This Week, Arts Editor Jared Bowen reviews some of the best theater in Boston, starting with the touring Broadway production of "Come From Away."
“Come From Away,” presented by Broadway in Boston at the Citizens Bank Opera House through Nov. 17.
The touring Broadway production of “Come From Away” has landed in Boston! Based on a true story, this musical is set in the Canadian town of Gander, Newfoundland, where a small community came together to help 7,000 stranded airline passengers whose flights were suddenly grounded in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Tony Award-winner Christopher Ashley directs this uplifting and spirited production about a town that exemplified love and hospitality in a time of epic tragedy.
“Come From Away is high protein nourishment for the soul,” says Jared. “It’s rousing and funny and thumps with an invigorating musical pride.”
“Admissions,” presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company through Nov. 30.
Playwright Joshua Harmon ("Bad Jews," "Significant Other") brings a prodding new play to SpeakEasy Stage Company that pits progressive mantras against personal exceptions. In “Admissions,” proudly liberal couple Sherri and Bill work for a New England prep school where they strive to promote diversity and inclusion — until their son is deferred from Yale, while his biracial friend is accepted. Hypocrisy and humor run rampant in this sharp production that Jared describes as “hilarious and eviscerating” and “a provocative look at the secret lives of liberal, white people behind closed doors.”
“X,” presented by Flat Earth Theatre through Nov. 16.
Flat Earth Theatre is taking audiences to outer space with the sci-fi play “X.” Written by British playwright Alistar McDowall, this production centers around a team of astronauts and scientists stranded on Pluto and who have lost contact with Earth. As isolation sets in, the play devolves into horror as the crew struggles to maintain their sanity while their notions of the world they once knew unravel around them.
“Existential and mind-bending, ‘X’ has lots of potential in the psychological and horror realms,” says Jared, “but it doesn’t always meet its own lofty limits.”
“The Thanksgiving Play,” presented by Lyric Stage Company of Boston through Nov. 10.
Get taken back to school — elementary school, that is — with a play that upends our understanding of Thanksgiving traditions. In “The Thanksgiving Play,” politically correct teachers and their liberal-minded allies attempt to craft a new kind of turkey day production: one that pays homage to Native American heritage month while deconstructing the myths surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday. Despite their best intentions, these P.C. protagonists twist themselves into knots defending and tweaking their “woke” ideas in this clever play-within-a-play written by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse.
“With a very delicious bounty of performances, 'The Thanksgiving Play' takes a sharp carving knife to the tropes of professed political correctness,” writes Jared. “You’ll laugh until it hurts, because it does.”
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