Two men, lovers, are sparring in a hexagonal ring: advance and retreat, circle and feint, posture and jab. The more nattily dressed one (Ian Carlsen), fueled by hurt and outrage, is on the offensive, while the other, John (Andrew Sawyer), paces and scrambles his defense. In a show called Coc…
When Jewish-American photojournalist Jamie (Brooke Parks) meets a shoeless Syrian boy on the island of Lesvos, she feels compelled to shelter him. But she hasn’t thought through what to do next, and her compulsion to help the boy, Waleed (local actors Mohammad Adam, Hussein Al-Mshakheel, and…
Charlie (Burke Brimmer) is a shut-in, weighs 600 pounds, and is dying. His one friend, Liz (Amanda Eaton), a nurse, enables his obesity even as she tries to save him. And his only other contact with the outside world is through the lessons he broadcasts out (sans camera) to his online writin…
As the scion of the 14th wealthiest family in America, Eliot Rosewater (David Surkin) gives out checks to opera companies, scholars, and poets. But the only poem Eliot ever liked was written on a bathroom stall in Indiana, and his favorite books are the sci-fi fantasias of a weirdo recluse n…
In Ashley Bryan’s beloved and award-winning storybook Beautiful Blackbird, the one black-feathered bird in the forest is the envy of all the other birds. They beg him for more black — and thus more beauty — on their own feathers, even as the blackbird tries to teach them that true beauty lie…
Young college student Mira (Kerry Anderson) is lately restless, neurotic, prone to weeping. She feels as if she’s forgotten something crucial. But poetry changes everything — it raises Mira from her anomie and offers her communion and transcendence. The innovative theater company Bare Portla…
Upon discovering the neighbor’s dog killed with a garden fork — and finding himself named lead suspect — fifteen-year-old Christopher begins a murder investigation. A math genius on the autism spectrum, Christopher has a particular temperament for deduction. But his detecting soon unearths s…
An entire language goes extinct every few weeks, laments George (Mark Rubin), a linguist, who finds this the saddest fact in the world. He’s made it his life’s work to preserve dying languages. Meanwhile, George’s marriage to Mary (Mary Fraser) is also dying, but he can’t find the words to s…
Two exciting hybrid and collaborative theater pieces are in the works for the same weekend this fall: Bare Portland is back with another devised multi-modal work, called Mira (SPACE Gallery, October 18-20). Grounded in the lyricism of Tennessee Williams, the story of a lonely young woman’s t…
When famous silent movie star Don Lockwood (Nicolas Dromard) falls for aspiring young actress-singer-dancer Kathy Selden (Kate Fahrner), it’s a potential publicity problem: Don is already advertised as romantically with his co-star Lina Lamont (Kim Sava), a catty diva who doesn’t like to be …
There are really only five motives for committing murder, says American crime writer Max Halliday (Marshall Taylor Thurman): “Fear, jealousy, money, revenge, and to protect someone you love.” Max’s expertise becomes salient during a stay in London, around the attempted strangling of his form…
When American soldiers found themselves in liberated Paris at the end of World War II, many didn’t want to leave. So it is with Jerry Mulligan (Clyde Alves), an artist who throws away his ticket home and instead sketches the Seine, haunts the cafés, and romances a dark-haired Parisian baller…
Hump-backed, hateful, politically murderous Richard III is the most hideous of Shakespeare’s kings. Resentful of his physical deformities, Richard achieves his vengeful power by deceit, manipulation, and even the killing off of his young nephews. The Theater at Monmouth stages Richard III th…
Among the dreamiest summer theater news is that the annual al fresco show of Fenix Theatre Company’s will this year be Sarah Ruhl’s gorgeous, magical-realism-inflected Eurydice (July 13-29). Ruhl’s story of the woman who goes to the underworld scintillates with falling water and talking ston…
Last weekend gave us the first round of performances from PortFringe, the annual, volunteer-run festival of creative, theatrical, and devised works from artists near and far.