Baltimore Theater Reviews

Review: SIX THE MUSICAL at The Hippodrome
by Timoth David Copney - May 11, 2023

Get ready to rock with SIX THE MUSICAL - a high-octane, award-winning stage sensation, telling the tale of the wives of Henry VIII in a queenly concert experience. Don't miss this must-see production, full of bright, catchy tunes and excellent harmonies....

Tightened and Thrilling HAMLET at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
by Jack L. B. Gohn - May 03, 2023

I think the minimalism and starkness is intended to be clarifying; we are meant to be focused on the hearts of the various intertwined stories Shakespeare presents, and perhaps less distracted by other things going on at the very large periphery the playwright has laid out. Whatever the purpose, we ...

Review: A Compleat HADESTOWN at Hippodrome Theatre
by Jack L. B. Gohn - April 13, 2023

So, by virtue of all of these elements this show is compleat in the senses fostered by the archaic spelling of the word, what Webster's renders as 'having all the necessary or desired elements or skills.' The characters, the music, the dancing, the lyrics, and the overall message are all new and dif...

Review: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at Hippodrome Theatre
by Daniel Collins - March 16, 2023

What did our critic think of TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD at Hippodrome Theatre? Chances are, if you're a product of the American education system, you read Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, in high school or college. And if you didn't, you've likely seen the 1962 film...

Review: THE SOUND INSIDE Thrills and Bemuses at Everyman Theatre
by Jack L. B. Gohn - March 12, 2023

The Sound Inside, by Adam Rapp, now gracing the boards at Baltimore's Everyman Theatre, is one of those all-too-rare plays that just bowls you over, even if, afterwards, you’re not quite sure where you’ve been during its bemusing 90 minutes....

Review: FPCT's DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE Only Rings Softly
by Jack L. B. Gohn - February 21, 2023

The play doesn’t do either superficiality or depth well. And so a decent production like this (which Fells Point Corner Theatre provided) can still only go so far with it....

Review: Strange But Relatable JUMP at Everyman Theatre
by Jack L. B. Gohn - January 30, 2023

Families, sisterly conflicts, alienation from parents, suicidal tendencies, dissociation, nostalgia for childhood mingled with mature reevaluation of it: all these themes and tropes are universal. And audiences of all backgrounds should find this show about them quite relatable, not to mention intri...

Review: HURRICANE DIANE at Iron Crow
by Timoth David Copney - January 22, 2023

What did our critic think of THEATRE REVIEW: HURRICANE DIANE at Iron Crow?...

Review: RIDE THE CYCLONE At Arena Stage
by Jack L. B. Gohn - January 23, 2023

Go See It! Join the enthralled cult! It’s for anyone who was ever a theater or choir kid. It’s for anyone who ever had a sexuality of any flavor whatsoever, or just even an inner life. It’s for the frustrated amateur metaphysician in each of us. And it is certainly for the amateur detective in each ...

Incredible Songs and Ingenious Book Propel Audience Bliss With JAGGED LITTLE PILL at Hippodrome
by Jack L. B. Gohn - December 15, 2022

We do get a sort of happy ending, but not with a gratifying round of absolution for everyone. In the complicated interplay of transgression and victimization, and in the face of the realities of life in a patriarchal and heterosexist society, almost everyone ends up wishing they’d deserved and recei...

Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL AT CHESAPEAKE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
by Timoth David Copney - December 07, 2022

Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is an absolute treasure...

Review: TINA, THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL at The Hippodrome
by Timoth David Copney - November 16, 2022

Phrases of praise like ‘tour de force’ and ‘vocal tsunami’ get bandied about so often that they can begin to lose their impact. In the case of Ms. Villanueva, they are not enough....

Review: Uninhibited AIN'T NO MO' at Baltimore Center Stage
by Jack L. B. Gohn - November 04, 2022

As the director says, this is a 'Black play that speaks to Black people and talks about Black shit.' But it allows larger audiences a chance to listen in to the conversation and laugh, if more gently, at the jokes. While not everything in the show is funny, much of it is irresistibly so....

