Roy Berko
Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle

Until the late 1960s and 70s, the age of women’s liberation, the writings and speeches of Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Bella Abzug, MS magazine, and the National Women’s Caucus, men knew what it was like to be a man.   They were the center of the patriarchal family.  They were the bread winners, the disciplinarians, role models, because father knew best.  The …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

Musicals have come from various sources.  There has been the tale of an illiterate flower girl who was transformed into a proper woman (MY FAIR LADY), a Biblical Jewish youth who became a leader in Egypt (JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT), a prince who kept searching for his corner of the sky until he realized that it was right where he …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)

Philip Ridley, the author of TENDER NAPALM, now being staged at Cleveland Public Theatre, was trained as an artist.  His paintings, like his plays, are characterized by using a palate of colors, splashed all over.  There is also a bizarre quality to his writing which is fairly typical of 1990s British “In-Yer-Face” theatre.  Theatre that is filled with fantasy, dark surrealism, …more…

THERE IS A HAPPINESS (and absurdity) at Cleveland Public Theatre

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)

Poet, painter and printmaker William Blake was considered to be mad by many of his contemporaries due to his out-of-the-time attitudes.  The mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century writer is also considered to be one of the leaders of the Romantic Age, but his work was mainly unappreciated until after his death.  Part …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

Cleveland Play House’s The 2013 New Ground Theatre Festival lit up the three stages in the Allen Theatre complex starting on May 2nd with parts running through the 19th.

The annual event showcased cutting-edge productions and readings from nationally-recognized artists.  This year’s offerings included a well written and performed world-premiere comedy, a delightful off-the-wall dance-theatre piece, play readings, new scripts and general excitement …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

Fanatics of chick flicks virtually swoon when they hear the words, “Love means you never have to say you’re sorry,” or someone hums a bar or two of “Where Do I Begin?” Ah, yes, Andy Williams crooning the theme song from the 1970 film, LOVE STORY, which starred Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw and holds the #9 place on the American Film …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

Probing into the lives of real people often yields fascinating theatre.  The classical musical CHORUS LINE was based on interviews that Elyrian, James Kirkwood, wove into a fascinating tale of the true life and theatrical experiences of Broadway singers and dancers.

Cleveland writer Faye Sholiton used her experiences in interviewing Holocaust survivors to develop her heart wrenching THE INTERVIEW.

Studs Terkel, noted as the …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

A New York reviewer once wrote, “If I have to see one more play about a dysfunctional family, I’m going to commit suicide.”  Broadway and local audiences may be thinking the same thing after being exposed to the likes of two productions of NEXT TO NORMAL, RICH GIRL, SORDID LIVES, SPANK, and SONS OF THE PROPHET, within a short period of time.

Ah, …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

The plot:  self-made vindictive wealthy person, inhibited daughter, handsome suitor who may be after her money, parent attempts to torpedo the relationship.  Sound familiar?  It should.  That’s basically the storyline of the Henry James novella WASHINGTON SQUARE and the play and film, THE HEIRESS.  It’s also the basic description of Victoria Stewart’s RICH GIRL which takes from the past, but the play …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

Eugene O’Neill, along with such writers as Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, transformed western theatre.  They transitioned the stage from a place for escapist ideas into a mecca for the examination of real life problems.  The quartet laid the foundation for what is now known as “the modern theatre” and laid the groundwork for such luminaries as Arthur Miller, Tennessee …more…

Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)

What does is feel like to be uncomfortable in your own skin, even when you think you know, understand, and act like a moral and good person?  What happens when a playwright forces the viewer to have an unsettling, sobering experience by forcing him or her to challenge assumptions about race, what it means to be an American, and be brutally …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association and Cleveland Critics Circle)

Want to get away this spring, summer or fall?  Drive to Canada for great theatre, good food, and nice scenery.  This year marks the 61st anniversary of the Stratford Festival of Canada.

This season’s 12 productions in the Festival’s four theatres are:

ROMEO AND JULIET—Shakespeare’s tale of youthful passion which dares to challenge generations of enmity in the most famous love story ever …more…

Roy Berko

Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle

One of the fears of seeing a show which I regarded as one of the most mesmerizing that I’ve ever seen, was that the touring company of WARHORSE would fade by comparison.  It did, somewhat, but still came out an exciting winner in the derby called theatre.

WARHORSE, which was originally staged in the US at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in New York’s …more…

Roy Berko

Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle

The great fear of realizing that MOTHERHOOD OUT LOUD is a series of vignettes which look at varying phases of motherhood, is that it will turn out to be a Hallmark sentimental mindless experience.  Fear not.  The eighteen authors of the vignettes avoid making the experience sappy and purely entertaining.  Instead, there is a balance of humor, pathos, and social commentary.

Four actors, …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

It’s the responsibility of the director of a theatrical production to set the ideas, tone and movement of the actors on stage.  Sometimes, the director collaborates with the actors by allowing them input on textual decisions as well as line interpretation.  Imagine what would happen when a director allows such input on a production of William Shakespeare’s PERICLES.  This is the premise …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

At the conclusion of FELA!, the Afrobeat political awareness musical, now on stage at the Palace Theatre, caskets are carried onto center stage and piled up.  On top of the stack of caskets, emblazed with names such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and words such as “freedom,” “bullying” and “oppression,” was a vertical box of death entitled, “Chardon High School.”  …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)

STRUCK, now on stage as Cleveland Public Theatre is an interesting piece, much in the vein of Arthur Kopit’s WINGS, which had a startling production at Beck Center starring Dorothy Silver, in which the ramifications of a person having a stroke is investigated.

As I tell my psychology students, the brain is a marvelous, but fragile thing.  It is the intellectual center …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association and Cleveland Critics Circle)

Boy hates girl. Girl hates boy. Boy overhears that girl is secretly in love with boy; girl hears vice versa.  Other boy and girl love each other, but something gets in the way of their happiness.  That’s the basic premise of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, which is now on stage at Great Lakes Theatre.  Throw in a couple of interesting subplots, …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)

Its Winters, Texas, July 24 and 25, 1998.  Yes, Texas, the place of the weird and the weirder, where fundamentalism, hidden homosexuality, rampant twangs, death while having sex and tripping over a pair of wooden legs (of a person, not a table), two gun toting women who think they are Thelma and Louise of movie fame, a bar full of men forced …more…

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)

What happens when two friends, Nick Riley, a drummer and performer, and Jeremy Paul, a director and actor, meet over a number of months to talk “stuff?”  Of course, they create a devised theatre piece, combining interactions, vinyl, drumming and audience interplay, and name the proceedings NICK & JEREMY.  Then, they make arrangements to have it staged at Cleveland Public Theatre, …more…