Articles Tagged With: Peter Eichman

Ill Met By Moonlight at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 1, 2023 Amanda N. Gunther 2 Comments

What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here? Tis a crew of Rude Mechanicals and they indeed find themselves Ill Met By Moonlight. Some six years in the making, TRM finally gets to bring their dream production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to light. UV light, that is. Playing at the Greenbelt Arts Center through September 9th 2023 and Directed by Joshua Engel, this judiciously rendered production of Midsummer is not your grandfolks’ fairy-tale.

The Belle’s Stratagem at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews February 2, 2023 Amanda N. Gunther

Men are all dissemblers, liars, deceivers! Or something like it, so says playwright Hannah Cowley, author of The Belle’s Stratagem. Not to be confused with The Beaux’ Stratagem, by George Farquhar (though if you stick around in a few weeks’ time, you may see exactly that show on The Rude Mechanicals’ stage!) Belle hit Drury Lane in 1780 whereas Beaux debuted quite a few decades before (and at Theatre Royal) in 1707.

12 Angry Women at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 2, 2022 Amanda N. Gunther

What is a reasonable doubt? Google + Merriam-Webster says, “A reasonable doubt exists when a factfinder cannot say with moral certainty that a person is guilty or a particular fact exists. It must be more than an imaginary doubt, and it is often defined judicially as such doubt as would cause a reasonable person to hesitate before acting in a matter of importance.” Perhaps we’re not asking the right question. Perhaps the question should be “what causes someone to have reasonable doubt?” If you want the answer to that,

Timon of Athens at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 1, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther

How goes the world? A loaded question if ever there was one to be asked, especially in this day and age. But set yourself back from this day and age, set your dial of existence back to 1978 in order to prepare yourself to digest The Rude Mechanicals’ latest offering: Timon of Athens. Directed by Joshua Engel, this miscreant play of Williams Shakespeare’s is finding a new lens through which to be viewed in the hands of The Rude Mechanicals.

The Merchant of Venice at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews June 18, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. While The Rude Mechanicals aren’t currently producing Hamlet, there’s logic in that quote that could and should be readily applied to The Merchant of Venice, which The Rude Mechanicals are currently producing. Said advice would go far for both Antonio and Shylock and save everyone the trouble of their various plights fraught with woe and unfortunate circumstances. But alas, Shakespeare didn’t pen it that way,

Henry VIII at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews January 12, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther 1 Comment

“Men’s evils manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.” And we shall now ascribe the virtues of The Rude Mechanicals production of Henry VIII in ink. Well, digital ink. Directed and Choreographed by Liana Olear, this ‘lost history’ (the most boring of the boring and banal of banal Shakespearean histories) is revitalized and given a new lease on life. Olear’s strategic placement of the historical recounting of the eighth Henry in the mid 1910’s lends itself to her dancer’s passion,

Leanne Stump (left) as Katherine and Liana Olear (Right) as Alice in Henry V

She Speaks at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews June 2, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

What fire is in my ears? All of Shakespeare’s women in one show? Can it be so? Well, that might be a bit absurd, even for The Rude Mechanicals, but they do come close, featuring a varied assortment of all of the Bard’s leading ladies in just shy of two hours’ stage traffic! Conceived and Directed by Leanne G. Stump, this selection of scenes showcases some of the finer moments of Shakespeare’s female characters,

The Life and Death of Richard II at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews March 24, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

Discomfort guides this servant’s tongue, you see

When first to speak on the venue known as the DCAC

But fear not, playgoers, for I share with you

Good news of The Rude Mechanicals and their show of Richard II

Laboriously titled The Life and Death Of

They present to you from one floor above

A judiciously rendered version that moves quite free

Of this early and poetic tale of history

Directed by Michael F.

Review: The Life and Death of King John at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews August 25, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Ne’er so bethump’d with words has this critic found herself when staring down an amalgamation of a Shakespearean remount dipped in Pythonian humor and sprayed liberally with truncation across the Greenbelt Arts Center’s intimate black box stage, than she has in this very moment in attempting to report upon The Life and Death of King John as presented by The Rude Mechanicals. A history most boring upended ass over tea-kettle by Director Alan Duda,

Monkeying around with a few members of the cast of All in the Timing. Photo courtesy of Joshua McKerrow.

All in the Timing at Heritage Players

Reviews August 10, 2014 Amanda N. Gunther

Life is but a moment? Or life is what you make of it. Heritage Players are making life out to be a hilarious evening of comic curiosities with their summer production of David Ives’ All in the Timing. Co-Produced by Ryan Geiger and Stephen Deininger, this grouping of six one-acts is a hilarious series of unrelated vignettes that examine the minutia of life in an absurd fashion. Treating the project like a theatrical incubator of sorts,