L-R: Roger Rees (photo by Tom Bloom), image from a promo poster, and Crispin Whittell (photo by Mike Habermann)

For years, actor and director Roger Rees has loved Ivan Turgenev's second novel, even though it never was all that popular outside of Russia. One issue? An awkward title that translates, at best, as "Home of the Gentry."

So when Rees teamed up with playwright Crispen Whittell to adapt the novel, they knew they needed a new title. Enter Shakespeare, and The Primrose Path.

"It is there in the 'Scottish Play' and Hamlet. It's about attractive ideas that very often lead to misery. It is a very apt title for the play. Things that look fancy may not be so good. If you eat a big piece of cake, you'll get fat," Rees says.

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Lauren B. Photography

Garry Geiken as James Beard, the culinary maestro

Like James Beard, the sole character in James Still's play, I love to eat. I also love to cook -- that was forged by my chef father and a childhood spent experimenting in the kitchen. I cooked my way through high school and college, and made more money in restaurants than I did at my first couple of newspaper jobs.

So I'm definitely in the market for a play about Beard, especially as his no-nonsense, "food for the people" cooking aesthetic closely matches my own. And the moments in Still's play that focus on Beard's own love affair with food are engaging and delightful. Sadly, those get muddled with a lot of extra material that may tell us more about the character, but don't show us what really made him tick.

Related stories:
Garry Geiken on playing James Beard: "I learned how progressive his ideas about people and their relationship to food was."

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In 1902, Alessandro Serenelli attempted to rape 12-year-old Maria Goretti. She resisted, and the 19-year-old mortally stabbed her. Before she died, Maria forgave her murderer. The young woman was canonized and declared a saint.

The story of Goretti and Serenelli form the foundation of Mercy Unrelenting, the latest offering from Open Window Theatre. The show was written and directed by the company's artistic director, Jeremy Stanbary, who looked closely at the events and the moral and ethical underpinnings of the event.

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According to co-director Taous Khazem, satire is the name of the game for Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts' new show, By the Seat of our Pants. The production features a series of parodies related to pop culture, and pokes fun at people and things including Honey Boo Boo, Downton Abbey, hacktivist group Anonymous, and Michelle Bachmann. Even the internet cat video phenomenon makes an appearance.

"There's an actual genetically modified jazz cat," Khazem says.

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Early on while preparing for his role as James Beard in the one-man show I Love to Eat, Garry Geiken realized that there is a "big difference between trying culinary experiments without talking to anybody else and putting on a show for 150 people."

Geiken had help to not just preserve his digits from rogue knives, but also putting on the show. Local chef and Arts Institute International instructor Seth Bixby Daugherty has worked with Geiken on the role.

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In my mind, there is not wasted experience at the theater. There's always something you
can observe, feel, or learn from attending a show.

Take This Side of Paradise, the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald musical that opened over the weekend at the History Theatre. It's an object lesson on how not to create a show.

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Photo by Nancy Wong

David Schlosser, Matt Rein, Ricardo Vázquez and Evelyn Digirolamo.

Surreal and elliptical, Nilo Cruz's Lorca in a Green Dress attempts to not just uncover the final moments of the life of the Spanish poet and playwright, but tries to connect the personal pieces of his existence.More »

Photo by Liz Josheff

Miriam Must

The plot of Julia Jarcho's Dreamless Land remains almost within reach throughout the play. Just when you think you sort of "get it," the characters switch and the plot shifts from B-movie horror, to science fiction, to contemporary drama, to something else. In a way, that's kind of the point. You're not really supposed to follow a narrative, but rather sit back and just experience each moment as it's happening.

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Photo courtesy Workhaus Collective

Paul DeCordova and Dawn Brodey.

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Photo by Scott Pakudaitis

Katia Cardenas, Amanda Thomm, Becka Linder, and Laura Mahler.

As AC/DC so deftly put it, it is a long way to the top if you want to rock 'n' roll. For women, that journey has often been tougher. 
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