Review: Happenstance Theater's POCKET MOXIE at Theater Project
by Cybele Pomeroy - November 03, 2022

In a tribute to Vaudeville, Happenstance Theater presents POCKET MOXIE. Structured as a Vaudeville show, it's also a show about Vaudevillians, a secret peek into their lives, and the arcs of their days. Infused with music and humor, artistic creativity and a dash of pathos, it's visually sumptuous, ...

Handsome Production, Tedious Script: THE LION IN WINTER at Everyman Theatre
by Jack L. B. Gohn - October 30, 2022

You not only have to have the talent to do the technical side of costume drama well, and have actors who can emote convincingly and then (in this case) reverse gears convincingly, and then reverse gears again as many times as the script calls for. You need a script that doesn’t make them do it so of...

Review: HOLIDAY at Washington's Arena Stage: Deeply Flawed Show, Flawless Performance
by Jack L. B. Gohn - October 17, 2022

They sure don't write them like Holiday anymore. A play about the foibles of a family of rich White people that supplies no meaningful social or racial context, a critique of the world of wealth which is bafflingly superficial, and a romance almost lacking in visible courtship, playwright Philip Bar...

A Pretty-Much Perfect TWELFTH NIGHT at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company
by Jack L. B. Gohn - October 03, 2022

There’s so much to like in Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s current revival of Twelfth Night, a production that succeeds in big things and small, that I can’t imagine any spectator walking away unsatisfied. What did our critic think of TWELFTH NIGHT at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company?...

Good Times, Fun, and Some Laughs: SWEET CHARITY at Cockpit In Court
by Jack L. B. Gohn - July 25, 2022

Dated and flawed as I consider it, Sweet Charity is something of a landmark in the world of the American musical, and this rendition is admirable. And then there are those three big songs. You will definitely experience good times, fun and some laughs....

Review: Stunning, Well-Made HOUSE OF THE NEGRO INSANE at Contemporary American Theater Festival
by Jack L. B. Gohn - July 20, 2022

A well-made, stunning play, about racist mental hospital practices in the not very long-distant past, with four strongly-imagined characters and an explosive ending....

Review: A Love Story, a Critique, a Cry of Despair: SHEEPDOG at Contemporary American Theater Festival
by Jack L. B. Gohn - July 20, 2022

In the end, it is largely the combination of sensitively-selected detail and poetic diction on the one hand, and the big-picture view of various interlocked social problems that makes the show so extraordinary. In that big picture, the problems are too pervasive, too ingrained to surmount, and well-...

Review: BABEL At Contemporary American Theater Festival Probes the Dilemmas That Could Be Presented By Eugenics
by Jack L. B. Gohn - July 18, 2022

Babel, which invites us to contemplate a world, apparently in the near future, in which the human genome is so well understood that every person’s – and fetus’s – potential, including the potential for antisocial behavior – is determinable, and if a child cannot be “certified” while in utero as meet...

Review: A Chaotic THE FIFTH DOMAIN at Contemporary American Theater Festival
by Jack L. B. Gohn - July 18, 2022

The play is an ungodly and irremediable mess, but it does demonstrate the importance of the proposition for which the central character was willing to put his career at risk, i.e., that more care needs to be taken, by industry and government alike, of secrets – their own and everyone else’s....

The Ending of Humanity at the Bottom of the World? USHUAIA BLUE at Contemporary American Theater Festival
by Jack L. B. Gohn - July 17, 2022

This is more a theater piece than a play, Caridad Svich's choral meditation on the plight of the earth and the humans who inhabit it....

Review: Giving A 'Karen' the Scrooge Treatment: WHITELISTED at Contemporary American Theater Festival
by Jack L. B. Gohn - July 17, 2022

This is playwright Chisa Hutchinson's their outing at CATF. I liked both of her previous entries, and she continue to wax both original and amusing, without slighting the serious messages she always delivers....

Review: THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL at Toby's Dinner Theater
by Cybele Pomeroy - June 28, 2022

What did our critic think?If you don't have cable, watch SpongeBob Squarepants nor any clue why SpongeBob should be a Broadway musical, no worries. Everything is made clear for those entering Bikini Bottom for the first time. It's packed with family theater elements: bright colors, important themes,...