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S.E. Barcus

Music and Theater Reviews and scribbling & bibbling

    • S.E. Barcus
  • Dramatic Performing Arts
    • Contemporary Circus
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    • Mediated (e.g., film)
    • Musical
    • Theater
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    • Chamber music
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  • You Can’t Take It with You

    You Can’t Take It with You

    “You Can’t Take It with You” has several plotlines that make for light, romantic farce — dealing with a young couple’s dilemma over their contrasting families and a kind, old anarchist’s dilemma over taxation — but the real meaning is in the title of the play.

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Amy Hills, Charleston Stage Company, Julian Wiles, Kaufman and Hart, review, You Can't Take It with You
  • The Last Night of Ballyhoo, by Alfred Uhry, Charleston City Paper review, April 1999

    “Altogether, they’re an outstanding ensemble, one of the best all-around casts I’ve seen in Charleston.”

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Ballyhoo, Charleston, review, Uhry
  • Born Yesterday, Charleston Stage Company Review

    Born Yesterday, Charleston Stage Company Review

    “This play is about political scandal, but it is not a sex scandal like Cliniton’s. … And it’s not a cynical and clever ’90’s script like Hollywood’s three products of ’98. No, thankfully, it’s a play written in the ’40’s when there was still idealism and right and wrong in this country.”

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Born Yesterday, Charleston, Charleston Stage Company, Garson Kanin, Michael Locklair
  • The Guest Director, review of Franklin Ashley’s Southern farce

    The Guest Director, review of Franklin Ashley’s Southern farce

    “Goodness knows how hard it is to get local, contemporary work up on its feet. It’s always a risk — but always a good one for our culture at large.”

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Charleston, College of Charleston, Franklin Ashley, Guest Director, Southern farce, Theater
  • College of Charleston’s Much Ado About Nothing

    College of Charleston’s Much Ado About Nothing

    “Is Much Ado About Nothing a flowery, two and a half hour “Three’s Company” episode? Yes. Is it a smattering of ideas and humor and complicated characters that are well-acted and directed? Yes. …”

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Charleston, College of Charleston, Much Ado About Nothing, review, Shakespeare
  • College of Charleston’s Macbeth, Review

    College of Charleston’s Macbeth, Review

    Like a poser at a pop concert, I get really excited for the ‘hits’: “Foul is fair, and fair is foul.” Oh yeah. “Something wicked this way comes.” Oh, cool. “Out, damned spot.” Right. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” “sleep no more,” “full of sound and fury….” How can anyone not have a good time,…

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Charleston, College of Charleston, Evan Parry, Macbeth, review, Shakespeare
  • Review of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Scotland Road, at Footlight Players

    Review of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Scotland Road, at Footlight Players

    These sorts of plays are for those who like Richard Foreman or David lynch. There are insightful, sublime and terrifying moments, but many that just make you go, “huh?” A cutesy-da-da weirdness thing that makes you wonder if you’re missing something, so you think-think-think like Winnie the Pooh until you come up with a million…

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Charleston, Footlight Players, Jeffrey Hatcher, review, Scotland Road, Susan-Lynn Johns
  • A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, Review

    Archives 1998. S.E. Barcus is also on Facebook.

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Theater
    Charleston, Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, Crabpot Players, John Ford Noonan, review
  • Dido and Aeneas, Spoleto Festival Preview

    “This ‘jewel’, as Director Chen Shi-Zheng calls it, is the first important English opera ever written, standing somewhere in time — in 1689 — between the operas of Monteverdi and Gluck.” From S.E. Barcus’ Charleston City Paper archives.

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Music, Musical, Opera, Symphony, Theater
    Charleston, Dido, Dido and Aeneas, Spoleto
  • Kurt Weill’s Die Bürgschaft, Spoleto Festival Preview

    Kurt Weill’s Die Bürgschaft, Spoleto Festival Preview

    Spoleto presents Kurt Weill’s Die Burgschaft, preview. From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.

    S.E. Barcus

    Dramatic Performing Arts, Music, Musical, Opera, Symphony, Theater
    Burgschaft, Charleston, Opera, Spoleto, Weill
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