STUFFY BACKGROUND CRITICISMAs I understand it, back in the mid-1800’s, the predominant form of narrative home entertainment was the novel. In England at the time, novels cost a full shilling. Those without the benefit of that kind of disposable income could pay substantially less for serialized bits of fiction that were far cheaper to produce. Often referred to as penny dreadfuls, the tiny we...

Another upcoming production that I haven’t had the time to make much fuss about is Off The Wall’s upcoming staging of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd. This one has something of an odd history with me personally. Somewhere in Junior High School, I found out that Neil Gaiman was working on a comic book adaptation of this murderous barber from an old penny dreadful called The String ...

The atmosphere at the Off The Wall Theatre is pretty laid-back and relaxed. I’d been there last night to see their Broadway Fundraiser—Broadway Gold. The theatre is black draped in red with some reflective surfaces. As the show washed over me, it began to occur to me just how many Broadway musicals I’d seen these past five years. Being someone not particularly fond of musicals, it was a litt...

The end of the month is ahead and with it, the end of the traditional theatre season. It’s a strange time privy to a lot of odd traveling shows from out of state, at least one 24 hour play and a few other odds and ends. For those in the mode for something a little less offbeat—those interested in something a little more glossy and traditional who can’t wait for A Chorus Line to come to the M...

Oscar Wilde’s Salome isn’t quite like any of the rest of his work. Written entirely in French, Wilde’s original play had kind of a poetic brutality that isn’t lost in the English translation that Off The Wall Theatre is using for its staging of the drama now through April 26th. At least . . . I assume there was a poetic brutality to the original script . . . I’d never actually read th...

  The Off The Wall Theatre is painted almost completely black. Various phrases are scrawled in white all over the walls. As the audience files into the tiny space Annie Mater slinks about in character as streetwalker Suky Tawdry. A couple of apparent junkies stagger about in the shadows onstage. The usual sort of pre-show audience conversation is accompanied by actors slowly making it to sta...

Frequent Milwaukee stage bad guy Jeremy Welter plays the sociopathic Macheath in Off the Wall Theatre's production of the classic Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht musical 3Penny Opera. Welter is no stranger to villainous characters. In the recent past, he has played everyone from Renfield in Dracula and Alex in A Clockwork Orange to the title character...

When times get tough, the tough get twisted. With a struggling economy and rising unemployment, now is the perfect time for a stylish anti-hero to hit the stage in the city's Downtown theater district. This week, frequent Milwaukee stage bad guy Jeremy Welter plays the sociopathic Macheath in Off the Wall Theatre's production of the classic Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht musical 3Penny Opera...

   The Vaudeville circuit flourished on American stages for half a century. Between the 1880's and the 1930's, an endless parade of performers scraped together a living one stage at a time, wandering across the country in search of fortune. Stephen Sondheim's hugely successful 1959 musical Gypsy is a strange, endearing tribute to the era of Vaudeville. Director Dale Gutzman brings that tribute to life this month as his Off the Wall Theatre presents its production of the Sondheim classic through Oct. 11...

The Off The Wall Theatre closes its latest production, an adaptation of the Agatha Christie throwback Death on the Nile, this afternoon with a 4:30 p.m. performance. Karl Miller stars as Christie’s Belgian super-detective Hercule Poirot, who takes a cruise down the Nile River. As such things usually go for Poirot . . .