Articles Tagged With: Sarah Pfanz

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,

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,

The Merchant of Venice at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews June 18, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. While The Rude Mechanicals aren’t currently producing Hamlet, there’s logic in that quote that could and should be readily applied to The Merchant of Venice, which The Rude Mechanicals are currently producing. Said advice would go far for both Antonio and Shylock and save everyone the trouble of their various plights fraught with woe and unfortunate circumstances. But alas, Shakespeare didn’t pen it that way,

She Stoops to Conquer at Britches and Hose

Reviews June 26, 2017 Joshua Engel

She Stoops to Conquer lives halfway between the comedies of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Its mistaken identity plotlines bring to mind As You Like It and Comedy of Errors, while the class conflicts mirror both the contrasts of The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Importance of Being Earnest. It’s a bit like a Jane Austen novel, if Jane wrote comic plays rather than satirical novels.

The Life and Death of Richard II at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews March 24, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

Discomfort guides this servant’s tongue, you see

When first to speak on the venue known as the DCAC

But fear not, playgoers, for I share with you

Good news of The Rude Mechanicals and their show of Richard II

Laboriously titled The Life and Death Of

They present to you from one floor above

A judiciously rendered version that moves quite free

Of this early and poetic tale of history

Directed by Michael F.

Review: Medea at Britches and Hose Theater Company

Reviews September 23, 2016 Joshua Engel

Mary Burnett is clad in the scarlet of fire and blood as Medea. Britches and Hose Theater Company’s new production of the Greek tragedy by Euripides both boils with anger and freezes with cold calculation. It opens with Arielle Seidman as the Nurse, skillfully relating how Medea has been wronged: her husband Jason has picked a younger wife, the daughter of the king, so Medea and her two children are to be banished.

Review: Henry V at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 1, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Suppose within the girdles of the Greenbelt Arts Center’s walls are now confined two mighty forces— The Rude Mechanicals: a community theatre troupe that delivers judiciously trimmed and readily accessible Shakespearean plays— and Henry V: Shakespeare’s middle Henry history play. Directed by Rebecca Speas, this muse of fire finds its place among the Bard’s canon in true Rude Mechanicals style and delivers swiftly the plot, the point, and the perfectly pared-down rendition of what is otherwise a lengthy history lesson in the trajectory arc of Prince Hal to King Harry.