Jeff Sugg

Ohio State Murders

December 21, 2022

McDonald is mesmerizing as she speaks Kennedy’s strong, clear, poetic and evocative prose. We never forget that McDonald’s Suzanne Alexander is giving a lecture but she changes ages in an instant as she becomes the wide-eyed and innocent college student in love with learning and new ideas, and then return to being the mature author with a shocking story to tell. McDonald shifts beautifully between idyllic scenes of college life, the ugly face of racism in the dorm and on campus, and the off-stage violence that defines the murders. While the play is not told in strict chronological order there is no problem in following the story of these few years in the early 1950’s that shape Suzanne Alexander’s life. [more]

Mr. Saturday Night

May 6, 2022

Anyone else may find this decent show to be a tired affair which just about sustains its two-and-half-hour running time. The memory-piece book by Crystal, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel is based on their screenplay which ranges from the 1950’s to the 1990’s. It intends to be a loving tribute to a bygone show business era and fitfully succeeds at that. The schmaltz-laden dramatic writing never really rises above the rudimentary, rendering the events and conflicts with patness and clichés. Still, it offers choice roles that are marvelously performed by the other cast members. [more]

All My Sons

April 29, 2019

Unfortunately in a play that is already crammed full of ominous hints, O’Brien’s production is very heavy-handed, underscoring the foreshadowing with a double line under each and every clue and signal of things to come. While the play has been given a most realistic production for the backyard of a house on the outskirts of an Ohio town by set designer Douglas W. Schmidt and costumes by designer Jane Greenwood that are redolent of the late 1949’s, the actors have been allowed to emote from the moment the curtain goes up. If you don’t guess the surprise ending in this production, you haven’t been paying attention. This may be intended to suggest Greek tragedy by the final curtain but there is no need to make it look like an antique production of "Medea," "Electra" or "Oedipus the King" – which would probably be more subtly staged today. [more]

Faust 2.0

April 3, 2019

Director Sharon Ann Fogarty’s colossal staging weaves together the many disparate technical elements into a unified mini-epic event. Actors sit at a long rectangular table and their images are on display in front of them facing the audience. Hanging monitors show Jeff Sugg’s arresting video design of stylized imagery of clouds, the sun and abstractions. Numerous characters appear on video. Paris and Helen of Troy are represented with a gorgeous Paul Taylor-style dance by choreographer Kristi Spessard. [more]

Mankind

January 9, 2018

Playwright Robert O’Hara’s fertile premise might have made for a provocative, sober sci-fi take on gender roles, sexuality and parenthood. Instead, it’s broadly conceived and lame. The flat dialogue is in the vein of Abbott and Costello with numerous jokes about “fathers” since there are no mothers. The “Dude, I’m pregnant” bit gets painfully recycled. [more]

Sweat

November 12, 2016

"Sweat," which won the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, is reputed inspired by interviews conducted by playwright Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey in Reading, Pennsylvania, named the poorest city in America in 2011. By 2007, Reading had seen its factories and mills closing as NAFTA and globalization made it cheaper to produce goods in Mexico or China, without offering its residents anything but unemployment insurance. The play could probably have taken place in one of a dozen places in the Rust Belt. "Sweat"’s main characters are all eventually affected by this downward trend in a community that has few opportunities. [more]