Off-Broadway

Sister Calling My Name

February 7, 2020

An author can be too close to his or her material so that the real story fails to be revealed. Inspired by his own family events, Buzz McLaughlin’s Sister Calling My Name has a fascinating premise but that is not enough. In relating a faith-based story of Michael, a man who has avoided for 18 years his mentally disabled sister Lindsey, a ward of the state since being a teenager, McLaughlin repeats lines and plot points endlessly while failing to give us enough details to bring the characters to life. The play seems to go round and round in a circle. The script note that Lindsay’s disability manifests itself in simply locking into an idea and going with it until another takes its place does not help an audience who must listen to the same dialogue over and over. Peter Dobbins’ production for Blackfriars Repertory Theatre and The Storm Theatre does little to make the characters more than labels. [more]

Border People

February 5, 2020

Hoyle has brought his most recent play, "Border People," to New York City in a production directed by Nicole A. Watson. It’s a work dedicated to people who dwell along borders of various sorts—“geographical or cultural”—and it suggests that no matter how clearly lines of demarcation may be drawn, they can seem arbitrary and sometimes strangely porous. Hoyle presents nearly a dozen characters in this show: diverse in age, gender, race, nationality, religion, sexuality and temperament. He includes people from one side or another of actual U.S. borders, both to the north and to the south. We also meet characters from the Bronx who live along the borders that separate the borough’s “projects” from the outside world. [more]

Doctors Jane and Alexander

February 4, 2020

Additional credit can be given to Simon and Wolkowitz’s performances by the excellent supporting cast and Einhorn’s writing. The script's one weakness appears to be an insistence on providing an overabundance of mind-numbing facts about blood-type science, details which ultimately don’t lend themselves to the overarching tale of one man’s search for value and importance in his dreams, those of his family that came before him, and the question of whether he will leave anything other than a legacy of his children’s memories. [more]

Brecht: Call and Respond (an evening of three one-acts)

February 4, 2020

“Producing theatrical works that feature compelling stories created by emerging theater artists” is from the New Light Theater Project’s self-description. Their vastly and thoughtfully entertaining presentation, "Brecht: Call and Respond (an evening of three one-acts)" achieves that aim. Bertolt Brecht may not be an emerging theater artist, but the other two playwrights certainly are. [more]

PackRat

February 3, 2020

Writer and director Renee Philippi’s appealing scenario is simple, heartfelt and dramatic. It’s realized by Ms. Philippi’s supreme command of stagecraft that revels in theatricality. Designer Carlo Adinolfi’s awesome cutouts, handheld and shadow puppet creations individualize the animals with striking expressive details. Mr. Adinolfi’s stylized set pieces thoroughly convey the look of a rustic environment and his arresting projections visualize varying locales and the animals’ dreams. The production is enhanced by the perfection of Eric Nightengale’s atmospheric lighting and sound design. Composer Lewis Flinn’s energizing original music veers from jaunty to appropriately moody as it complements the piece’s actions and emotions. [more]

Really Really Gorgeous

January 31, 2020

"Really Really Gorgeous" has an often-amusing absurdist and surrealistic sensibility. Plot turns take on the illogical quality that exists in dreams or in kids’ games of “Let’s pretend.” For instance, at one point, Pen discovers that by curling her hand in a certain way, she can transform it into a magical ammo-firing “finger gun” that can be used as an instrument of destruction. This may seem like goofy stuff, but Mecikalski the allegorist has serious points to make here: about celebrity and despotism and about the swiftness with which the sentiments of a desperate, fickle populace can change. [more]

The Transfiguration of Benjamin Banneker

January 27, 2020

The show was conceived, directed and designed by Theodora Skipitares. Her treatment of these biographical details is that of a fanciful saga with the awestruck tone of a children’s book. There’s a neat bit involving Lt. Uhura from the original Star Trek in her red uniform on a miniature Enterprise starship, recounting meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. Skipitares’ thrilling staging is in concert with the witty elements of presentation. Many whimsical scenery pieces are suspended from the ceiling and are lowered and raised. [more]

