Maruti Evans

Fat Ham

April 19, 2023

When it comes to modern adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many theatergoers tend to treat them like a test, mentally annotating plot and character correlations as if their high school English teachers were going to tap them on the shoulders and ask, "Did you catch that one?" If you suffer from this same hang up, then consider James Ijames' Pulitzer Prize-winning "Fat Ham" therapy, not only encouraging its audience to break free from fawning fidelity to the Bard but also, more poignantly, tragic endings. Simply put, for Ijames' insightfully idiosyncratic take on Hamlet, we're not in Elsinore anymore, and that's a good thing. [more]

Amani

February 25, 2023

Denise Manning as Amani is totally believable as a 9-year-old who has had to grow up quickly without parents and her naiveté about love as she maneuvers through growing pains is touching. Her scenes with her father move from precocious to acutely heartfelt to ultimately switching roles when she has to lay down tough love right back at him. It is a performance layered with so many emotions all at once. Although the play is performed without an intermission, it is clearly broken up into three acts, with the second act culminating in a “I deserve to live” soliloquy for Amani that, as performed by Ms. Manning, is breathtaking in its scope. [more]

Fat Ham

May 30, 2022

James Ijames’ "Fat Ham" (all puns intended) is the latest and most successful modern riff on the Bard turning Hamlet into an expression of the Black experience while at the same time having much fun at Hamlet’s expense. As one of the few comedies to ever win the Pulitzer Prize, we should be hearing more soon from this talented playwright whose "Kill Move Paradise" in 2017 appears to be his only other New York credit, also directed by Saheem Ali. Already an associate artistic director/resident director with The Public Theater, Ali has previously worked wonders with "Merry Wives," "Nollywood Dreams," "Shipwreck," "Fires in the Mirror," "The Rolling Stone," "Passage," and "Fireflies," among others at various theaters around town. As usual his casting choices are perfect to the nth degree. [more]

The Artist Will Be With You in a Moment

March 12, 2020

With its eloquent nods to conceptual art, good-natured comedic tone and superior performance, "The Artist Will Be With You in a Moment" is an intelligent entertainment. [more]

Big Apple Circus: The Grand Tour

October 31, 2015

“The golden age of transportation!” intoned the ebullient, mellifluous, mutton-chopped ringmaster John Kennedy Kane. Clad in a red and black striped waistcoat and a black top hat that he doffed later on for a white pith helmet, he was a commanding host. Assisting him for this marvelous journey were dynamic clown tour guides Brent McBeth and Joel Jeske. Mr. Jeske also wrote the sensational show and is a creator of this institution. [more]

Cool Hand Luke

May 10, 2015

Director Joe Tantalo’s striking, minimalist production has no scenery and virtually no props. It marvelously relies on purely theatrical imaginative devices. Mr. Tantalo’s accomplished, choreographic staging and the performances achieved yield often intense experiences. [more]

Everybody Gets Cake!

January 25, 2015

Theatergoers familiar with Richard Foreman’s work with the Ontological Theater will be especially receptive to this frenetic production. There are also traces of Monty Python. Those open to a experiencing a collection of an hour of seemingly plotless, frantic, very well performed vignettes, might find it an entertainingly provocative time. It’s a barrage of colorful imagery composed of heightened sights and sounds. The loud tone of a ringing telephone is prominently featured. [more]

Cafe Society Swing

December 30, 2014

This holiday season the 59E59 Theaters is hosting a special cabaret, Cafe Society Swing, in tribute to a historic cafe which thrived back in the1940’s, one that defied conventional wisdom at a time when vanilla and chocolate didn't mix and red was a very scary color. Known as the Cafe Society Downtown, it was the first club of its kind in New York City and possibly in the country to feature white and black artists performing on stage together before an integrated audience. Not only that, mixed couples were seen dancing and even leaving together. Shocking as this was back then, Cafe Society appealed to the elite and became the big hot spot in town. Even Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Robeson and Errol Flynn were known to stop in. Proprietor Barney Josephson referred to it in his memoir as "the wrong place for the Right people" and it is this work that inspired the making of Cafe Society Swing which is as much about the club's owner and his family as it is about the talent he brought to its doors. The Downtown club was an extraordinary place. Legendary for its jazz and blues, it produced a lot of stars: Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Zero Mostel, Big Joe Turner, Count Basie, Carol Channing and Sid Caesar among them. [more]

Deliverance

October 23, 2014

This outstanding cast of seven is all perfectly in synch with each other and are a true ensemble of the highest caliber. The highly successful artistic collaboration of all the creative talents involved makes this Deliverance a boldly striking work of uniquely theatrical storytelling. [more]