Ninth and Joanie
Opening Night: April 5, 2012
Closing: May 7, 2012
Theater: Bank Street Theatre
Kevin Corrigan and Bob Glaudini will star as prodigal son and grieving father in Ninth and Joanie, a powerful new play set on Ninth Street in South Philadelphia in 1986.
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April 18, 2012
Time crawls to a dead stop as you watch “Ninth and Joanie,” a stupefyingly dull drama by Brett C. Leonard presented by the increasingly rudderless Labyrinth Theater Company at the Bank Street Theater. The actual presence of a kitchen sink might enliven Mr. Leonard’s kitchen-sink drama about an Italian-American father and son immured in grief in South Philadelphia. Watching the slow drip of a leaky faucet for two hours would be more entertaining than this misguided production, directed with ponderous indulgence by Mark Wing-Davey.
READ THE REVIEWApril 18, 2012
The opening line of “Ninth and Joanie” is “It’s dead out . . . there’s nobody nowhere” — and boy, is that the truth. The characters in Brett C. Leonard’s suffocating drama are helplessly trapped by circumstances. By the time it’s over, you’ll feel the same way.
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April 18, 2012
The terribly unlucky Italian family at the heart of Brett C. Leonard’s bleak new play "Ninth and Joanie" just can’t catch a break.
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April 15, 2012
The Labyrinth’s take-no-prisoners performance style is made to order for the seething hostilities in "Ninth and Joanie," Brett C. Leonard’s bleak drama about the disintegration of a family living in a rough neighborhood of South Philly in the 1980s. Applying those house techniques, actor Bob Glaudini and other company stalwarts attack their tormented characters with sadistic relish. But the Pinteresque mannerisms of Mark Wing-Davey’s labored direction are a drag on the fierce domestic battle raging between a brutal father and his two sons, suggesting that Pinter pauses are best left to Pinter plays.
READ THE REVIEWApril 18, 2012
Brett C. Leonard’s “Ninth and Joanie” is a bit of a sociological experiment. For the first 20 minutes very little happens. Sure, there’s intro music to signal that the play has started, but the beginning consists of a father and his son sitting in silence. The father smokes a cigar as the son plays with a Ouija board. It’s sort of like watching security-camera footage or an unedited reality-television reel. The dramatic scenario functions as an introduction, but what comes after isn’t appreciably more interesting.
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