Saturday, November 1, 2008

Celebrity Row (American Theatre Company) - 11/1/08

The American Theatre Company is currently presenting the world premier of the revised version of Itmar Moses's "Celebrity Row". This is the second world premier that I've seen from the playwright, as I saw "Back Back Back" in San Diego just two weeks ago. "Celebrity Row", which is a political fantasia with some of the most "celebrated" criminals of the last few decades leading a debate on ideological differences: Latin Kings leader Luis Felipe, WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef, OK City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Some of the discourse is stimulating and much of the staging by the talented David Cromer is artfully insightful, but the play itself seems unneccessarily fussy and lacks the dramatic trajectory of (the more structurally simple yet provocative) "Back Back Back".

Rating: **1/2 (out of *****)

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