Lux Haac

Between Two Knees

February 19, 2024

At the performance under review, part of the audience found the show hilariously funny, while others proverbially sat on their hands. The show makes use of history, parody, satire, burlesque, musical comedy and tragicomedy, never being consistent to any one genre. At two and a half hours this kind of parody seems a bit too long. "Between Two Knees" is a noble effort to tell the story of one hundred years of Native American suffering through the Lakota tribe, but it seems to want to cover too much in too parodistic a style. [more]

Manahatta

December 14, 2023

Mary Kathryn Nagle’s "Manahatta" now at The Public Theater, just blocks from where most of the story takes place, is a fascinating combination of American history and recent events. Nagle who is a Native American has written a play that combines the Dutch purchase of the island of Manhattan in 1626 from the Delaware Lenapes with the Wall Street home-mortgage crisis of 2008 where many disenfranchised people lost their homes. She also includes the contemporary Lenape community living today in Anadarko, Oklahoma, after they had been evicted from their Texas reservation. While the three time-frames of the play run concurrently, they all come together in a devastating ending that indicts the capitalist system as well as how Native Americans have been treated in this country. [more]

The Thanksgiving Play

May 1, 2023

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]

Eureka Day

September 6, 2019

Jonathan Spector’s "Eureka Day" now having its East Coast premiere at Walkerspace is a blisteringly satiric and provocative play torn right out of the headlines. Ostensibly about how one progressive elementary school handles a case of mumps due to many anti-vaxxers, the play also tackles many other hot button topics. Ultimately, the play’s message is that with too much sensitivity and too much political correctness nothing can be accomplished. It is a wake-up call for all of us. [more]

¡Figaro! (90210)

March 25, 2016

Virtually performed all in English with some Spanish for comic effect," ¡Figaro! (90210)" is true to the art form with recitative and arias, that is sung speech and grand solos rather then integrated dialogue and songs that characterize traditional musical comedy. Supertitles are projected above the stage for anything that may be vocally indecipherable. [more]

The Road to Damascus

January 29, 2015

Set at some time in the near future, Tom Dulack’s The Road to Damascus (not to be confused with Strindberg’s play of similar name) is set in a world not that different from our own, with terrorism and civil wars still the major problem for political leaders. A parable of 9/11 and the Bush Adminstration’s reaction to it, "The Road to Damascus" depicts a time when Miami and New York have been attacked by terrorists, with St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center on Fifth Avenue the major casualties. The play posits the first third party president in American history and the first Black African pope, a not inconceivable event in the near future. [more]

Enter at Forest Lawn

July 27, 2014

Author Roberts plays Jack, the megalomaniacal producer/writer of a TV hit about a charming, witty, womanizing uncle who runs off the rails regularly. [more]