Matthew A. Everett

Just to be honest and up-front, the playwright Carol Critchley is a friend of mine. Reviewing the work of your friends can be dicey. But I needn’t have worried. One of the many reasons Carol is a friend is that she is one of the funniest writers I know. Which is why I was excited to hear that Theatre Unbound was offering up the world premiere of Carol Critchley’s new play Girl Group. Because we don’t get to laugh enough, and we don’t get to see nearly enough of Carol’s work on stage.

I'm torn. Theatre Unbound's new evening of one-act plays, Girl Shorts, is a great, and eclectic, collection of little-seen shorter works, many by name authors—a hilarious parody of Medea by Wendy Wasserstein and Christopher Durang (directed by Alexandra Gould), the goofy duo in Lost by Mary Louise Wilson (directed by Cheryl Moore Brinkley), the offbeat new work Within by Anne Bertram and Heather C. Brady (also directed by Brady), the bracing script The Judge's Wife by Caryl Churchill (directed by Maggie Scanlan), and the warmhearted short The Obligatory Scene by Carolyn Gage (directed by Crystal G. Schneider). I also thoroughly enjoyed the work of the ensemble, populated by a host of Theatre Unbound regulars—Delta Rae Giordano, Alexandra Gould, Kari Kelly, Stacey Poirier, Victoria Pyan, Noe Tallen, and Laura Wiebers all do double duty in more than one short; they're joined by Charla Marie Bailey, Shannon Buchda, Viv Corringham, Meredith Gillies, Stephen Houtz, Jen Johnsen, Tyler D. Martin, Tyler Stamm, July Vang, and Lacey Zeiler. The scripts themselves and the acting work were quite entertaining. But on the whole, the evening felt almost under-produced. 

Finding words to adequately describe a new production from Ivey Award-winning theater company Transatlantic Love Affair without repeating myself is starting to get mighty difficult. Thankfully there's a line from their current production, an expanded remount of their Minnesota Fringe Festival hit Red Resurrected, that describes it best: