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Articles by Victor Gluck, Editor-in-Chief

Victor Gluck, Editor-in-Chief
About Victor Gluck, Editor-in-Chief (971 Articles)
Victor Gluck was a drama critic and arts journalist with Back Stage from 1980 – 2006. He started reviewing for TheaterScene.net in 2006, where he was also Associate Editor from 2011-2013, and has been Editor-in-Chief since 2014. He is a voting member of The Drama Desk, the Outer Critics Circle, the American Theatre Critics Association, and the Dramatists Guild of America. His plays have been performed at the Quaigh Theatre, Ryan Repertory Company, St. Clements Church, Nuyorican Poets Café and The Gene Frankel Playwrights/Directors Lab.

Privacy

July 26, 2016

Playing his most mature role to date, Radcliffe, late of Harry Potter, is charming as he begins as an introverted, reticent Englishman and then slowly panics as he realizes the extent to which his obsession with the Internet has left him vulnerable to outside forces. He is particularly fine in the computer dating sequence in which he must do a great deal of quick thinking and ad libbing as the participants change nightly. The mainly British production team includes set designer Lucy Osborne who has created a witty New York apartment for The Writer made up almost entirely of boxes made to look like iconic skyscrapers, and the clever projection design of Duncan McLean. [more]

2 by Tennessee Williams: “27 Wagons Full of Cotton” & “Kingdom of Earth”

July 21, 2016

While the play can be a tour de force, Kathryn Luce Garfunkel is so one dimensional that her Flora has little weight. She exudes languidness and laziness, but fails to make Flora anything other than whiney and needy over the course of the play’s three scenes. Even after her encounter with Vicarro she doesn’t seem that much different. Holcomb seems miscast as the wily Latin though he does make Vicarro shrewd and knowing. Keller gives the most convincing performance as the sinister and abusive Jake. Unfortunately, the rhythms of the production do not make the play either the comedy that Williams subtitled it or the tense revenge drama that it also is. [more]

Simon Says

July 13, 2016

Three-time Tony nominee Brian Murray returns to the New York stage for the first time in four years as a retired professor of parapsychology who has put aside his own career to foster that of a young psychic from the time he was a teenager who is able to channel a spirit named Simon. However, the play belongs entirely to virile newcomer Anthony J. Goes who plays psychic James. The role is both vocally and physically demanding and he is totally convincing in a play that asks you suspend your disbelief. [more]

Liberty: A Monumental New Musical

July 13, 2016

The production team uses most of the same people who were involved with the show’s 2014 run at Theater 80 St. Marks as well as four of the eight actors. Directing again, Evan Pappas keeps the show moving along, but some of the characterizations are allowed to descend into caricature and the waiting game for the money to be raised becomes a bit wearisome. Shapiro, now two years older, is charming as Liberty and has a sweet voice but it fails to project in this venue. Emma Rosenthal is impassioned as Emma Lazarus, caught between her liberal beliefs and her family’s conservative leanings. [more]

Runaways

July 12, 2016

The most remarkable thing about the Encores! Off-Center revival of the late Elizabeth Swados’ 1978 musical "Runaways" is that it is as fresh as when it was written almost four decades ago. The concert staging is perfect for this revue like show which deals with youthful alienation and abuse, making it feel extremely contemporary. Credit director Sam Pinkleton and a cast of 25 high-powered multi-racial and multi-ethnic performers, mostly New York City school children from 12 – 19. Among the performers are a deaf actor working in sign language (Ren), two actors who perform in Spanish (Claudia Ramirez and Joshua DeJesus), and a transgendered actress (MJ Rodriguez). It would not be hyperbole to say that among this cast are the stars of tomorrow. [more]

The Healing

June 28, 2016

Samuel D. Hunter’s latest play, "The Healing," is a commission by Theater Breaking Through Barriers, dedicated to advancing the work of performers with disabilities. Not surprisingly, the play gives roles to six disabled actors out of the seven characters in the play, and they acquit themselves well. This story of a reunion of childhood friends in their thirties who have gathered for the funeral of one of their members is made very real by the acting of the cast. The problem with the play is that it appears so tentative and low-key that the explosion we keep waiting for never happens. Under the direction of Stella Powell-Jones, the healing of the title is so subtle that the play could be said to be anti-theatrical. [more]

I’ll Say She Is

June 21, 2016

Only a 30 page treatment and five songs remained from the original show by the Johnstone brothers, writer Will B. and composer Tom. Diamond has written new lyrics for music by Tom Johnston and his brother Alexander as well as using songs from other shows written by Tom and Will. He has rearranged the plot, left out some sequences, and reduced the number of characters. The show at the Connelly Theater is not so much a revival as a homage to Marx Brothers musicals. [more]

