Techies get almost no share in the glory, but they run the world, and here's how.
While its Sixties-era script gives Sam Shepard's early, kooky drama Back Bog Beast Bait a hallucinogenic clunkiness, the look and feel of the Tongue and Groove Theatre production is impressively atmospheric and its company of performers have a terrific time. The premiere production of Bianka's Wake, Blake Yelavich's farce about a badly behaved Madonna-like celeb has some solid physical comedy and pleasing physicality, but the lack of internal logic and shallow humor make it a weak evening of theatre. As its title suggests, Preaching to the Perverted is unlikely to deliver much that's new to its expected audience. Still, Holly Hughes' new solo piece serves as both intelligent entertainment and rousing battle cry for those who see all too clearly the many faults in the logic of the mainstream. Seemingly unadaptable, Greil Marcus' 1989 opus Lipstick Traces proved to be the foundation for the Rude Mechanicals' strongest theatre work to date.