Three Sisters★★★★ 1/2 PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill Through Feb. 7 In a prosperous society it’s easy to forget the taste of ashes—their acrid presence on the tongue contrasting with their lack of substance to the touch. That forgetfulness, as much as the problems of language, can make Anton Chekhov’s last three plays, Uncle Vanya, […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inArt
A son surveys his parents’ folly in Christopher Durang’s jet-black comedy, The Marriage of Bette and Boo
THE MARRIAGE OF BETTE AND BOO North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, 7713-51 Lead Mine Road, Raleigh, 919-866-0228 www.nract.org Through Jan. 31 There’s what you might call “dim comedy,” like Common Ground Theatre’s A Trailer Park Christmas. There’s dark comedy, like Honest Pint Theatre Company’s Annapurna. There’s black comedy, like Theatre in the Park and […]
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An incendiary performance powers a superlative production of Catholic-school abuse drama Doubt: A Parable
DOUBT: A PARABLE Temple Theatre 120 Carthage St., Sanford 919-774-4155 www.templeshows.com Through Jan. 31 Those who’ve seen Lynda Clark’s formidable performances as the embattled but calculating Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, or the Angel in Angels in America, could anticipate the emotional velocity she brings to John Patrick Shanley’s 2004 Pulitzer- and […]
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Stick Fly provocatively probes fractures of class and gender in a wealthy black family
STICK FLY Raleigh Little Theatre 301 Pogue St., Raleigh 919-821-3111 Through Jan. 31 It is a basic, brutal fact of geopolitics: After the oppressed rise up, they may become oppressors in turn. We’ve seen this play out across the Middle East in recent decades, centuries after religious dissidents fled Europe for North America, sometimes establishing […]
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Common Wealth Endeavors’ Small and Tired will make you feel better about your crazy family
SMALL AND TIRED Common Ground Theatre 4815B Hillsborough Road, Durham 919-384-7817 Through Jan. 23 I now know my favorite aunt liked soap operas for the same reason I once liked horror flicks and dystopian comics: Both gave us the desired perspective that, somehow, things could be so much worse. I picked up this insight over […]
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Time Stands Still explores what happens when war journalists get out from behind the camera to observe themselves
TIME STANDS STILL South Stream Productions @ Sonorous Road Theatre 209 Oberlin Road, Raleigh 919-803-3798 www.sonorousroad.com Through Jan. 17 It’s the lesson monologist Spalding Gray learned too late, if he ever learned it at all: Documenting life is an excellent way to keep it, and the people in it, at a certain distance. In some […]
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Resolution: In 2016, local independent theaters should focus on solving longstanding marketing issues
January 1 is the day of resolutions, and there is much to be resolved in our theatrical ecosystem. But I mean that in a specific sense. For a moment, let’s forget high-minded, abstract proposals. Instead, think math. We all know the words from high school or the S.A.T., appearing below some algebraic hieroglyph: “Solve for […]
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Nine great local theater performances of 2015
Our performing arts critic’s nine favorite shows of the year in chronological order: Delta Boys: Love and Information (The Carrack Modern Art)—A gifted quintet played a compelling game of human pinball as Caryl Churchill’s characters got the news (or didn’t) in 65 relationships, ranging from snarky lovers to torturer and victim. It returns next month […]
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Five things that mattered this year in the performing arts
On regional stages, there were changes aplenty this year, as artists came and went and innovated when faced with challenges old and new. Here are five signs of life and struggle that dominated 2015, onstage and off. Local artists made waves in New York. StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance took playwright Howard L. Craft’s […]
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Vivienne Benesch, the new artistic director of PlayMakers, wants to break down its reclusive reputation
Though Vivienne Benesch’s official first day as PlayMakers Repertory Company’s new artistic director is January 1, she was already on the job last week, visiting Chapel Hill from New York to catch a performance of Peter and the Starcatcher, discuss her January PlayMakers production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters with company personnel and confer on pre-existing […]