About Victor Gluck, Editor-in-Chief (974 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.
What appears to be filmmaker Jing Ma’s first stage play, "Wheel of Fortune" is a touching story of a depressed man about to turn 30 and without a job or a girlfriend. His bad luck changes when his mother visiting from Delaware becomes a Tarot card reader and predicts a change of life with the “Wheel of Fortune” card. Directed by the author, the play has a few too many scenes and set changes (like a film script) for the tiny stage of UNDER St. Marks Theater but it remains both engrossing and poignant. [more]
Whether you follow basketball or not, Candrice Jones’ "Flex" is exciting theater. Actually, the play is not only about women’s high school basketball but also passions, future plans, romance, sex, ethics, friendships, rivalries, betrayals, and possible dreams deferred for all of the play’s five teammates as we follow them from their home town games in Plainnole to the 1997-98 Arkansas High School State Championship. Using a cast of relatively unfamiliar performers all of whom are making their Lincoln Center Theater debuts, director Lileana Blain-Cruz best known for her work on new plays has kept the performance as taut as a real game throughout its two hours and 20 minutes length. [more]
Although Sandy Rustin’s "The Cottage," now arrived at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater, bills itself as “A Romantic and (Not Quite) Murderous Comedy of Manners,” it is devoid of the two requirements of drawing room comedy: wit and quotable one-liners. Although its hard-working stable of stars including Eric McCormack, Laura Bell Bundy, Lilli Cooper and Alex Moffat, have been directed by television star Jason Alexander to behave as though the play is comic, there are hardly any laughs. [more]
Another head scratcher is that advance publicity on the play calls it “an uproarious comedy”; however, as there are no more than two laughs in the whole play as currently produced on the stage of the wild project this is a false appellation. While the play involves a story of a married urban couple who travel to Vermont to join a self-sustaining commune run by his former college roommate, there are no surprises and the events are very predictable, with all of the revelations left for the final scene. [more]
Among the problems with the production is the fact that there is no chemistry between Siff and Alexander. We are supposed to believe that their encounter not only brings Lady Torrance back to life but that Val falls in love for the first time. However, this is not demonstrated by their performances. Williams’ requirement that his heroine use a Southern yet Italian accent is a difficult assignment and Siff seems uncomfortable at this while her Italian accent comes and goes. More damaging still is that while we are told that Val Xavier has a positive effect on all the women who encounter him, Lady Torrance, Carol Cutrere, Vee Talbott (the Sheriff’s wife), and causing the men to be jealous, Alexander fails to exude the kind of charisma needed for this role. Not only is he too bland, he often fades into the woodwork when we should be conscious of his presence at all times. [more]
Pyle is an engaging performer. However, not only does her story wander around but the interruptions by her father or rather her day dreams about past lovers become hard to follow due to all the disconnects. Her father follows an ex-wife to Texas from Indiana while Pyle ends up in Los Angeles from New York. The message is not clear until she explicitly states that she is “in the exact right spot.” When she removes her parka, she wears a t-shirt that states: “What if it all works out?” which appears to be the take away from the evening. [more]
The only problem with Hartmere’s plot is that it remains undeveloped. None of the princesses get to read Friedan's book (there is initially only one copy) and they take it on faith that it offers them alternatives. The plot goes off on a series of tangents (Prince Charming’s assistant Prince Erudite the Celibate reveals that he is gay when he meets Snow White’s assistant Clumsy, the Cinderella’s Stepmother attempts to get the Narrator to choose one of her daughters for Prince Charming after Cinderella’s defection) but these narratives turn out as you would expect with no surprises. As staged by director/choreographer team Keene & Mari Madrid, whose credits up until now are mainly in film and music video, (creative consultant: British director: David Leveaux), the many production numbers look like aerobics for a rock video which may please Spears fans but look incongruous in a Broadway musical based on 18th and 19th century stories. Spears’ fans will be pleased that the show includes eight of her top ten hits: “Oops!... I Did It Again,” “Baby One More Time,” “Gimme More,” “Toxic,” “Circus,” “Lucky,” “Work Bitch,” and “Stronger,” almost all with lyrics tweaked by Hartmere to fit a story of princes and princesses. [more]
