Category: Reviews
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‘Into the Side of a Hill’ brings step to The Rep
by Patsy Isenberg Though “Into the Side of a Hill” made its world premier just this February at the FIM Flint Repertory Theatre, playwright James Anthony Tyler had been thinking about writing it since 2016. According to the playbill, Tyler said the idea “stuck with me” for a few years, even as he composed a…
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Review: “Call Them by Their True Names” by Rebecca Solnit
By Robert Thomas Subtitled American Crises (and Essays), Call Them by Their True Names is Rebecca Solnit’s powerful 2018 collection of timely essays. The book’s forward, “Politics and the American Language,” sets the author’s course in sifting the wheat from the chaff that is the contemporary Babel of linguistic chicanery. “Calling things by their true names…
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Flint Repertory Theatre kicks off 2022-23 season with Death of a Salesman
By Patsy Isenberg Arthur Miller’s 1949 Death of a Salesman opened Sept. 23 to a full house of enraptured theatergoers at Flint’s Repertory Theatre (The Rep). For this opening night of the new season, food and drinks were served before the play began and a champagne toast was offered afterward — perhaps to help salve…
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Review: Fantastic adaptation of “The Fantasticks” celebrates a new perspective
By Patsy Isenberg and Tom Travis A festive conclusion of The Rep’s final presentation of the season, The Fantasticks, opened to an appreciative full house Friday, June 3. The iconic musical is the longest-running production in the history of the American stage and one of the most frequently produced musicals in the world. The Rep’s…
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Review: Connor Coyne’s URBANTASM Book Four: THE SPRING STORM finishes the gripping allegory with a hammer blow
By Robert Thomas The publication of the fourth and final book of Flint author Connor Coyne’s serial novel, URBANTASM, marks the finale of his epic allegory set in the heart of the American Rust Belt in the fictional city of Akawe, Michigan, somewhere north of Detroit. As befits any gripping serial, The Spring Storm delivers…
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Review: World premiere at The Rep of “Wrong River,” captures one Flint family’s near impossible struggle to survive the water crisis
By Patsy Isenberg “Wrong River” is a story about six people in a home in Flint at the start of the water crisis. It’s intense and delves into each character’s personal reaction and how the water crisis intensifies and complicates their lives. It premiered at The Flint Repertory Theater last weekend and runs through Sunday…
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Writer Gary Gildner looks back on a Flint that “gave joy to my youth”
By Jan Worth-Nelson To understand how writer Gary Gildner feels about his Flint childhood in the 1950s, some Latin is in order. Flint — specifically Flint’s legendary Holy Redeemer Catholic Church and school and its devoted diaspora — is at the heart of the second essay and central to many of the others in Gildner’s…
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Review: One weekend only of The Rep’s first show, an absurdist comedy, reminds audience of humans’ dark predicaments
By Patsy Isenberg The Rep made a surprising choice for the first play of the 2021-22 season. It was the absurdist comedy, “Happy Days,” a two-act play by Samuel Beckett, written in 1961. Theatre of the Absurd “Theater that seeks to represent the absurdity of human existence in a meaningless universe by bizarre or fantastic…
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Book Review: Connor Coyne’s mighty opus compels in URBANTASM: Book Three — The Darkest Road
By Robert Thomas Urbantasm is categorized as a magical teen noir serial novel composed of four books. The Darkest Road is Book Three of the series created by Flint writer Connor Coyne. But it is much more than a teen novel. It is a massive creation from Coyne’s omnivorous mind, and an often gripping evocation…
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Book Review: In “Running for Home” descendants of the Sit Down Strike find their race tough to win, no matter how fast they run
By Jan Worth-Nelson Hard on the heels of his well-received nonfiction book Midnight in Vehicle City: General Motors, Flint, and the Strike that Created the Middle Class, Edward “Ted” McClelland has now released his first novel, Running for Home. [McClelland, Edward. Running for Home. Huron, OH: Bottom Dog Press: 2021] [McClelland, Edward. Midnight in Vehicle…
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