Penoptic

The Abbey Theatre on Dublin's north side stands as an anchor of the Irish cultural experience. Founded in 1899 the Irish Literary Theatre by, among others. William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory, the theatre has continued to perform new works as well as classic theatrical pieces, usually to great acclaim. One would think that a company with such a reputation, developed over decades, could put forth a masterful presentation of a guy playing the spoons. Spoon players might have been more enjoyable than the current production of 'Romeo and Juliet', directed by Jason Byrne, which closed on 22 March 2008. At the very least there might have been more sincere feelings from spoon players than what came from some of the performers. Shakespeare's lines were rehearsed to the point of being mere recitation rather than performance - Mercutio's Queen Mab speech feels more like a wind-up toy than one of the greatest mysteries in Shakespearian plays - and the main direction ...

Aaron Sorkin’s writing style isn’t for everyone. Television had a hard enough time with his fast-paced and information-crammed dialogue. Transitioning the style to theater, where actors speak slower and audiences listen accordingly, isn’t easy; and the first ten minutes of Sorkin’s new two-hour play ‘The Farnsworth Invention,’ now at The Music Box, are spent getting used to the dialogue and exchange between the characters, for both the audience and the actors. Once that hurdle is passed, the audience is in for some remarkable performances, coupled with lessons in history, science, and if you’re paying attention, morality. The play follows David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America and founder of NBC (Hank Azaria,) and Philo Farnsworth, a genius farm boy from Idaho (Jimmi Simpson) as they race to create the world’s first television and, when that battle is lost, to get the patent to it. Snippets are shown of boys’ youths, in which they dis...