“’Moon Over Dark Street’ aims for the moon and hits its mark. The show is a kick-ass mix of songs that pair Brecht’s dark lyrics with the twisted tunes of Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. Like a top-shelf sipping whiskey, ‘Moon Over Dark Street’ starts off with a teasing bite and kicks in smooth and strong…Belle Linda Halpern and Kermit Dunkelberg, in their solo turns, both perform with subtlety and panache. And together they’re downright intoxicating.”
-
Anne Marie Donahue, Boston Phoenix
Pilgrim Theatre’s Moon Over Dark Street offers snapshots of the life and psyche of Bertolt Brecht in a cabaret-style production that included snippets from plays, songs written with Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler, and even a bleakly hilarious excerpt from Brecht’s 1947 testimony before the Committee on Un-American Activities. Cabaret singer extraordinaire Belle Linda Halpern and Pilgrim Theatre’s co-founder (Brecht lookalike) Kermit Dunkelberg both flourished under pianist Ron Roy’s superb musical direction.”
-
David Frieze, New York Backstage
“’Moon Over Dark Street’ comprises tunes Brecht wrote with Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler: the mood wafts from the curdled romanticism of the ‘Threepenny Opera’ and ‘ Happy End’ to the anti-Nazi polemics of the musical ‘Rise and Fall of the Master Race.’… You can luxuriate in the bittersweet waters of the music, whose lyrical cynicism still refreshes….”
-
Bill Marx, Boston Globe
“Pilgrim Theatre director Kim Mancuso employs her own dramatic weapons in 90 fast-paced minutes that loosely follow the playwright’s journey from Germany into exile in the United States and back again. Her arsenal includes an unwavering focus on her two fine actors. The result is an uplifting production with a mind of its own about Brecht, a mind gratifyingly shaped by Halpern’s sensuous intelligence and Dunkelberg’s deep reservoir of emotion.”
-
Vicki Sanders, boston.sidewalk.com
“Director Kim Mancuso moves the performers between shadowy silhouettes and the spotlight to underline man’s anger and violence, shaped by Brecht’s sardonic observations a society that replaced morality with lust, greed and murder…”
-
Iris Fanger, Boston Herald
