Capsule reviews of current shows

Braided Sorrow. No one knows exactly how many young women have been murdered in the Mexican border town of Juárez over the last decade, perhaps three or four hundred. The murder rate shot up after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1994, when several U.S. companies set…

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Braided Sorrow. No one knows exactly how many young women have been murdered in the Mexican border town of Juárez over the last decade, perhaps three or four hundred. The murder rate shot up after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1994, when several U.S. companies set…

Mediamockracy takes aim at the politics of the news business

Although there was only a small audience for Listen Productions’ Mediamockracy on the night I attended, its members were intensely involved in the play. As I discovered during the actor-audience chats inserted into the performance, these were media-savvy people, deeply aware of the role of news dissemination in a democracy…

The Trip to Bountiful starts slow but is worth the trek

I was so bored during the first act of The Trip to Bountiful that I had trouble staying in my seat — and this despite a powerful performance from Kathleen M. Brady as Carrie Watts, the elderly woman trapped in a Houston apartment with her son, Ludie, and his disagreeable…

The Arvada Center’s Les Miz is still a dizzying ride

Les Misérables is a huge, sprawling musical filled with emotional songs that tell the story of Victor Hugo’s novel. The plot centers on the merciless pursuit of a freed prisoner, Jean Valjean, by a bitter police detective, Javert. In the course of the chase, which continues over several decades, we…

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Curse of the Starving Class. The moment you walk into the theater, you know you’re in Sam Shepard country — a place suffused with memories of the mythic Old West, but where the breadth and purity of that myth serve only to underline the disappointing realities of contemporary life. You…

We know what women want, and it’s not Girls Only

The trouble with Girls Only, a two-woman evening of conversation, skits, singing, improvisation and audience participation, is that it’s so relentlessly nice. Creator-performers Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein have worked together for many years; at some point, they read their early diaries to each other and were transfixed by the…

Tiny Alice is big and brilliant at Germinal Stage

Some parts of Tiny Alice are laughably literal. At the beginning, for instance, a Catholic cardinal in full black-and-red regalia tweets affectionately at some caged birds — cardinals, naturally. Other words and images seem to offer easy metaphoric puzzles, as when Julian, the lay brother who will emerge as the…

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Curse of the Starving Class. The moment you walk into the theater, you know you’re in Sam Shepard country — a place suffused with memories of the mythic Old West, but where the breadth and purity of that myth serve only to underline the disappointing realities of contemporary life. You…

Capsule reviews of current shows

Bubs. This is a play accompanied by songs, a concert yoked to a narrative, with the elements held together by the talent and energy of actor-singer Erik Sandvold. Writers Cy Frost and Doug Olson came up with the idea of showcasing a slew of different performers, all played by one…

Avenue Q brings puppetry of the people to Denver

Most of the characters in Avenue Q are college graduates in that in-between stage — bright and literate, finished with school but not ready for the daily grind of making a living — and they’ve congregated on New York’s grungy Avenue Q. Idealistic Kate is a kindergarten teacher and also…

Capsule reviews of current shows

The Eyes of Babylon. Jeff Key is an ex-Marine — a man devoted to the idea of patriotism and service to his country — whose homosexuality represents a deep part of his psyche. He left the service in part because of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but also…

Spotlight Theatre does justice to Twelve Angry Men

The characters in Twelve Angry Men are straight-up ’50s stereotypes: the wishy-washy adman; the mindless sports fanatic; the pathetic old guy whose life is lonely and filled with regret; the onetime slum kid; the paranoid racist; the Eastern European immigrant — Jewish, no doubt — who, bearing the heavy weight…

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The Eyes of Babylon. Jeff Key is an ex-Marine — a man devoted to the idea of patriotism and service to his country — whose homosexuality represents a deep part of his psyche. He left the service in part because of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but also…

The Eyes of Babylon reveal the thoughts of a gay marine in Iraq.

At the very beginning of his one-man piece, Jeff Key appears in his underwear, so the first thing you find yourself focusing on is his beautifully toned body, an image to which your mind returns periodically — and pleasurably — throughout the course of this very serious and soul-searching exploration…

Retro Loud offers nostalgia both cheesy and sweet

In many years of faithful attendance at Heritage Square Music Hall, I have never seen T.J. Mullin lose control of an audience. Sure, he always gives the jokers in the seats some play, letting them interrupt or yell out a comment or two — but he was having serious trouble…

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Iraq War, the Musical. Unlike so many political satires, Iraq War, the Musical has teeth. It’s a sustained and ultimately serious attack on the Bush administration’s war and the lies told by Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney in order to launch it. Through skits and songs, writer-creator Paul Cross tells the…