Events Next 7 Days
Big Love
Through 5/25: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 4 PMTheater & Performance
This young couple walked by me as I headed up the street after seeing Charles Mee's Big Love at Strawdog Theatre. They were probably in their late teens, early 20s. The boy put the girl in a headlock and kissed the part in her hair. She laughed, but in a fakey, uncertain way, like she hadn't quite decided whether she should be pissed or pleased. Still, when he let go, she stuck with him. And there you have it: the paradoxical, not to say creepy, glory of love. A headlock and a kiss. Big Love draws wisdom from that paradox. An oddball yet deadly serious update on Aeschylus's The Suppliants, it tells the tale of 50 (yes, 50) Greek sisters whose father has promised them in marriage to their 50 male cousins. Rather than go through with the wedding, the sisters commandeer a yacht and head for Italy, where—still in their bridal gowns—they ask asylum of wealthy Piero. Soon enough, the 50 cousins show up at Piero's estate as well. What follows is a comic, tragic, utterly terrific battle that makes The Taming of the Shrew look like the kid's stuff it essentially is. Matt Hawkins's staging is also terrific. The precisely choreographed cast of 30 (yes, 30) play for keeps—especially those in featured roles, such as the fierce Michaela Petro, the convincingly dangerous Shane Kenyon, the girly-girlish Sarah Goeden, and Stacy Stoltz and John Ferrick as gender warriors who find themselves caught behind enemy lines. Paul Fagen and Cheryl Roy float through in delightful character roles, and Mike Mroch's apparently simple set discloses its value as the show goes along. All in all, this Big Love is a marvel of big ensemble work in a tiny space. —Tony Adler $28
Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival
Sat-Sun 5/25-5/26: noon-10 PM
773-868-3010Fairs & Festivals
Step off the Belmont Red Line stop and right into a host of crafters, food purveyors, and nonstop cover music from Trippin’ Billies, Wedding Banned, and more. $5 suggested donation
Death Takes a Holiday
Through 5/26: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
What did everybody else take—a sedative? In this soporific 2011 musical, based on an Italian play by Alberto Casella (it was made into a movie in 1934 and remade, as Meet Joe Black, in 1998), the Grim Reaper disguises himself as a handsome Russian prince to spend a weekend at a duke's villa. When he falls in love with his host's daughter, Death learns to appreciate life. Too bad there's no sign of a pulse in Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan's slow-moving book or Maury Yeston's operetta-like score. And Elizabeth Margolius's staging for Circle Theatre is about as spirited as a funeral, featuring dim lighting, pallid performances, and a cumbersome, staircase-dominated set (designed by Peter O'Neill) that leaves the cast looking isolated and far away. —Zac Thompson $30-$32
Pal Joey
Through 5/26: Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PMTheater & Performance
A rich, middle-aged socialite and a dumb but sexy young dancer exploit each other for fun and profit. Locked in a loveless marriage, the socialite wants a little something on the side; the dancer, a gold-digger with the morals of an alley cat, wants someone to pay the bills. The socialite sets the dancer up in a "love nest," as it used to be called, and bankrolls the would-be star's new nightclub. It's a standard scenario of showbiz sleaze, but in the landmark Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey, set in late-30s Chicago, there's a twist: the socialite is a woman, the dancer a man. That role reversal is unconventional even now, when relationships between young guys and old dolls still raise eyebrows in some quarters. In 1940, when Pal Joey premiered, having a woman on top was downright perverse, if not perverted. New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson called the show "odious" and decried its "depravity," asking rhetorically, "Can you draw sweet water from a foul well?" Continue reading >> $39
Rabbit
Through 5/26: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
In British playwright Nina Raine's angsty quasi-comedy of sexual manners, tightly wound Bella celebrates her 29th birthday at an upscale bar with friends and exes who barely tolerate one another: self-absorbed lawyer Richard, attention-starved writer Sandy, peacemaker financial analyst Tom, and personality-lite doctor Emily. In nearly two hours of snappy dialogue, the quintet indulge all manner of career insecurities, romantic jealousies, and sexual anxieties, ultimately clutching at Big Ideas about the alleged intractability of contemporary gender roles. Though plotting and stakes are minimal—Raine confuses ego woundings with dramatic crises—the snarky sparring is entertaining enough, especially in director Elly Green's nimble yet grounded production for Stage Left. Flashbacks showing Bella's inability to process her father's impending death inject more cheap sentiment than gravitas. —Justin Hayford $25
Homos A Go-Go
Mon., May 27, 8 p.m.Stand-Up
Jessica Halem hosts a slate of LGBTQ comedians in a new queer comic showcase.
The Hunting of the Snark
Through 5/28: Sun-Tue 8 PMTheater & Performance
Lewis Carroll's 1874 poem, about a boatload of ill-prepared would-be huntsmen tracking a never seen but possibly deadly creature, may be a heavily coded memorial to his uncle, a lunatic-asylum inspector killed by a patient a few months before the poem's creation. Or it may be pure nonsense. Whatever it is, its exacting rhyme scheme creates a giddy tension between formality and fancy, giving the cryptic work its power. Director Josh Sobel packs ample Carrollesque fancy into Strawdog Theatre Company's 50-minute adaptation, his childlike 12-person cast embarking on spontaneous adventures and inventing ingenious images out of suitcases, bits of rope, and handheld lights. But they play the silliness, never the seriousness—forgetting that Carroll himself delivered whimsy with an unwavering poker face. —Justin Hayford $15
The TomKat Project
Through 5/29: Wed 8 PMTheater & Performance
If any anecdote sounds too incredible to be true in this ambitious and thoroughly entertaining examination of the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marital saga, writer Brandon Ogborn is here to clarify: a sign reading "This is VERBATIM dialogue" is held up during some particularly implausible scenes, which in addition to the titular pair may involve Scientology honcho David Miscavige, Holmes's family, Oprah, or any of about 50 others. Director Elly Green's keen and restrained troupe—Walt Delaney, in particular, nails Cruise's enigmatic, aloof energy—uses both specificity and irreverence to sift meaning from tabloid fragments and express them as pop-culture writers already know they should be: high theater of the absurd. —Dan Jakes $15