For this year’s Free Shakespeare in the Park, director Kenny Leon has set his modern dress "Hamlet" in what looks like the same Georgia estate as his acclaimed 2019 production of "Much Ado About Nothing." However, Beowulf Boritt’s set this time around looks as though the Georgia suburban mansion has been destroyed by a hurricane with the main house off its foundation and the main room missing three of its walls. The set also features two American flags, a partly buried “Stacey Abrams 2020” poster (used in the "Much Ado") and a jeep nosed into a huge puddle with an Elsinore license plate. While the production is chock full of ideas (too many of them), it creates the new problem that Shakespeare’s "Hamlet" doesn’t make much sense set in America. After all, when is the last time we had a king and queen? Obviously, the parallel is that something is rotten in America but where is this Never Neverland? [more]
Based on a range of Eisenhower’s memoirs, speeches and letters, the play demonstrates without a doubt his belief in moderation and his liberal bent of which many people today are unaware. Set at his Gettysburg farm in 1962, two years after the end of his presidency at age 71, the premise is that while recording his memories for a book on his White House years, he is incensed by a New York Times poll of 75 historians which places him 22 out of 31 presidents, “a great American, not great president.” He then attempts to defend his life and work in the two acts that follow, with the first half taking us through W.W. II and the second half delineating his presidency. [more]
While the show approximates a magic show, it also is a lecture demonstration. However, if you are hoping to hear how the tricks are accomplished you will be disappointed. Cuiffo who has a charming demeanor is both low-key and casual, dispassionate and nonchalant. "A Simulacrum" is a diverting evening but it may leave you hungry for more – or at least the explanations of what you have just seen before your eyes. The rapport between Hnath and Cuiffo is that of friends and by the end of the evening you may feel like you have been admitted to their inner circle. [more]
Scheduled to run only until July 1, "Lizard Boy" deserves a longer life as one of the most satisfying musical theater offerings to be seen currently in New York. While the message of tolerance and diversity is not heavy, the theme is dramatized so that no one can mistake its intent. The three-person cast is superb in the acting, singing and musical departments. Brandon Ivie’s staging is clever and imaginative, while the book, music and lyrics by Justin Huertas make audience goers look forward to his next project with eager anticipation. [more]
Lucas’ script remains faithful to Miller’s teleplay (with the excision of Joe’s delirium tremens in the psycho ward or his second hospitalization) and much of the dialogue is actually Miller’s. However, the problem is the score. Guettel’s 18 songs (including four reprises) are often atonal, unmelodic, unrhymed and don’t scan. While this is true of the Tony Award-winning "The Light in the Piazza" that score had such a lush sound that it was automatically romantic and appropriate for its story. Here it is almost as though Guettel is striving for opera but without the orchestral underpinnings to make it so. The lyrics are mostly recitative, abstract and metaphorical. Aside from three songs in which Joe or Kirsten are joined by their seven-year-old daughter Lila (played by Ella Dane Morgan), only the couple sing, with O’Hara given seven solos. The real problem is as Stephen Sondheim said about his musical Do I Hear a Waltz?: these are characters that wouldn’t sing so the only way to solve this is to have made "Days of Wine and Roses" an opera with a great deal of orchestral music. Here the songs do not add anything to the story. Like Marvin Hamlisch’s score for the stage version of "Sweet Smell of Success," Guettel’s music is devoid of atmosphere, period or otherwise, unless this is the fault of the orchestrations by Guettel with additional orchestrations by Jamie Lawrence. [more]
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ "The Comeuppance," the culmination of his decade as a Premiere Resident playwright at Signature Theatre, does for the millennials what "The Big Chill" did for the Baby Boomers. Astutely directed by Eric Ting, this fascinating but uneven play also reviews the stresses and traumas of the last 20 years for that generation. This five-character reunion of people who knew each other at St. Anthony, class of 2002, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, is densely plotted and packed with dramatic moments. And then there is a new wrinkle, an uninvited guest. [more]
