Another links-a-palooza

This past weekend was chock full of action, from the VCU game and its aftermath to the Fairy Tale Ball at the Empire to “The Laramie Project: 10 Years later” down at Sycamore Rouge. RTP opened “Devil Boys from Beyond,” which was promptly hailed as a success by both the Times-Dispatch and GayRVA. Swift Creek Mill opened “Quilters” but I have yet to see a review. Did the T-D’s review get knocked by more incessant Charlie Sheen coverage, I wonder?

Mostly this weekend, I tried to catch up on sleep. But my lovely wife and I did manage to make it out to “Devil Boys” and my review will be forthcoming in a future Style, I expect / hope. In the meantime, I will echo the other reviews out there that praise the high camp of the production but, overall, I think I was less entranced by the proceedings than my critical compatriots. Details to come.

Richmond.com’s review of “Something Intangible” hit the internets last week as well. As you may have noticed, the articulate and analytical Richmond.com reviewer Liz Jewett also maintains a blog that is linked to at the bottom of her reviews. Though she doesn’t focus on theater, it makes for some very interesting reading so I’ve put a link to it over there on the right. Check it out some time.

Online coverage really seems to be where it’s at these days. In addition to GayRVA’s quick posting of a “Devil Boys” review, they had a preview up of the show last week and were one of the only media outlets to report on Sycamore Rouge’s “Laramie: 10 years after” production. We slacker print folks just can’t keep up.

One last thing on “Spider-man:” after seeing the show, I had a great time going back and reading reviews by others. There’s a collection of links to the many reviews on the Ent Weekly site, as well as a link to a video collection of reviews. It seems that critics took the opportunity of such a colossally conflicted show to sharpen their pens to particularly pointed levels. My favorite line from any of the reviews is in the LA Times review by Charles McNulty, where he says “Nothing cures curiosity about "Spider-Man" quite like seeing it.” Indeed.

Speaking of nicely written reviews, in a review of “The Book of Mormon” last week, the critics summarizes the show in a way that also describes the exact antithesis of “Spider-man.” He says that the show’s creators “honor the traditions of great song-and-dance musical theater in all the best ways: Every detail of the production serves a purpose. Every character signifies. Every song is crafted with erudition about what a song is meant to do.” Perhaps the Spider-man producers should hire the team from “BOM?”