7th Monarch
Opening Night: June 24, 2012
Closing: August 12, 2012
Theater: Acorn Theatre
In 7th Monarch, Miriam Hemmerick, a mathematical genius who was on the fast track to becoming an astronaut, has been living in seclusion with her parents for the past 20 years after dropping out of college. Raina, a social worker, investigates a potential crime involving Miriam’s mother and father, but the parents themselves are nowhere to be found. The mysteries start there, and dark personal secrets about these two women are soon revealed.
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June 25, 2012
Scott C. Embler’s production of “7th Monarch,” playing at the Acorn Theater, is directed with skill and capably acted by a smart if not always ideally cast ensemble. But while the story is absorbing, this odd mystery by Jim Henry has a whiff of stale psychodrama that overloads on sorrowful revelations with inadequate foreshadowing. The rumpled presence of Michael Cullen in the cast as a melancholy cop is just one reminder of the Atlantic Theater Company’s terrific 2005 production of Rolin Jones’s “Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow,” a superior play also about an academically brilliant, socially challenged young woman with parent issues. But the playful, poetic imagination that distinguished that work is missing in this tonally uncertain drama about loss and damage.
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June 26, 2012
Leslie Hendrix spent 19 seasons playing medical examiner Elizabeth Rodgers on all four “Law & Order” series. You’d think playwright Jim Henry would have asked the star of his new thriller for some tips about the way the justice system works. Or just watched a few episodes of her show. Because even the casual “L&O” viewer can tell that, as a procedural, “7th Monarch” is ludicrous.
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June 26, 2012
Mystery, suspense, and detailed characterizations combine to make Jim Henry’s 7th Monarch, at Theatre Row’s Acorn Theater, a compelling thriller. And while the script utilizes some familiar tropes that make it rather easy to imagine it as a film, there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing it play out on stage, particularly in Scott C. Embler’s finely acted production.
READ THE REVIEWJune 25, 2012
The sweetest space cadet you’ll ever meet is Miriam, the spunky heroine of a warm-hearted new play, "7th Monarch." The intriguing drama by Jim Henry, detailing several mysteries surrounding once-promising math whiz Miriam, is currently running in a compelling, finely-acted production off-Broadway at Theatre Row.
READ THE REVIEWJune 25, 2012
Supreme command of stagecraft is evident in every aspect of Somerled Charitable Foundation’s production of Jim Henry’s initially riveting but ultimately unsatisfying new play, the noirish psychological thriller 7th Monarch. In general, the first act has so much style and focus that one becomes hopeful for the second act to transcend mere genre. Sadly, there is no subtext to 7th Monarch, no deep, underlying themes, no double meanings, no ambiguity. It is straightforward, which helps make it dynamic and entertaining, but which in the end relegates it to the shallow depths of the genre piece.
READ THE REVIEWAugust 9, 2012
Stage and screen star Woody Harrelson is the big draw for Bullet for Adolf, now at New World Stages although the talented actor is unfortunately not in the cast; instead he is the co-author (with Frankie Hyman) and director of this tepid new comedy.
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August 8, 2012
In a shameless attempt to promote his new play "Bullet for Adolf," Woody Harrelson recently paraded three topless women around Times Square with the play’s title written above their chests. For better or worse, you won’t find any nudity within the play itself, which is just plain awful. Co-written by Harrelson and his pal Frankie Hyman, the play is loosely based on their memories of doing construction jobs in Houston in the summer of 1983. Since Harrelson and Hyman apparently do not believe in the merits of having a coherent plot, the play offers very little besides curses, racial slurs, a random cliffhanger and montages of 1980s video clips.
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