The problem with the play is that it has a one joke plot, simply what will happen when Maurice appears – if he does. The play runs out of steam very early on. However, if the drunken scene is played as over the top it will generate the comedy that the play doesn’t offer. Unfortunately, accomplished actresses Elizabeth Hayden as Julia and Jenny Tucker as Jane have been directed to remain two upper-class matrons throughout. Neither of them seem drunk enough to cause the chaos that ensues. Otherwise, the acting is of a high caliber though the play peaks much too soon. [more]
The little OPERA theatre of ny has become known for its adventurous programing of rarely seen and heard operas in English including the New York premieres of Benjamin Britten’s opera for television, "Owen Wingrave," and Carlisle Floyd’s final work for the stage, "Prince of Players," as well as new translations of works by Gluck, Mozart and, Rossini. Now in association with Harlem Opera Theater and National Black Theatre, they have presented an unusual double bill of contrasting "American One Acts," both set in the American South. Act I was a performance of "Highway 1, U.S.A." (1962) by William Grant Still, called the Dean of African American Composers, and the first Black composer to have an opera performed by a major company, his "Troubled Island" premiered by the New York City Opera in 1949. The second half of the bill was Kurt Weill’s "Down in the Valley," a folk-opera intended for schools and community groups, written for the radio in 1945 and then revised for stage production in 1948 at Indiana University by the Bloomington Opera Workshop. After its premiere it had 85 amateur productions in the following ten months. However, it has not remained in the repertory. [more]
Whether you are a basketball fan or not, Rajiv Joseph’s "King James" is an intriguing depiction of an unlikely friendship over 12 years. Under Kenny Leon’s polished direction, Glenn Davis and Chris Perfetti hold the stage with their complicated relationship and representation of male friendship. Although the play doesn’t tackle new ground, it remains absorbing as time passes and the men’s careers take different paths. [more]
The six-member cast creates a believable ensemble though their roles are not all clearly defined. While the play reveals much about the Haitian community living in Brooklyn, as 'Bernarda’s Daughters" feels almost plotless it seems to drift from one conversation to another with little or no structure. The idea of an updated Americanized version of Lorca’s very Spanish tragedy "The House of Bernarda Alba" is a good one. However, this is not as compelling or successful as Marcus Gardley’s "The House That Will Not Stand" which reset the play in 1813 New Orleans. [more]
The world premiere of Emma Sheanshang’s "The Fears" is a hilarious and poignant satire on self-help groups and the sort of people who take their emotional temperature all day long – literally. It is the latest in a new genre of plays in which the humor comes from something that may be painful but it is still possible to laugh at. Smoothly and astutely directed by Dan Algrant who has mainly worked in film, the ensemble of seven actors are entirely convincing as a group of damaged people who meet once a week at a Buddhist center in New York City to deal with early traumas that are keeping them from moving on in their lives. While the play fails to make a bigger statement, it remains entertaining and engrossing throughout. [more]
As directed by the astute Josh Sharp, Kayne begins his show as a stand-up act, but warns us “This is a comedy show. BUT it is also sad. There will be long stretches where you will not be laughing. I don’t want to feel like I tricked you, so I’m telling you in advance.” However, Kayne is able to find the absurdity in things that are inherently sad so that there is much humor in his one-man show. After his stand-up comedy routine, he gives a short math lesson using a white board and a black board (set design by Brett Banakis) to demonstrate that things are often not what they seem. [more]
All of this is told by Baer in Twain’s humorous and inimitable style filled with anecdotes both true and untrue. As we are told from the author himself, “I have never been a man to allow the truth to stand in the way of a good lie.” The presentation also includes sections from travel letters in Twain’s own words besides a large section of Huckleberry Finn’s adventures down the Mississippi. The presentation also sets Twain’s life in the context of the growing America of those days, events like the Gold Rush, the transcontinental railroad, the election of Abraham Lincoln, the burgeoning of literacy and the press, etc. Even if you know a good deal about the life of Samuel Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain, Joe Baer’s one-man show fills in a great many gaps with fascinating adventures of a world traveler who had a keen eye for the ridiculous and the satiric. In "Samuel Clemens: Tales of Mark Twain," he remains good company throughout the evening. [more]
