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Aunt Dan and Lemon

by Anthony Chase
When Torn Space Theater first planned their current production of Wallace Shawn’s 1985 play, Aunt Dan and Lemon, could they have known that Tunisia and Egypt and Libya and Yemen and Bahrain would erupt into revolts against oppression and that the dictatorships that benefit from that oppression would respond with astonishing harshness and that the complicity of our own country in maintaining these repressive regimes, in the name of “stability” and the comfort we enjoy because of our reasonably unfettered access to oil, would be exposed by the mayhem?

Inherit The Wind

by Anthony Chase
Meanwhile, with politics in the air, the New Phoenix Theatre and Subversive Theatre Collective are joining forces to present the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee classic, Inherit the Wind, a 1950s retelling of the story of the 1925 Scopes trial, originally intended to critique Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Again, the current division of the country between North and South, and a right wing that often seeks to legislate scientific facts on topics ranging from global warming to evolution (yes, still), suggests that the material is as potent today as it was when originally written.

Over The Pub

by Anthony Chase
Tom Dudzick’s beloved Over the Tavern, the story of a Polish family in 1959 Buffalo, played successfully all over the United States after its record-making debut at Studio Arena Theatre with Jeanne Cairns as Sister Clarissa in 1994. Now, an adaptation of the script called Over the Pub that transplants the story to Ireland has become the most successful play ever staged by Cork Arts Theatre.



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