George Abud

Cornelia Street

February 24, 2023

Although British playwright Simon Stephens has written three musicals with composer/lyricist Mark Eitzel, formerly of the indie rock band American Music Club, Cornelia Street, set on a quiet back street in the West Village, is the first to arrive in New York where it is having its world premiere courtesy of Atlantic Theatre – Stage 2. Led by two-time Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz who is on stage almost throughout the show, "Cornelia Street," an elegy for a bygone age of unique Village restaurants and coffee houses, does not give its cast enough to do. The songs do not forward the plot but tell us what we already know, and the plot such as it is does not get going until the second half. An interesting attempt to create a place and its regular denizens on stage, "Cornelia Street" in this form does not make a satisfying statement. [more]

Lolita, My Love

February 26, 2019

The York Theatre Company is to be applauded for taking the risk of staging this famously controversial musical in its New York premiere. It is also fulfilling its mission to bring to the stage musicals of quality that might not be done elsewhere. As Alan Jay Lerner is one of the legendary giants of the musical theater, it is a pleasure to be able to see this lost musical in a workable version. However, despite the excellent staging by director Emily Maltby, "Lolita, My Love," the casting still seems problematic and the musical is ultimately disappointing. And while music director Deniz Cordell has performed yeoman's work reconstructing the score and playing it entirely solo at the piano, John Barry’s music is not aided by being heard in this cut-down orchestration. [more]

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

November 17, 2018

The Classic Stage Company's current revival of Bertolt Brecht’s "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" is not the first to draw comparisons between the sitting president and Hitler. In 2002, or the year after 9/11, National Theatre of Actors presented an all-star production in downtown Manhattan – featuring Al Pacino, no less - comparing Ui to Hitler and President George W. Bush. [more]

The Band’s Visit

January 13, 2018

Yazbek’s songs—ranging from the darkly comic “Welcome to Nowhere” (sung by the town folk) to Dina’s romantically tinged “Omar Sharif” and ending with the upbeat, danceable “Concert” played as a finale by the Band—rise magically from the dialogue, just as Patrick McCollum’s choreography emerges naturally from walking, singing and thinking. [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]

Nathan the Wise

April 14, 2016

It’s an uneasy stretch that ultimately fails to convincingly conflate the surprisingly liberal religious arguments that Lessing makes with the extraordinarily complex political/religious/cultural impasse in today’s Israel. The interactions between the Christian, Muslim and Jewish characters are frank, barbed and boldly modern sounding—at least in Kemp’s version—but come across more as statements of the class structure of eleventh century Jerusalem than deep-seated psychological or sociological issues. [more]

Allegro

December 2, 2014

"Allegro" was inspired by Thornton Wilder's Our Town which also uses no scenery and uses the actors as a chorus commenting on the action. Aside from the actors all playing stringed instruments when the show begins (as well as other instruments in the course of the show such as piano, clarinets, oboe, etc.) in Mary-Mitchell Campbell's folksy new orchestrations, they remain on stage throughout as they both narrate and give advice to its hero Joseph Taylor, Jr. [more]