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Lark White

Indian Princesses

May 31, 2026

The play is interesting and enlightening for those of us not aware of this chapter of American history. However, the author doesn’t make it easy for the audience to follow the characters: all nine characters, fathers and daughters, are introduced simultaneously in the first scene so that it is difficult to know who is who and who goes with which. There are ways of introducing a great many characters in groups so that we can keep them differentiated but Rodriguez has not done that. Plus the characters do not always call each other by name which would help sort out the confusion. [more]

Grief Camp

April 23, 2025

Time passes slowly during "Grief Camp" as a bunch of adolescent characters and the audience watching them struggle collectively to figure out the point of being there. Playwright Eliya Smith fails to provide that enlightenment, though director Les Waters does his best to pretend it might be forthcoming, stretching the emptiness of Smith's script until it simply has to be acknowledged. Set in the actual town of Hurt, Virginia, the play's narrative development is mostly in its title and that correspondingly unsubtle location choice, where Smith hazily depicts a sleepaway camp for young people coping with death at an age when life is painful enough. [more]