Five-star theater reviews | 2011 in review

The Beats
16th Street Theater. By Marilyn Campbell. Dir. Ann Filmer. With ensemble cast.
The production on the intimate stage at Berwyn’s 16th Street Theater is aurally evocative and whip-smart, propelled by a young cast capable of delivering all the rage, intellect and humor of Kerouac, Ginsberg and their contemporaries. The Beats re-creates the genesis of the cult of counterculture, as performed by its great modern disciples. That the show speaks so eloquently to 2011 is a testament to the literature that Beat generation writers produced, but also to the tenacious intractability of the culture that so horrified and enraged them.