In the News
I left this production singing the operetta’s glorious melodies. It’s not always necessary to be enlightened by theater. Sometimes it’s more than enough to have a rollicking good time.
Pirates of Penzance is tantamount to a three-ring circus being held at a beach volleyball tournament.
The brilliant 80-minute-long revamping of the Gilbert & Sullivan classic is so good, you’ll leave with with sore cheeks from grinning throughout the entire show. The not-so-swashbuckling pirates lack both swords and swagger, but make up for these shortcomings — and then some. They’re extraordinarily talented musicians who meander about while playing guitars, banjos, an accordion, a squeezebox, spoons and a saw.
The one-act play, which clocks in at 70 minutes, was first produced in traditional theaters, but the troupe has since performed it in rock clubs and bars. “As soon as we put it in a bar, where people were drinking and hooting and hollering, it really came to life,’’ says Malloy.
This epic poem has been converted for a theater audience and has also been given a twist.
Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan’s play “All the Way,” about the first year of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidency, will open the American Repertory Theater’s 2013-14 season in September. Bill Rauch, artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which premiered the play last summer, will direct.
