement: only a finite number is allotted to any of us. What comes after is, at best, […]