Lady’s Choice
There’s been a weird little theme this season of new musicals at major South Bay and Peninsula theaters based on 1890s British comedies by great Irish wits. First was the world premiere of Being Earnest at TheatreWorks in April, transplanting Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest to swingin’ 1960s London, and now San Jose Repertory Theatre gives us the West Coast premiere of A Minister’s Wife, based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 play Candida. The musical debuted at Writers’ Theatre in 2009 in the Chicago suburb of Glencoe, conceived and directed by the company’s artistic director, Michael Halberstam. It went on to play New York’s Lincoln Center Theater in 2011, and now comes to San Jose in a new production directed by Halberstam.
