New York Critic

Steve Capra's review: Don Juan in Hell by George Bernard Shaw directed by Karen Case Cook with: Elise Stone Jason O’Connell Joseph J. Menino Craig Smith George Bernard Shaw wrote Man and Superman in 1903. He revived the comedy of manners to present the Don Juan myth taken from Mozart’s Don Giovanni . Now, Shaw saw women as the sexual aggressor, intent on procreation and furthering human development. In his version of the story it is Dona Ana (now personified as Ann Whitefield) who chases Don Juan (John Tanner). Shaw was influenced by the Nietzchean idea of the Superman, and it was woman who would produce that Superman. The play is full of erudite Shavian cleverness, but its greatness comes from Tanner’s dream that takes up nearly all of the third act – Don Juan in Hell . It is in style and tone totally different than the larger play, and nearly sui generis in modern drama. Don Jan in Hell is less a drama than a dramatic dialog. John Tanner shows up as Don Juan himself, Ann

The Norwegians By C. Denby Swenson Produced by The Drilling Company Theatre for New Plays, OOB Directed by Elowyn Castle With: Dan Teachout Karla Hendrick Veronica Cruz Hamilton Clancy The Drilling Company recently produced a new play by C. Denby Swenson called The Norwegians . It concerns two women who find themselves in Minnesota hiring thugs to knock off their ex-boyfriends. It purports to be a comedy. In Minnesota people are Norwegian, and they’re so nice that even the hit men are nice . This is the basis of the play, and we’re subjected from beginning to end with a stream of unfunny lines about Norwegians niceness , with an occasional excursion into their insularity. “In the past hundred years, nearly no Norwegians have become Mormons.” That’s one of the funnier lines, believe it or not. The monotony of the bad Norwegian jokes is sometimes broken by the bad Minnesota jokes: in Minnesota people learn to drive on frozen rivers. What’s more, there are also a mo