A Lesson in Dramaturgy
The Echo Theater Company is presenting the world premiere of Handjob written by Erik Patterson. In the #MeToo, Times Up, Harvey Weinstein era, this play seems to be positioning itself as a statement piece. It wants to join the conversation, but is it able to? If we break the play down to its most basic dramatic parts, we’ll find the answer.
Fixed Attempts to Break Through Stereotypes.
By Patrick Hurley
In the ever-expanding canon of representational literature, where under-represented voices are, at long last, being heard, the theater scene is bristling with more and more stories about minorities from an internalized perspective. Fixed, the new play by Boni B. Alvarez, is another of these plays. Read more
Dry Land Proves Unsettling
By Patrick Hurley
Dry Land, playing now at the Kirk Douglas Theatre as part of Center Theatre Groups Block Party, is a theatrical and literary novelty, it’s a coming-of-age story that was written by a playwright who was only twenty-one years old when she wrote it, she had not had time nor space from her own youth before she tackled this very deliberate, awkwardly funny exploration of friendship. And while some could lay the blame of her inexperience of life on the lackadaisical adherence to traditional plot, it is precisely the lens of inexperience that creates something new and interesting. Read more
Nice Ones Has Something Not-So Nice to Say
By Patrick Hurley
Examining the misalignment of reality vs. illusion, the ironically titled One of the Nice Ones, playing now at the Echo Theater Company, brings into focus the misguided principles and ambitions of two intensely unlikable characters. Read more