Hero’s Welcome

June 20, 2016

Now having its American premiere in repertory with "Confusions," one of Ayckbourn’s earliest plays, with the same actors in both, the production which is directed by the author is from the Stephen Joseph Theater, Scarborough, where most of the author’s plays have had their world premieres. This is a powerful and engrossing study of friendship, love, jealousy, competition and betrayal. [more]

The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare in the Park)

June 18, 2016

Aside from the obvious misogyny of Shakespeare’s comedy for modern audiences, there is the problem of the heroine’s unpalatable final speech in which she berates women for not being more subservient to their husbands. Lloyd’s solution is to frame the play as a country-western beauty pageant to choose “this year’s Miss Lombardy” whose emcee sounds an awful lot like presidential candidate Donald Trump. In fact, there is a good deal of satiric political talk with comedian Judy Gold as suitor Gremio doing an interpolated monologue complaining that the director is a woman and that “we’ve got a broad running for President.” [more]

The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois

June 17, 2016

Adam Rapp’s plays are often about loners and people outside of mainstream society. "The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois" now at Atlantic Stage 2 in a production directed by the author falls into this category. Its strength is that the play is a detailed well-developed character study. However, as a drama, it seems more like a sketch or a section of a longer play yet to be written leaving many unanswered questions. [more]

O’Neill (Unexpected): Two Early Plays by Eugene O’Neill

June 15, 2016

"Now I Ask You" turns out to be comedy of pretentious New York bohemians in 1916, while "Recklessness" is a Strindbergian psychological revenge play. While both have hints of the more famous plays to come, they also stand on their own as the work of a major playwright trying to find his own voice. Whatever you think of the plays and whichever one turns out to be your favorite, Alex Roe’s staging is always entertaining and the plays are truly surprising and unexpected. [more]

2016 Tony Awards Bestow Much Love on “Hamilton”

June 13, 2016

Although "Hamilton" had been nominated for 16 awards in 13 categories, it failed to break the record of Mel Brooks’ "The Producers" which remains the all-time winner with a total of 12. Hamilton took all of the top musical awards including Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical (Thomas Kail, previously nominated for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights) except for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical which went to British actress Cynthia Erivo. (Making her Broadway debut, Erivo was reprising her role as Celie Harris in "The Color Purple" from the 2013 Menier Chocolate Factory production re-envisioned by John Doyle.) Star Miranda won his second and third Tonys with his awards for Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theater and Best Book of a Musical. He previously won for Best Score with his 2008 Broadway musical, In the Heights. [more]

Universal Robots

June 12, 2016

'Universal Robots" uses historic characters like journalist and playwright Capek and President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, characters taken from Capek’s play like Rossum, Helena and Radius, as well as fictional characters to fill out Rogers’ story. Seen in a different version at the 2009 New York Fringe Festival under the same name, "Universal Robots" has a long, leisurely expository first act and an exciting, tense, fast-paced second act. Director Jordana Williams allows the talky, intellectual ‘play of ideas’ in the first half to be a drag on the exciting, adventurous, plot-driven second half with its unusual twists and turns. [more]

Incognito

June 5, 2016

This is heady theater and demands concentration. However, the excellent cast of four made of Geneva Carr (Theatre World Award winner for "Hand to God"), Charlie Cox (Netflick’s" Daredevil"), Heather Lind (AMC’s "Turn: Washington’s Spies"), and Morgan Spector (Drama Desk Award nominee for "Russian Transport") make this an unforgettable evening in the theater. The versatile cast play 20 characters, some as many as six, without changing costume but with different accents and demeanors, while the succeeding scenes take place almost as fast as the synaptic functions in the brain. The play which alternates in its telling of the three stories is also divided into three parts: "Encoding," "Storing' and "Retrieving." Before each section the cast perform hand gestures create by Peter Pucci that mimic the synaptic actions in the brain. [more]

Peer Gynt

May 31, 2016

As with many CSC productions, the modern dress costumes (here designed by Ann Hould-Ward) are entirely in black and white. A small handful of props are used (a tin of buttons, an onion) but the production is basically reduced to its dialogue and story. Since there are no breaks of any kind, the scenes segue one into another without transitions. As a result the audience has to stay focused on the play or it finds itself somewhere new and doesn’t know how it arrived there. The lighting design by Jane Cox alternates between light and dark without creating much atmosphere on the empty stage. [more]

The Judas Kiss

May 29, 2016

British film star Rupert Everett gives a bravura performance as playwright and author Oscar Wilde in the Chichester Festival Theater revival of "The Judas Kiss" by David Hare now at the BAM Harvey. His nuanced performance is remarkable considering how little active the play allows him to be. Wilde dominates the plot even though he sits center stage in the play’s two acts, first in a hotel room in London immediately before and then in a villa outside of Naples immediately after his arrest and incarceration for “gross indecency,” what Victorian England called homosexuality. This is a Wilde we haven’t seen before: rather than tossing off quips and aphorisms, this is a man who is deeply in love and conflicted about questions of self-identity and legacy. He attempts to remain true to his persona at a tremendous cost. [more]

