Mike Vargo

they are trying a bit of the old back-to-back.|Wow

Whooo Are You? Perhaps “Mnemonic” Will Help You Remember

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.  Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present…” The scene is from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. In Mnemonic, the play currently being presented by Quantum Theatre, Alice goes down a rather different kind of rabbit hole. The Alice in Mnemonic (played by Carolina…

while father Prospero (Ron Siebert) casts a spell

Sassy, A Little Trashy, and Just In Time for Summer: It’s the Remake of the Remake of “The Tempest”

You realize, of course, that you cannot do summer theater properly unless you catch a remake. Of Shakespeare, that is. Altered Shakespeare is red-hot everywhere this year. In Chicago, for instance, they’ve got Othello: the Re, the latest “add-rap-tation” by The Q Brothers; and New York has a new musical based on Love’s Labour’s Lost…

steeped in wickedness

Speak of the Devil: That’s What They Do in Abigail/1702, and People Love it

Abigail/1702 takes a strange story and makes it stranger. On opening night at City Theatre, as will be described shortly, it proved an unusual reaction from the audience. And you know you are in for a strange evening as soon as you sit down and open the play’s program. To avoid spoilers, it lists a…

Woman (Karla Boos) is on the hunt..|

At Quantum, It’s Springtime for Dream of Autumn

Three things you should know about Dream of Autumn: One, there are outhouses. Not in the play. Outside. When you read that Quantum Theatre is staging the play in “the former Park Schenley Restaurant” at the Royal York in Oakland, it may conjure up visions of a faded-glory interior with chaniers, oak paneling and other…

|Famous image of Cosette from the Victor Hugo novel. Illustration by Emile Bayard.

Les Miz x 2: On Stage & Screen

The planets have aligned for a rare double feature. The national touring company of Les Miserables is in town at the Benedum Center, through January 27, while the film version is still on local screens. It’s a chance to see how two different directors and casts—working in different media—handle the same material. I’ve taken my…

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Maple & Vine: Strange Ride, Smooth Machine

    Is it a must-see? Coming from a free country, let’s just say Maple and Vine at the City Theatre is a you-really-ought-to-see-it. The play is entertainingly weird, not to mention weirdly entertaining. It is a rare idea well done; and it will leave you thinking. Unless you prefer not to think too much.…

A Radical Idea: Why Not See “Gem of the Ocean”?

Here’s the problem with August Wilson plays. Too many people consider the act of seeing them to be a civic or cultural duty. After all, August Wilson is the most prominent playwright ever to come out of Pittsburgh, and he wrote plays that are set in Pittsburgh, and until his death in 2005 he was…

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