Measure for Measure

HOUSE + BODY’s production of Measure for Measure currently playing in the Studio Theatre at Crow’s is Shakespeare with a twist.  It’s an adaptation written and directed by Christopher Manousos.  The schtick is that it’s part of a radio series of live Shakespeare and we are watching the goings on in the studio where five actors play all twenty characters with commercials, sponsor messages and the rest of the baggage of radio broadcasts.  There are also some “off stage” shenanigans involving the actors; principally the two women who engage in wistful glances and then have an almost steamy scene in the “interval”.   I’m going to speculate that this is a sort of nod to Isabella’s ambiguous nature in the actual play.

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Topdog/Underdog

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, which is currently running at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre has garnered impressive accolades since its 2001 New York debut.  It’s won a Pulitzer and been named, in 2018, as “the greatest American play of the last 25 years” by the New York Times.  It’s well written, dramatically well crafted and often very funny but, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t deeply engaged by it.

Mazin Elsadig and Sébastein Heins in TopdogUnderdog-photobyDahliaKatz-5695

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