2026 Audience Reviews

Company: Big Blue Theatre
Show: A Dark Gotham Knight's Dream
Venue: Theatre in the Round

Shakespeare in the Park + 1960s Batman

There is something deeply satisfying about watching Batman give a dramatic Shakespearean monologue while stray paper balls bounce off his chest. Did the cast mangle the Shakespearean English a bit? Yeah, but don't worry about it. The cast is having a lot of fun, and I don't know what all of them are doing, but I'm also having a lot of fun. (Hats off to The Penguin for being an absolute FREAK and whose portion of the talent show was my favorite part.) While I do think there could have been more character interaction around the paper balls (for example, Alfred chasing them down to tidy up, since he's a butler, or Catwoman batting them around), I do think they added a delightfully silly element to the show, and we had a lot of fun with it at my showing. (Thank you, Two-Face, for standing completely still for a pity shot since my first attempt to hit you MISSED at POINT BLANK RANGE.) The single downside for me was that, alas, this is pre- Harley/Ivy, but that's made up for by the general campiness of the cast, especially The Riddler (of course) and Mr. Freeze's whole vibe (including his continued love for his dead........ wife).

Company: Melancholics Anonymous
Show: Watership Down
Venue: Rarig Stoll Thrust Theatre

Full-Length Musical Next, Please!

This production managed to condense all of Watership Down into an hour and still hit the major plot points and defining character moments. The costuming and choreography was fantastic, and I loved the way Fiver's visions were depicted on-stage. Several of the songs gave me chills (I would absolutely buy a cast recording)--and "The Blessing of El-Ahrairah" stood out as a perfect encapsulation of how important stories are to rabbits in the original text. I loved that most of the musical's narration was directly from the book, but I ALSO appreciated the changes made to the warren's reasons for infiltrating Efrafa. This really ought to be expanded into a full-length musical and/or a concept album. Familiarity with the source material is not a requirement but it will help; the narration, sometimes in Lapine, goes fast.