Here we go again with the family drama. A few troupes are reviving classic clans from the last century. At Providence's Trinity Repertory Company (www.trinityrep.com), 50 years after its Broadway debut, the Younger clan battles over what to do with life-insurance money in Lorraine Hansberry's landmark African-American drama A RAISIN IN THE SUN (January 30–March 8). The Lyric offers Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer-winning sultry southern valentine, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (February 13–March 14), with artistic director Spiro Veloudos in the role of Big Daddy. And New Rep revives Sam Shepard's FOOL FOR LOVE (March 14–April 5), about siblings stuck in a Mojave hotel room, in its Downstage space.
As part of a Zinn Fest sponsored by Suffolk University (www.suffolk.edu) and Boston Playwrights' Theatre (www.bu.edu/bpt), Howard Zinn's first play, DAUGHTERS OF VENUS, will be staged at Suffolk's C. Walsh Theatre (January 22-24) and at BPT (January 29-February 15). The A People's History of the United States scribe brings us into the home to witness the emotional distance between blood relatives. But perhaps the season's most scathing display of family togetherness will happen at the ART, where Samuel Beckett's ENDGAME plays out (February 14–March 15). The bleak existential comedy revolves around a chair-bound blind man who keeps his parents in trash cans.
The main characters in David Harrower's Olivier Award-winning BLACKBIRD, to be presented by SpeakEasy Stage (February 20–March 21), thought they had concluded their scandalous relationship 15 years earlier, when the young woman was 12 and her gentleman companion many years her senior. But after a prolonged estrangement, the young woman seeks out the man and all those years of bottled-up resentment and unarticulated questions find form.
DIRTY DANCING: The movie comes to the stage at the Opera House. |
I'm not sure how to segue from that pas de deux to DIRTY DANCING–THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE, so I won't try. The 1960s-set movie featuring Baby and Johnny twirls to life as musical theater at the Opera House (February 7–April 12), thanks to Broadway Across America. For a little more razzamatazz, New Rep will have all the sequins and eyeliner, bowler hats and German snarl you need when they turn their stage into a CABARET (January 11–February 1). Go hear the music play. And when you're done with that, go see humans do their best impersonations of pretzels when touring Cirque Le Masque performs CARNIVALE (January 21–25) at the Cutler Majestic Theatre (www.maj.org). Like the young girl in this intimate circus of a show, you may be inspired to run away and join the circus — at least until spring.
