Theater

Play by Play: May 1, 2009

Plays from A to Z

By CAROLYN CLAY | April 28, 2009

OPENING

THE BACCHAE | Whistler in the Dark theater company takes on Euripides's tragedy, in which a celebration of the wine god gets way out of hand. Meg Taintor directs a translation by Northeastern professor Francis Blessington. | Rehearsal Hall A, Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | May 1-17 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 3 + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $25; $15 students; two for one StageSource members Wed

BUNBURY: A SERIOUS PLAY FOR TRIVIAL PEOPLE | Tom Jacobson's "seriously clever metatheatrical comedy" goes all Stoppard on us by bringing minor (or imaginary) characters from classic drama to the forefront. "Tired of being swept to the sidelines of drama, Bunbury, Algernon's off-stage friend from The Importance of Being Earnest, and Rosaline, Romeo's off-stage first love, are determined to make an impact." Barlow Adamson and John Edward O'Brien are at the helm of this Mill 6 Collaborative production. | Factory Theater, 791 Tremont St, Boston | 866.811.4111 | May 1-17 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | 3 pm Sun [no May 3] | $17 in advance; $20 at the door

DEPORTED/A DREAM PLAY | New Repertory Theatre's New Voices series presents this staged reading of a new play by Joyce Van Dyke, author of A Girl's War and The Oil Thief. Judy Braha directs the piece, which, inspired by the story of Van Dyke's grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian genocide, incorporates survival oral-history interviews from the Armenian Library and Museum of America. Ken Baltin, Paula Langton, Marya Lowry, and Bobbie Steinbach are among the cast. A panel discussion follows. | Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown | 617.923.8487 | May 4 | Curtain 7:30 pm Mon | Free; $10 donation suggested

DORA THE EXPLORER LIVE! SEARCH FOR THE CITY OF LOST TOYS | Nickelodeon and Broadway Across America team up to present this touring show based on the popular pre-schooler TV series about a pint-sized Latina explorer. Former Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater co-artistic director Gip Hoppe is at the helm of the musical adventure whose heroine "is to kids what the Rolling Stones are to parents — she's one of the biggest stars in the world." | Opera House, 539 Washington St, Boston | 800.982.2787 | May 7-10 | Curtain 10:30 am + 2 pm Thurs | 10:30 am + 7 pm Fri | 11 am + 2 pm + 5 pm Sat-Sun | $21-$43.50

GAME3RS | As part of Cyberarts, a four-day festival at New England Institute of Art, Brian Bielawski reprises his performance of his and Walter G. Meyer's "one-man comedy about the secret life of gamers." Its protagonist is the ultimate gaming geek, an MIT dropout who works a real-life tech-support job to support his much more important virtual life. A reception precedes the performance, which is followed by a Q&A with actor, writer, and gamer Beilawski. | New England Institute of Art Center Building, 10 Brookline Place West, Brookline | April 30 | Curtain 7 pm Thurs, preceded by 6 pm reception | Free

GREY GARDENS | Artistic director Spiro Veloudos is at the helm of the Lyric Stage Company of Boston's New England premiere of the hit Broadway musical about Jackie O's eccentric relatives, Big and Little Edie Beale, who lived in symbiotic squalor in the filthy remains of a once-grand Long Island manse. They've been the subject of a famed documentary and an HBO movie; come hear them sing. Musical direction is by Jonathan Goldberg; Leigh Barrett plays one of the Edies. | Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon St, Boston | 617.585.5678 | May 8–June 6 | Curtain 2 pm [May 13, June 3] + 7:30 pm Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $25-$44

IMPROBABLE RESEARCH CABARET | In connection with the Cambridge Science Festival, the folks who bring you the Annals of Improbable Research and administer the Ig Nobel Prizes present this afternoon of comedy and song aimed at answering such questions as "Is Coca-Cola an effective spermicide?" and "Why do sheets wrinkle?" (Are these questions related?) | Central Square Theater, 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 617.576.9278 x 208 | May 2 | Curtain 3 pm Sat | $35; $20 students

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Topics: Theater , Entertainment, Science and Technology, Leigh Barrett, More

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ARTICLES BY CAROLYN CLAY

TWIN PEAKS | August 12, 2009
The bay of Ephesus laps Collins Avenue in Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's Latin-tinged, frisky if over-frenetic The Comedy of Errors (at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common through August 16). It is not across sands of subtlety but through a spray of salsa that the perpetrators of this 1930s-South-Beach-set riff on Shakespeare's early comedy pratfall.

SEASONS' GREETINGS | August 04, 2009
It may not be December 1963, but oh what a night is Jersey Boys (at the Shubert Theatre through September 26) for boomers wishing to enjoy the soundtrack of their youth set against a mix of Forever Plaid and GoodFellas .

HARE BELLES | July 28, 2009
With apologies to Winston Churchill, The Breath of Life is a cliché wrapped in an enigma — or two. On the face of it, award-winning British writer David Hare's ruthless yet sentimental two-hander (at Gloucester Stage through August 2) is a standard confrontation between a betrayed wife and her husband's long-time mistress.

QUAKE AND SHAKE | July 22, 2009
A tenderhearted yarn spinner tells an anxious little girl a story about a talking bear hawking honey. A nerdy young debt collector comes home to find a six-foot amphibian bent on recruiting him to save Tokyo from a natural disaster. Both scenarios emanate from the brain of award-winning Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.

VIOLET HOUR | June 23, 2009
The color purple describes both kids' icon Barney and a bruise. And sure enough, both child-friendly uplift and florid abrasion are wound into the sprawling, heartfelt musical based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer-winning 1982 novel about a beaten-down young black woman learning to value herself over the course of 40 years in the first half of the 20th century.

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