"New York, New York" is a big, jazzy show in the style of golden age musicals we have not seen for a while. While it removes the abusive relationship between Jimmy and Francine from the film, in doing so it waters down the story to a rather old-fashioned “newcomers make good in the big city” tale we have seen before. The theme of racism is handled rather simplistically, borrowing parts of the Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge stories. Characters seem to come and go and are often gone for too long a time. The new collaborations by Kander and Miranda are fun to hear but they do not come up to the standard of the Kander and Ebb songs that we know. The show becomes a showcase for the much loved songs “But the World Goes ‘Round” and “New York, New York” which are given pride of place. [more]
However, both every scene as written by Maldonado and directed by Theatre East’s artistic director Judson Jones is staged as though it were the climax. It is one thing to enact a play up to the hilt. Here there is no arc or build up. Every scene begins at the top and leaves the actors with nowhere to go. Although performed by a tight quartet of actors, as written the characters are two dimensional, telling us no back story and little about them. [more]
MasterVoices concluded its 2022-23 season with a lovely concert staging performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s rarely seen comic opera "Iolanthe (or The Peer and the Peri)" staged and conducted by artistic director Ted Sperling. The cast was mainly made up of Tony Award winners (Christine Ebersole and Santino Fontana) and Broadway regulars (David Garrison, Jason Danieley and Phillip Boykin) with some fast rising young opera singers (Ashley Fabian and Schyler Vargas) and a principal ballerina from the New York City Ballet (Tiler Peck). All seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their Carnegie Hall outing. The 120-member Master Voices chorus and orchestra gave a glorious rendition of the 141 year old score. [more]
Sean Hayes, up till now best known for his Emmy Award-winning performance as Jack McFarland on "Will and Grace," gives a titanic performance as humorist, raconteur and pianist Oscar Levant once called the wittiest man in America, in Doug Wright’s new play "Good Night, Oscar." Although Levant is not much remembered today, you can enjoy this character study and depiction of early late night television even if you have never heard of him before. While "Will and Grace" has made evident Hayes’ way with one-liners, "Good Night, Oscar" demonstrates that Hayes is able to dig deep in a character portrayal as well. Credit must go to director Lisa Peterson for inspiring this memorable performance. [more]
Directors Noah Brody and Emily Young, both of the Fiasco Theater, have neatly trimmed the dialogue and some of the minor characters so that the play comes in at two hours and 15 minutes. However, they have made some choices that work much less well. Except for a rolling doorway to designate Merrythought’s home, Christopher Swader & Justin Swader’s scenic design does not differentiate one scene from another due to its lack of design elements. Other than the musical interludes, the productions lacks atmosphere in all its scenes. They have also used doubling and tripling to the point where it is difficult to keep straight who most of the actors are when they appear on stage in this play that has probably never been seen by most members of the audience. Most distracting is actress Royer Bockus playing three male roles – Merrythough’s son Michael, Little George, and a Servant as well as a horse named George. The role of Venturewell has had a change of gender but as Tina Chilip is still called “Merchant” but does not suggest one in her 17th century matron costume, this remains a little disconcerting. Characters who play major roles in one scene return to play minor roles in others which is more than a little confusing. [more]
Larissa Fasthorse’s "The Thanksgiving Play" gives a good tweaking to those who are so hung up on political correctness that they dare not make a decision. On the other hand, the play reminds us how difficult it is to be fair to all sides of the historical spectrum. The erasure of the Native American point of view is made clear by their very absence from the play, while the problem of educators knowing how to walk the fine line between inclusion and suitability is given a rare airing in this delightful parody. The use of in jokes, theatrical, historical and educational notwithstanding, "The Thanksgiving Play" is a satire that entertains while it makes some very real and needed points about political correctness when dealing with unpleasant American history. [more]