Princess Ida (2016)

May 28, 2016

Completing New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’ 40th Season was a rare revival of 1884 "Princess Ida," the team’s eighth operetta and the only one in which the dialogue is in blank verse, it is presented in three acts, and it is based on a previous play by Gilbert. In the playwright/librettist’s second parody of Tennyson’s book-length poem "The Princess," the themes include feminism, education for women, Darwinism and the Battle of the Sexes. While the operetta still displays its relevance and timeliness, the NYG&SP production proved to be uneven in several categories. [more]

Indecent

May 21, 2016

The production of "Indecent" now on the stage of the Vineyard is remarkable on many levels, not the least which is how engrossing it is considering the events are all historical record and the play deals with several serious ethical issues. It is ultimately an extremely moving document of human achievement, betrayal, and destruction. Cheers to Paul Vogel and Rebecca Taichman and their superb ensemble cast for this memorable theatrical evening. You will not be untouched by the final scene. [more]

American Psycho The Musical

May 16, 2016

Stylish and stylized, the stage design includes Es Devlin’s white box of a set which transforms instantaneously into apartments, offices, restaurants, discos, a health club, a locker room, and the beach in the Hamptons. Color-coordinated with lighting by Justin Townsend and costumes by Katrina Lindsay, the stage picture is often black and white with a touch of red, a tie, the men’s suspenders, a leopard, a bikini, or eventually splashes of blood. Townsend’s lights turn the set blue, green or red. The spectacular ever-changing video design by Finn Ross includes abstracts, cartoons, cityscapes, computer generated designs. Initially the main characters all in black, but as the story spins out of control other colors are added. And for eye candy, there are the hardbodied members of the cast with physiques to die for, with the men with enviable abs often in their shorts. [more]

Port Cities NYC

May 10, 2016

On the ferry, audience members listen to a previously downloaded soundscape which includes a voice-over by Katie (played by Emma Meltzer) who has always seen ghosts and ends up investigating her family inheritance as an archeologist, plus a moody original score by Cameron Orr. Upon docking in the working port on the Brooklyn side, audiences walk three minutes to the Waterfront Museum Barge where the live performance begins on the pier in which four actors carry crates slowly towards us. The audience is then invited into the Museum Barge for the actually theatrical performance. [more]

Tuck Everlasting The Musical

May 8, 2016

The problem with the new show with a libretto by first timers Claudia Shear and Tim Federle now at the Broadhurst Theatre is that it is all so bland - which is not true of the novel which had grit as well as many surprises. The new prologue pretty much gives away the secret of the Tuck family’s discovery of the fountain of youth. The score by Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen (who wrote the Off Broadway musical 'The Burnt Part Boys") is pleasant but innocuous. Director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw who currently has the more flashy "Book of Mormon," "Aladdin" and "Something Rotten!" simultaneously running on Broadway has created a low-key production, atypical of his usual style, which seems a bit lost on the big Broadway stage. This might have worked better in a smaller Off Broadway house. [more]

Dido and Aeneas

May 7, 2016

Staged by director/choreographer Doug Varone, "Dido and Aeneas" was amusingly presented in modern dress with Varone’s dancers playing the ensemble in both operas and pantomiming unseen props and scenery. As the original Purcell music to the surviving Nahum Tate 1689 prologue has been lost, LaChiusa has created a witty new one entitled" The Daughters of Necessity: A Prologue," and lasting 15 minutes. After the Chorus (men in bleachers on stage left, women on stage right) welcomed us, they recounted the myth of the Fates: Nono (Sarah Mesko) who spins the thread of life, Decima (Anna Christy) measures it, and Morta (Clark) snips the thread with her scissors. [more]

The School for Scandal

April 30, 2016

Red Bull Theater which has specialized in Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedies has moved on to the 18th century with Marc Vietor’s exquisite and stylish revival of "The School for Scandal," Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s famous but rarely revived classic comedy of manners. With impeccable casting and a pitch-perfect production team, this School is as witty, delightful and accessible as one could wish. The 18th century look of the play is both historic and satiric. Anna Louizos’ clever settings transform one into the other with the turn of a wall or a door and a rearrangement of the furniture, highlighted by Russell H. Champa’s lighting. Her witty use of props (a chamber pot, a trunk, empty picture frames) adds to the fun. [more]

The Dingdong

April 29, 2016

Shanahan’s adaptation has a great many delicious one-liners and double-entendres (“I don’t go out for mutton when I can have filet mignon at home;” “Keep referring to me as a plate of food and you’ll be dining a la carte;” “I put a leash on my ‘inner beast’ and take him out for a walk every once in a while;” “Looks like you have a bad case of the puberty, kid. You should see a doctor,”) as well as witty exchanges between the warring couples. Much of the fun of the play is seeing the same actors return over and over again in different roles often within a matter of seconds. Best is Kelly Curran who throws herself into four very different women, one more enticing than the other: the Parisian vixen Claudia Pontegnac, the tempestuous Italian Fabiola Soldignac, the oversexed New Yawker Mandy, and a very sexy French maid in bouffant costume with a feather duster. [more]

Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.

