Author: Charles Donelan

Nine Become One

Camerata Pacifica’s March concert.

At Victoria Hall Theater, Friday, March 17.

Bassoonist John Steinmetz got Camerata Pacifica’s March concert off to an even more than usually jocose start on Friday by introducing the evening’s opening number with a string of deadpan puns and one-liners that had everyone laughing. Composer Joseph Rheinberger was helpfully located within the context of the tradition of composers with “burger” in their names, and his composition, the Nonet in E-flat Major, Opus 139, was deemed a dangerous piece, “to be played without safety precautions.” (As in “no net.”) Steinmetz finished with an entirely sincere and on-target characterization of the piece as designed to entertain, and capable of communicating a sense of deep delight.

Murder Most Funny

Deathtrap

At Victoria Hall Theater, Saturday, March 4.

Deathtrap is Ira Levin’s best work, a play that set the standard for hip, high-velocity comic thrillers back when it premiered on Broadway in 1978. This production, which features Ed Giron in the central role as the cynical, murderous playwright Sidney Bruhl, cranks up the suspense and generates some real excitement in the reversal sequences.

Dueling Flutes

Camerata Pacifica. At Victoria Hall, Friday, February 17. Classical flute players — at least the Irish ones — are really rock stars. After a

Feeling History

The extraordinary Touch the Names, currently in production at Ensemble Theatre Company, pulls the audience into the shadows on a wall. The wall is the Vietnam War Memorial, and the shadows are the lost lives recorded there.

Letters That Will Live Forever

Writer/director Randal Myler and musician Chic Street Man share the relaxed confidence of veteran performers. Myler won a Tony for It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, and Spunk, Chic Street Man’s collaboration with George C. Wolfe in adapting the work of Zora Neale Hurston, is legendary in the theater world.