Articles Tagged With: Jeff Poretsky

Aparna Sri (left) as Lady Macbeth and Jaki Demarest (right) as Macbeth 📷 Constantia Rioux

Macbeth at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews February 4, 2024 Amanda N. Gunther

“Such welcome and unwelcome things at once ‘tis hard to reconcile.” Macduff, ActIVsc.iii

I spent hours trying to find the way I felt about the current Rude Mechanical’s production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth only to have Billy Bard having already wrapped it up for me more than halfway through the show. This particular production is a balancing act of strong performances, questionable conceptualizations, impressive technological inclusions, mismatched aesthetics, and a barrage of death,

Ill Met By Moonlight at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 1, 2023 Amanda N. Gunther 2 Comments

What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here? Tis a crew of Rude Mechanicals and they indeed find themselves Ill Met By Moonlight. Some six years in the making, TRM finally gets to bring their dream production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to light. UV light, that is. Playing at the Greenbelt Arts Center through September 9th 2023 and Directed by Joshua Engel, this judiciously rendered production of Midsummer is not your grandfolks’ fairy-tale.

The Belle’s Stratagem at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews February 2, 2023 Amanda N. Gunther

Men are all dissemblers, liars, deceivers! Or something like it, so says playwright Hannah Cowley, author of The Belle’s Stratagem. Not to be confused with The Beaux’ Stratagem, by George Farquhar (though if you stick around in a few weeks’ time, you may see exactly that show on The Rude Mechanicals’ stage!) Belle hit Drury Lane in 1780 whereas Beaux debuted quite a few decades before (and at Theatre Royal) in 1707.

12 Angry Women at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 2, 2022 Amanda N. Gunther

What is a reasonable doubt? Google + Merriam-Webster says, “A reasonable doubt exists when a factfinder cannot say with moral certainty that a person is guilty or a particular fact exists. It must be more than an imaginary doubt, and it is often defined judicially as such doubt as would cause a reasonable person to hesitate before acting in a matter of importance.” Perhaps we’re not asking the right question. Perhaps the question should be “what causes someone to have reasonable doubt?” If you want the answer to that,

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews June 14, 2019 Amanda N. Gunther

Mendacity is the system we live in. Death is one way out.
Liquor is the other. Unless of course the crystal decanter top fuses into the
bottle-neck and prevents you from your liquor. (Try the screw-top.) Feeling a
little uncomfortable yet? A little like a Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof? Then you’ve found your way to The Rude Mechanical’s
production of Tennessee Williams’ other play, or his other, other play. Not the
one with the street-screaming for Stella or the one with all the little glass
animals and the jonquils and gentlemen callers,

Uncle Vanya at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews February 16, 2019 Holly Trout

Amanda N. Gunther | TheatreBloom

Uncle Vanya, written by Anton Chekhov, is the story of a group of people embittered by loss, disappointment, disillusionment, and hardship, and the power of faith through adversity. A retired professor, Alexandre (Bill Bodie), and his glamorous young wife Yelena (Erin Nealer) visit the rural estate that funds their city lifestyle. The estate is run by Vanya, (Nathan Rosen) Alexandre’s deceased former wife’s brother,

Timon of Athens at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 1, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther

How goes the world? A loaded question if ever there was one to be asked, especially in this day and age. But set yourself back from this day and age, set your dial of existence back to 1978 in order to prepare yourself to digest The Rude Mechanicals’ latest offering: Timon of Athens. Directed by Joshua Engel, this miscreant play of Williams Shakespeare’s is finding a new lens through which to be viewed in the hands of The Rude Mechanicals.

Henry VIII at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews January 12, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther 1 Comment

“Men’s evils manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.” And we shall now ascribe the virtues of The Rude Mechanicals production of Henry VIII in ink. Well, digital ink. Directed and Choreographed by Liana Olear, this ‘lost history’ (the most boring of the boring and banal of banal Shakespearean histories) is revitalized and given a new lease on life. Olear’s strategic placement of the historical recounting of the eighth Henry in the mid 1910’s lends itself to her dancer’s passion,

Review: Henry IV Parts I & II at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews June 4, 2016 Paul Davis

Before Luke Skywalker becomes a man, he started out hanging out with an old man and a pack of ne’r do wells in a crap bar while his dad and more useful sibling were out there ruling the universe. George Lucas snagged a page from Shakespeare and made it his own into the form we know and love today. The Rude Mechanicals have taken this tumultuous two-part history of Henry IV about life,

Review: All’s Well That Ends Well at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews January 15, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther 1 Comment

Girl wants boy. Boy wants different girl. Girl tricks boy into wanting her. And they live happily ever after. Other stuff happens. There’s a fool involved somehow. And a king. And a fistula. That the girl magically cures the king of with her magical powers, or her herbs and whatnot. And then they live happily ever after. Also some love letters and a ring. Maybe some secretive identities, a ten-o’clock kidnapping, and a horse?