April 26, 2016

While many of the scenes are right on target, others seem too metaphoric and anarchic to make much impression, while others take on too many targets to make their point. The best ones deal with our long-held accepted beliefs both of our ways of speaking and our societal conventions. In its American premiere, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. is challenging theater which doesn’t always land where it wants. However, Alice Birch is definitely a unique new voice in the theater and someone to watch closely in the future. [more]

When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout

April 21, 2016

You might wonder why Morag, Fiona’s mother, in Sharman Macdonald’s groundbreaking Scottish play, "When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout," is so repressive about sex. What the program doesn’t tell you about this play having its Off Broadway premiere at the Clurman Theatre is that it was first produced in 1984 in London and that the daughter’s childhood goes back to the fifties when female sexuality was frowned upon. Then it becomes obvious that this play is now a period piece dealing with a time when feelings about female sexuality were changing but the older generation was still stuck on the other side of the divide with the teachings of their childhood. While the play seems to be two generations behind the times, what the play continues to be is a blistering portrait of a toxic mother-daughter relationship. [more]

King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Plays

April 20, 2016

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s "King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings" is a magnificent achievement and a fitting tribute in this 400th anniversary of the bard’s death. Not only are the four plays an accessible presentation of what is often confusing for Americans unversed in British history, but taken together they are a very great study in the use and abuse of power and authority in this year of our own contentious political wranglings. Gregory Doran’s unfussy and intelligible productions set a bench mark by which others will be measured and offers star performances that should become legendary. [more]

The Crucible

April 20, 2016

Van Hove sets his version in a modern classroom. When the curtain goes up we first see the girls who will later accuse various people in Salem, Massachusetts, of having bewitched them, seated at desks and singing in unison. The curtain descends and then the play begins with Miller’s first scene. Puritan Reverend Samuel Parris has caught his daughter, his niece Abigail Williams, his black servant Tituba, and other girls in the community dancing in the forest around a cauldron, all forbidden behaviors. On seeing him, his daughter Betty has become catatonic. When expert witch hunter Reverend Hale, who has been sent for, questions Tituba, she confesses to communing with the devil, an idea he plants in her mind. [more]

The Father

April 18, 2016

Florian Zeller is the most famous French playwright you probably never heard of. He won France’s highest theatrical honor, the Moliere Award, in 2011 for his play, "The Mother," and the Moliere Award again in 2014 for "The Father." This last named international hit is currently running in both Paris and London with major stars in the leading role. Manhattan Theatre Club now brings the Christopher Hampton translation to Broadway with Frank Langella in the title role. As André, an 80-year-old man beset with dementia in which his reality keeps shifting, Langella turns in a virtuoso perform but you won’t be bored for a moment. [more]

Blackbird

April 14, 2016

The problem with the staging begins from the outset. Daniels' Ray, tense and rigid, pushes demanding, triumphant Una into a corporate break room. He is upset to see her, and she is all confidence and gloating. Unfortunately, this scene starts at so high a peak of emotion that the play has nowhere to go. In fact, while their startlingly different accounts of the night they ran off together ought to be the high point of the play, the opening scene is peak of emotion instead. It is a calculated risk and it damages the play. [more]

Head of Passes

April 12, 2016

Tarell Alvin McCraney’s "Head of Passes" is an advance over his earlier work seen in New York ("The Brother/Sister Plays," "Wig Out," "Choir Boy") in its attempt to take on bigger themes and archetypes. In creating the role of Shelah, he has put on stage a magnificent role for an actress of tremendous gifts. Phylicia Rashad rises to Greek tragic heights required by Shelah’s plight. However, the meaning and message of the play remains obscure and tends to leave the audience outside of the play’s dramatic action. We watch mesmerized in horror as events unfold, but why they are happening and what is the underlying cause remains a mystery. [more]

The Effect

April 8, 2016

"The Effect" investigates the emotional, physical and ethical effects of drug testing, certainly a hot button issue in our time when we have come to expect a pill to solve all of our problems. The scientific portions are made human as we see them through the eyes of Connie and Tristan who must do everything at the same time as foils in the experiment. The parallel stories of test takers and warring doctors with a past history add to the visceral and intellectual pull of the play. [more]
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