Christopher Bowser

Magnificent Bird/Book of Travelers

October 7, 2024

Gabriel Kahane’s pair of song cycles are a welcome throwback to when lyrics were poetry and told great stories. Think of the 70's when the airwaves were blessed with the voices and songwriting of Harry Chapin, Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens and you will have a basic understanding of what Kahane has successfully put together here. [more]

Three Houses

May 25, 2024

Someone once coined the adage, “Write what you know.” For the past few seasons, we have seen many writers have a lot to say about surviving the Covid lockdown, but none so eloquently as Dave Malloy in "Three Houses." Where there is often the sameness in the stories we’ve heard thus far, Malloy chooses to give us three not so disparate individuals each with a particular heartbreaking loneliness. All three tales are prefaced “so this is the story of how i went a little bit crazy living alone in the pandemic.” Where aloneness is ripe for scenes that are maudlin, Malloy setting these tales to music is rapture. [more]

Octet

May 29, 2019

Malloy, who wrote the book, music and lyrics, has taken a novel approach, staging Octet as if it were a 12-step program in which all the members of the group express their inner thoughts through a cappella singing all the while following the precepts of an AA or OA meeting. Annie Tippe has taken this sophisticated mass of brilliance and shaped it around the sensational talents of a small cast which performs miracles of acting and singing. [more]

Folk Wandering

March 6, 2018

They’re friends in the present. Someone picks up yellowed newspaper articles from the past. Then we’re in New York City’s Lower East Side in 1911. We meet the spunky 13-year-old Roselia. She is the daughter of immigrants and her goal is to become a muckraking journalist. An exposé of the local butcher was one of her scoops that have been published. Her older sister is to marry a genial young man. Her parents are very affectionate but due to their hardscrabble circumstances it’s decided that after her impending 14th birthday, Roselia will leave school to join her mother and sister in working in a garment factory to bring in more money to the family. This heartbreaking thread is the most substantive, affective and dramatic of the three tales. The girlish and luminous Lena Hudson makes a great impact as Roselia. Kate Loprest’s practical but maternal characterization of the mother is perfect. “The House on Ludlow Street” is a haunting song that is woven through the narrative. [more]

The Gray Man

September 29, 2015

Mr. Farmer has crafted a suspenseful and gripping tale based on the reality of child abduction with mythical overtones. The dialogue is very fine and is evocative of the era. The intriguing script has been tremendously elevated by the superb production it has been given that is comparable to visiting a Halloween haunted house. [more]