Michael Bettencourt
Donate to Block and Tackle Productions

Theatre-Related: Home | News | Synopses | Theatre Thoughts | Interviews | I Get Reviewed | I Review | Posters | Awards | Résumé | Rejections

Other Work: Essays | Poems | Stories | Novel(la)s

Editing/Critiquing Services: Editor-In-Chief.biz



Do Not Do This Ever Again

by Karinne Keithley

SoHo Think Tank/Ice Factory 2008, Ohio Theate, New York - Directed by Maria Goyanes
Runs until July 12, 2008

Never Say Never Again by Karinne Keithley

Do Not Do This Ever Again" is a 90-minute intermissionless journey into "a landscape of lost love and modern loneliness," though the multi-media'd journey feels so much longer because about halfway through writer Keithley and director Goyanes decided to drop humor and cheek and instead go portentious and sober.

Broken into 3½ parts (the half-part is called "inter-part"), the talented eight-member crew of "Do Not..." drapes long swags of faux-meaningful text over the audience in order to decrease their oxygen supply and slip them into a hypnotic state where they will believe they are being shown something significant and insightful, when, in fact, they're only experiencing a low-grade delirium induced by the performance and a stuffy theatre.

Keithley and Goyanes also cram in some projections, movement, and music (both instrumental and vocal -- Katy Pyle's voice is actually the best thing in the show), but very little of it adds yeast to the unleavened core of Keithley's play.

(July 2008)