Blogcritics Author: Tulis McCall

Book Review: Finding Beauty In A Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams

Tulis McCall — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:23:16 EST

Finding Beauty in a Broken World is a dense work that requires you to set down your popcorn and pay attention.
I thought this would be a sort of easy-going philosophical book I could glide through and glean from. It is not. Finding Beauty in a Broken World is a dense work that requires you to set down your popcorn and pay attention.Terry Tempest Williams is a scholar and a scientist who relies on empirical evidence to reach a spiritual conclusion. After the...

Theater Review (NYC): Billy Elliot The Musical

Tulis McCall — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:40:57 EST

This show is a big sloppy bear hug of YES YOU CAN, and it bonked me in the heart.
The Brits adore the music hall. It’s been part of their DNA for over 100 years - hence the name Royal Albert Music Hall instead of Royal Albert Theatre. They don’t care so much about a beginning, middle and an end as they do about the roiling. Keep it moving, because the crowd in the stalls is dying for a reason not to pay attention. ...

Theater Review (NYC): In The Heights

Tulis McCall — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:21:35 EST

The voices are astonishing, the dancing infectious, and the storytelling classic.
Downstage left on the set of In The Heights is the entrance to the 181st Street stop on the A Train. When the show was over I figured I had just enough time to hop the train and get up there before all the people I had just seen disappeared. And as long as I was standing anyway – along with the entire balcony section – I figured I...

Theater Review (NYC): Home

Tulis McCall — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:40:57 EST

This glorious piece of work about the black American experience accomplishes its goal and exceeds your expectations.
Home is a glorious piece of work, a memory play that is both lyric and heroic. Like Ulysses or The Wizard of Oz, it is a tale of a person looking for their soul, which is with them all the time like a ruby sewn into the hem of their garment. Cephus Miles (Kevin T. Carroll) grows up on a farm in North Carolina in the late 1950’s. His world...

Theater Review (NYC): A Memory Play by Bob Stewart

Tulis McCall — Mon, 8 Dec 2008 08:58:29 EST

A man tries to rewrite his parents' past to prevent their catastrophe of a marriage from ever having happened.
In A Memory Play Kip, (Trey Albright), a playwright, who is our narrator as well, tries to rewrite his parents' past. No simple task that. Take people you know well and recreate their lives, which in turn means erasing your own. It’s the sort of job for which schizophrenia would be considered an asset.Specifically, our playwright sets...

Theater Review (NYC): We All Fall Down by Nick Dujnic

Tulis McCall — Sun, 7 Dec 2008 22:27:13 EST

This new play is a parable for our time awaiting its own conclusion, and it comes close to hitting its mark.
The illustration on the cover of the program would lead you to believe that this is a play about the fortunes of stock market players. It’s not. We All Fall Down is more along the lines of A Clockwork Orange meets M*A*S*H.Galahad (Stephen Laferriere), a recent college grad, applies for an entry level position at The Corporation. The only...

Theater Review (NYC): Catch-22 by Aquila Theatre

Tulis McCall — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:15:29 EST

I am crazy about this company. The actors leap off the page and celebrate, big time.
I am CRAZY about this company. C-R-A-Z-Y. These actors leap off the page and celebrate big time. I have long espoused multiple casting, but Aquila Theatre takes this to a whole new level. Seven actors play 25 roles. They do it well. They do it SO well that it took me awhile to realize there were so few actors.This play is an adaptation of...

Theater Review (NYC): Back Back Back

Tulis McCall — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:19:34 EST

This baseball drama is proof that good writing, good directing, and good acting cannot be beat by anything, no how no way.
I go to a lot of theatre. A lot. Most of the time I go out of sheer devotion. Some people go to the ballet, others to church. I go to theatre. Most of the time I walk out underwhelmed because I’m a snob. And every once in awhile I float out the door because I have just been bowled over by a show. Back Back Back is one of those reasons...

Theater Review (NYC): Mindgame with Keith Carradine

Tulis McCall — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:57:21 EST

This fixer-upper's got character, but it needs a loving family to make it a showpiece.
The Soho Playhouse is built for Lilliputians. Even Film Forum, which started there, had to move to larger quarters, and they don’t need a stage at all. The theater has the effect of making you feel as though you are staring down the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. So set designr Beowulf Boritt had his work cut out for him when he...

Theater Review (NYC): American Buffalo by David Mamet

Tulis McCall — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:51:55 EST

In Mamet's sad, intricate tale, the devil is in the details, and this cast never comes close.
Oh dear. On his good days, Davis Mamet is a lot to take in, and that’s with actors who know what they are doing and a director who knows what’s needed, neither of which applies to this production of American Buffalo.David Mamet is a Gatling gun writer. His characters know who they are and who they are talking to so they skip the...