Paradise Lost

January 27, 2020

When a playwright adapts a famous, well-known story for the stage the problem becomes how to tell it in a new way that makes it seem unfamiliar and fresh. Otherwise, why bother retelling it once again? Unfortunately, Tom Dulack’s "Paradise Lost," “inspired by the poem by John Milton,” retells the story of Lucifer’s fall from Heaven into Hell, and the eventual banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden without any surprises. Using only contemporary language, Dulack’s play lifts the skeletal plot of Milton but lacks the poetry, as well as those elements which made this epic controversial in the 17th century (rejection of the divine right of kings, embracing divorce and marriage equality, etc.) It resembles a Sunday Bible sermon or dramatization meant for youth. [more]

How to Load a Musket

January 25, 2020

An essay more than a play, with players as opposed to characters, "How to Load a Musket" is a racist diatribe that fails to make its points coherently. The costumes and appointments on the walls of a black box space say all that there is to say in a play that ultimately leaves one wanting for more. The scenic design by Lawrence E. Moten III is the show’s best asset. [more]

The Woman in Black

January 24, 2020

Fog wafting, an empty rocking chair moving by itself, blackouts, ghostly apparitions and crashing music are all part of the spooky fun in "The Woman In Black." Scary moments, intriguing hokum and laughter abound as this inventively presented British theatrical thriller plays out. [more]

Timon of Athens (Theatre for a New Audience)

January 23, 2020

On paper the concept should not work: scenes and characters have been cut, a Shakespeare sonnet has been added set to music, as well as a Greek song, and four characters originally written for men are played by women. Nevertheless, the streamlining of this modern dress production in the edition prepared by Emily Burns and Godwin makes this tragedy very accessible and eliminating subplots makes the play quite linear. The addition of women gives the play an almost contemporary feeling. The scenic and costume design by Soutra Gilmour for the first half of the play is simply dazzling, while the second half has its own visual display. [more]

17 Minutes

January 23, 2020

The play succeeds in large part because it begins in the aftermath of a school shooting. There are a few bits of dialogue describing the terror of the incident itself, but there is no onstage representation of the violence, nor any long, involved retelling of it. None of that is really needed, because the chaotic, nightmarish imagery of such episodes has become engrained in our imaginations over the years. Nor does the play aim to offer a solution to the mass-shooting scourge. Instead, it tells a simple—yet decidedly powerful—human story about a figure who is, paradoxically, both on the periphery of the incident and at its heart. [more]

Thunder Rock

January 23, 2020

It is not difficult to see what attracted Metropolitan Playhouse to Ardrey’s drama: its message that one cannot shut one’s self off from the problems of the world as the America First movement wants to do is very timely once again as in the 1930’s, and the refugees who appear in the play’s second act and speak of their hopes and dreams in the new land are a stinging rebuke to those who would shut the golden doors to foreigners seeking asylum in the United States in our own time. [more]

BOOM

January 22, 2020

Employing an impressive array of voices and mannerisms, and only sometimes augmented with a wig or article of clothing, Miller as “Narrator” impersonates numerous performers, personalities, and politicians of the era, voicing every commercial and even dubs his own parents in short video clips at the very beginning of the piece. “100 voices. 25 years. 1 man,” the publicity statement declares, and Miller doesn’t disappoint. [more]

Miss America’s Ugly Daughter: Bess Myerson & Me

January 18, 2020

More in the spirit of Carrie Fisher than Christina Crawford, performer Barra Grant chronicles her life and that of her famous mother in her engaging and smartly presented self-written solo show, "Miss America's Ugly Daughter: Bess Myerson & Me." Nostalgic New Yorkers will have their memories refreshed while others might be delightfully informed. It’s a harrowing, insightful and often very funny 90 minutes. [more]

Maz and Bricks

January 15, 2020

Created and first performed during the run-up to the 2018 national referendum that eventually led to the amendment's repeal, Maz and Bricks, a part of the Origin Theater Company’s 1st Irish Festival, hasn't suffered any loss of social relevance, because O'Connor is not a single-issue polemicist. Her play brims with many pointed ideas about modern Ireland, which, with greater and lesser success, are woven into a beguiling tale that follows its two titular characters on a Joycean ramble through the streets of Dublin, tripping up most significantly at the end when O'Connor shoehorns in a needlessly melodramatic coda intended to tie together a few loose plot threads that really shouldn't have been there at all. [more]

