OLD WICKED SONGS

September 25, 2008.By John Townsend, Lavender Magazine.

Through Oct. 5 Guthrie Theater 8181 S. 2^nd St., Mpls. (612) 377-2224 www.guthrietheater.org

THE TITLE IS FROM the final song of Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe: “The old, wicked songs, the dreams wicked and grim, let us bury them.”

Theater Latte Da Artistic Director Peter Rothstein, who has staged the show at Guthrie’s Dowling Studio, calls it a “song about healing, liberation, redemption. Set in Vienna in 1986 on the election of Kurt Waldheim, a former Nazi, this play by John Maran is about the friendship between two men: Josef [Raye Birk], an old Viennese voice teacher, and Stephen Hoffman [Jonas Goslow], a young American piano student. I found it incredibly witty, profound—and, of course, musical.”