It’s not really right to skip the theatre when in London, so out of all the possible shows, I choose to see the revival of Mike Leigh’s “Ecstasy,” which has now closed.

Mike Leigh is a director I often admire; he is frequently called “a darling of the Left.” He is not a big campaigner, but when asked if he feels he is a political director has said, “You can't not be political. It's like asking if I consider myself a human being.”

Music by Si Kahn, book by Amy Merrill



Musical theater, noted singer/songwriter and activist Si Kahn in a recent radio interview, has often tackled serious issues in our lives. The personal and the comedic have often been used to confront real problems. Think race in “South Pacific,” oppression and identity in “La Cage Aux Foils.” These are plays that confront big issues and do it with a smile and some style.

“Silver Spoons” by the North Carolina-based Kahn (music) and Cambridge playwright Amy Merrill now through June 19th in its world premiere with the Nora Theater Company at Cambridge’s Central Square Theater tackles serious political issues with humor and music, albeit on a smaller scale (piano, a guitar, reeds and a violin arranged and orchestrated by Larry Hochman whose other recent credits include the Tony-nominated “Book of Mormon” and “The Scottsboro Boys”).

One of the insufficiently highlighted treasures of the Boston area is the wealth of student theatre productions. I’ve discovered this because Sheriden Thomas of the Tufts drama faculty invites me to the productions she directs. (Full disclosure: I met her and her partner when, years ago, they took a few dance lessons from me.) How impressive that she has pulled off a slam-dunk with her present show, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at the theater-in-the-round Balch Arena Theater, Feb17-19 and 24-26. This is, after all, an ambitious project with its British accents, three separate locations, complex wit and generous length.

Naomi Wallace’s The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East, is three one-act plays, set in the Gaza Strip, West Jerusalem, and Baghdad. The pieces were separately written and performed over five years and first combined in 2008; the play runs at the Central Square Theater in Cambridge through December 19.

Cambridge, MA - The definition of the word intractable says a lot about the situation in the Middle East: “a problem that is so hard…that it cannot be solved; resistant to treatment.”

The parties to the conflict – the governments of Israel and the U.S., the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas – often exacerbate the crisis by encouraging debate over which group is right or wrong rather than towards the search for a reasonable political solution.

With a promise of puppets, dancing, political subversion and free bread, Bread & Puppet Theater’s fourth annual installment of their Boston residency attracted a crowd Friday, the second night of the “Tear Open the Door of Heaven” performance. Audience members braved the cold to come out to The Cyclorama building, part of the Boston Center for the Arts in the South End, which proves to be a perfect venue for the visually arresting style of this Glover, VT based theater troupe. “Tear Open the Door of Heaven” packs a punch into an hour-and-a-half long piece, charged with director Peter Schumann’s stark anti-war message and his anti-elitist, community approach to creating art. It leaves one with an equal amount of despair and inspiration.

BOSTON/South End - This week, for the fourth winter in a row at the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, the Glover, VT based Bread and Puppet Theater troupe present their subversively entertaining brand of politics and punditry.

Members of the year round Bread and Puppet collective again will be joined this week by scores of local actors and performers (a mix of pros and mostly amateurs who have been rehearsing all week at the BCA) who responded to the annual call for volunteers.

Cambridge, MA - Fresh from her triumph at the New York International Fringe Festival where she won the award for Outstanding Solo Show (what would that be, a Fringe D’Or?) and extended by popular demand, Gioia (Joya) De Cari’s new autobiographical play "Truth Values, One Girl's Romp Through M.I.T.'s Male Math Maze" continues through Sunday, September 27th at the Central Square Theater in Cambridge.

I was surprised to find myself at “Defending the Caveman,” – a long-running one-man comedy show written by Rob Becker that brags about looking at relationships between the genders “without taking sides.” Starring Michael Van Osch, who has been doing this since 2004, it is playing at the Wilbur Theatre through March 15. Based, as my companion put it, on “the humor of recognition,” this performance piece claims to be “the longest running solo play in Broadway history,” and has been translated into 16 languages and performed around the world by a variety of comics.

BOSTON/South End - Peter Schumann wants to ferment your brain. He’ll provide the vat filled with sourdough bread, garlic, and the crucial ingredients for political transmogrification, including subversion, corruption, and lots of symbolism. When he’s done with your grey matter, he says he’ll give it back.