BWW Review: AMERICAN IDIOT at Center Stage TheaterApril 11, 2018The punk rock musical American Idiot, now on stage at Center Stage, gives Green Day fans an opportunity to immerse themselves into the titular album through dance, imagery, and, of course, music. American Idiot does not tell a story so much as it performs the gesture of punk rock: a clench-fisted rebellion against the banality of American society and culture.
BWW Review: KING LEAR at UCSB: Performing Arts TheaterNovember 24, 2017Critic A.C. Bradley claimed that of all of Shakespeare's tragedies, King Lear was too sublime for the stage. For Bradley, King Lear's depiction of madness, stormy landscapes, filial deception, and treachery went to extremities best conjured by a reader who can imaginatively fill in the breadth of Shakespeare's vast tragic landscape. The turn-of-the-century stage practice that Bradley would have experienced, however, aspired to visual verisimilitude. In trying to depict everything for the audience's eyes, these theaters could only betray the expansive world of Lear.