Listen.  Do you hear that?  What could that lovely, staccato, and profane sound be?  Could it be the gorgeous sound of conversation?  I think it might be.  Of course, in the theater we have another word for it:  “Mametspeak.”  No other contemporary playwright has had more of an effect on the language of American dramatic literature than David Mamet.  His short succinct sentences and overlapping lines effectively capture the rhythm of American conversation.  When done well it can be one of the most glorious things you can hear.  When done badly it can be, well, confusing.  I cannot in good conscience call Generic Theater’s production of Mamet’s 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner Glengarry Glen Ross an example of well-done Mamet.  That would be doing it a grave disservice.  Instead, it is nothing less than extraordinary.

Send Me No Flowers at Little Theatre of Virginia Beach is quite possibly the finest comedy I’ve ever seen on local non-professional stages. It made me roar with laughter. Not only is it remarkably funny, it’s positively unique.

As someone who grew up on the Southside, I never travel to the Peninsula to see theater.  It's not because I don't think there's good theater on the Peninsula, it just always seems like such a hassle, what with gas being so expensive and tunnel traffic being what it can be.  However, on Saturday night I took the trek to Thomas Nelson Community College to see a production of a seldom produced Neil Simon play, Proposals.  Proposals is directed by Le'Royce Bratsveen the Artistic Director of Iron Street Productions, the organization that has produced the play.  I was incredibly impressed with what I saw.

The program notes for Little Theatre of Norfolk's production of Breaking Legs contain passages in which novice director Malcolm McCutcheon talks about his love for Tom Dulack's script: and where he thanks the board of LTN for allowing the play as part of their season despite its language, violence, and sexual content.  I have to admit I had high expectations for the script.  Years ago, in college, I read a remarkable play by Tom Dulack called Incommunicado, which dealt with the poet Ezra Pound's imprisonment by U.S. forces after World War II for his role as an Axis propagandist.  That play was a revelation.  Breaking Legs is not.  As a matter of fact, as I left LTN on Friday night I was left with one overwhelming question:  Why?

There were fun times to be had at the Roper, with not one but two shows to take you full throttle into the holidays. Director Aliki Marie Pantas delivered Happy Hanukkah My Friend and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, injecting a much-needed blessing to trendy Granby Street.

1945 was a strange amoral year in the American theater.  This is the year that Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel premiered.  While it revolutionized the American musical, it contained a disconcerting moral:  it's okay to beat your wife as long as you really, really, really love her.  As a result, it has become almost distasteful when produced today.  That same year, Mary Chase's play Harvey won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and went on to become a permanent fixture of WWII-era American culture when it was made into a film with James Stewart.  Harvey would have you believe that the best lifestyle is one in which you drop out of society, and spend your days in bars slowly poisoning your liver; and that alcohol-induced hallucinations are not a symptom of serious illness, but a good luck charm.  This moral plays just as strangely today (though not as offensively) as that of Carousel.  But Harvey is back anyway, in a largely successful production currently being mounted by Peninsula Community Theatre.

LSD. Peyote. PCP - I’ve never tried any of them. And since attending Bat Boy: The Musical daringly staged by Foppish Dandies and Co. at 40th Street Stage, I will never have the need to. Formerly, I was under the impression that witnessing a group of West Virginia townspeople chanting, “Stop the Bat Boy,” was the result of habitual acid-dropping.  Now I know it can be real - and fun for most of the family.

Little Theatre of Norfolk’s recent production of Dial “M” for Murder fell short on the two things every mystery/suspense story needs the most. Namely… mystery and suspense.

Warning: Parental discretion is advised. Do not see The Birds if you are offended by sexual innuendo, some foul language, fowl in general, or suggestive sexual movements (pelvic thrusts, forearm motions, and more).

The Winslow Boy is an English 1946 play by Terence Rattigan based on an actual incident in the Edwardian era, which took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne House. Set against the strict codes of conduct and manners of the age, The Winslow Boy is based on a father's fight to clear his son's name after the boy is expelled from Osborne Naval College for stealing a postal order. The subsequent court case takes its toll on the rest of the family.

Hurrah Players presented Annie as the opener this season at the Roper Center for the Performing Arts.  It was last performed 10 years ago with some of the same cast members you see today just in different roles.  To be honest this is a show I dread going to see just like Oklahoma but for once I actually sat back and enjoyed myself.  Why?  Because every performer, child or adult, was just having fun.  The dog (Sandy) probably not so much as 500 plus audience members look on. 

Take a play that appears to cross Frank Kafka’s The Trial and Edward Gorey’s Gorey Stories and you get Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, now showing at the 40th Street Stage.  This drama tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories, and their similarities to a number of bizarre incidents occurring in his town.