While the playlets seem too slight to have much dramatic weight as they are mainly about one minute long, they do have a cumulative effect summing up a year that was like no other in recent memory. Often the scenes feel like they want to go and continue, but Parks keeps them short. Periodically, we have a one sentence scene telling us how many people have died from Covid as of that date. Beginning on March 13, 2020, the first full day of the shutdown, the playlets continue until April 13, 2021, a year and a month from when Parks started. An electronic sign above the stage states the date of each scene and its name which include such titles as “Home,” “Broadway Is Closed,” “The City at 7 PM,” “Who’s Gonna Pay For This?,” and “Hiatus 4 Months: Holding It Together Together.” [more]
The latest collaboration by composer lyricist Albert M. Tapper and bookwriter Tony Sportiello, "On the Right Track," proves to be a charming chamber musical for three performers playing seven roles. The show combines realism with magic and the supernatural as it tells three stories which take place on a New Jersey Transit train. The Conductor, the narrator, also is a mystical figure who is able to give the characters second chances in life and lea them to a better place than when they came on board. Owing some inspiration to such classics as Sir James M. Barrie’s "Dear Brutus", Sutton Vane’s "Outward Bound" and Frank Capra’s "It’s a Wonderful Life," "On the Right Track" avoids being preachy at the same time that it offers suggestions about how to live one’s life. [more]
Unfortunately, though Sorkin may have made this "Camelot" more politically correct, scientifically accurate and less supernatural, it is much less entertaining and magical than earlier productions and certainly much darker as well as less funny. Whereas the original 1960 Broadway production billed itself as “the most beautiful show in the world,” Bartlett Sher’s revival has an almost empty grey stage most of the time (designed by Michael Yeargan) and drab costumes from Jennifer Moeller. Although the cast has 25 performers, the court scenes always look underpopulated as though not enough courtiers have shown up and there is almost no pageantry which one expects for a royal court of the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages. [more]
Gunderson uses two actors to play Emilie and writer Voltaire who was her mentor, companion and lover, and then three actors to play everyone else, from Emilie’s mother, husband and daughter, to servants and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton and poet Jean-Francois de Saint-Lambert. As they do not change their costumes, we are never entirely certain who they are when they reappear. Throughout the play Emilie is working on the physics formula F=mv2 (known as force vive) which she attributes to German mathematician and thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Unfortunately, this math will be foreign to most theatergoers who have not studied physics. Emilie narrates and addresses the audience, then turns back and interacts with the other characters on stage. She also keeps score in chalk on the walls as whether Love or Philosophy is in the ascendance. The play, cast as a flashback, has very short scenes so that a great deal passes in a short time. While the first act seems to be bits and pieces, the second act settles down into a more dramatic confrontation between Emilie and Voltaire and becomes more involving. MacGowan never finds the right tone to accomplish all of this. [more]
Mary Elizabeth Hamilton’s Smart has an interesting premise but does not carry out its goal turning quickly into a domestic drama and later a bittersweet love story. The two acts seem to be two different plays while the sketchy characters do not give the fine three actresses much to work from. Even the production values get in the way of understanding the play. Hamilton has a good ear for dialogue but needs to work on plotting and characterization in order to make this a satisfying theatrical experience. [more]
"Life of Pi" is a unique theatrical experience with its animal puppetry, depiction of days on the ocean, and bringing to life an Indian city, circa 1977. It tells a fantastical story with brio and flair making use of all of the theatrical arts. With a cast led by Olivier Award winner Hiran Abeysekera, you could not imagine anyone else in these roles. However, the playwriting and the production do have their flaws which are eventually overcome by its theatricality and storytelling. Kudos to director Max Webster for orchestrating the production so well. [more]