Love, Medea

January 14, 2020

The production is unapologetically irreverent. At the beginning, we see a masked Greek chorus wearing long robes, shuffling ever-so-slowly around the stage of the Center at West Park (the sanctuary of a Presbyterian church). The leader of the chorus eventually speaks to us in staid, stentorian tones from behind his gold mask. But soon the actors (all male) strip off the robes. They’re bare-chested, save for leather harnesses that look as though they could have been purchased from a local kink boutique. Costume designer Yuanyuan Liang obscures the men’s faces with black head coverings, giving them the look of hostage takers or executioners. [more]

Wild Dogs Under My Skirt

January 8, 2020

Speaking alternately, the six women talk of food, traditions, love, family, beliefs, ethics, dreams, abuse and New Zealand men. They speak of their dreams of a future and a better life. The language is earthy, raw, vital, colorful. Even without understanding every word, the gist is conveyed by the inflections and the performances. The evening includes song, dance, and speeches taken from passages in Avia’s book which are at times startling, revealing, amusing and tragic. They are sometimes presented like poetry, at others like dramatic monologues, and at times like choral reading. [more]

Or, An Astronaut Play

January 8, 2020

A lively cast comprised of Harrison Unger, Caturah Brown, Tay Bass and Jonathan Cruz not only deliver exceptional performances during the inconsequential "Or, An Astronaut Play," they also demonstrate physical prowess. Continually hauling props and minimal furnishings about during its numerous brief scenes, this ensemble heroically aid in realizing the transitions. Alas, their commendable efforts are stymied by an unsatisfying play. The biggest laugh is gotten by the sight of a 1950’s B-movie-type space explorer helmet made out of cardboard. [more]

London Assurance

December 29, 2019

Dion Boucicault’s "London Assurance" is still a witty and lively play after almost 180 years. With its farcical elements laid over a drawing room comedy plot, Charlotte Moore’s adroit production for the Irish Repertory Theatre mines the play for all of its humor and wisdom concerning the foibles of human nature and self-delusion. With a superb cast, Rachel Pickup is awarded the acting honors for her marvelous depiction of Lady Gay Spanker, a bon vivant who knows how to get the most out of life and other people. [more]

one in two

December 27, 2019

Leland Fowler, Jamyl Dobson and Edward Mawere in a scene from Donja R. Love’s “one in two” in [more]

Judgment Day

December 23, 2019

A product of the tumultuous thirties whose work was banned by the Nazis even though he was not Jewish, Von Horváth was particularly interested in social criticism of the middle-class and warnings about the rise of fascism. His major themes include tales of herd psychology and moral responsibility. By dealing with these timely topics, Judgment Day given a monumental visual production design by set designer Paul Steinberg in the cavernous Drill Hall at the Armory, the play seems as powerful and relevant as if it had been written in this decade, not 80 years ago. The production makes this expressionistic drama as contemporary as if this style were newly born. Starring Luke Kirby (Emmy Award for his Lenny Bruce in "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel") in the leading role of Stationmaster Thomas Hudetz, the play offers juicy roles to several of the minor characters. [more]

One November Yankee

December 21, 2019

Beloved television stars Harry Hamlin (L.A. Law) and Stefanie Powers (Hart to Hart) return to the New York stage in Joshua Ravetch’s "One November Yankee" which they previously performed at the Delaware Theatre Company, was initially seen in Los Angeles’ NoHo Arts Center Theatre in 2012. It is their star power which keeps this old-fashioned, rather sit-com-ish, interconnected triple bill as lively and as entertaining as it is despite clichéd writing and passé jokes. Playing three different sets of siblings all connected by one plane crash, they manage to be convincing in weak material. [more]

Greater Clements

December 17, 2019

Told in leisurely style, Greater Clements is about the decline (and possible fall) of the American dream. Hunter appears to be saying that this is a long-time coming and its roots go very deep. The play begins with a flashback prologue with Maggie’s son Joe giving a tour of the mine, describing the 1972 fire on the 6,400 foot level that killed 81 men including his grandfather. However, on the weekend that the play takes place Maggie is expecting Billy, her high school beau, a Japanese-American who took her to the prom, now a widower and who is returning to visit 50 years later. Maggie, now 12 years divorced from Caleb who left her for another man, may be at loose ends but this is possibly a new beginning. [more]

Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven

December 17, 2019

Besides Mr. Skittles, there are 18 other characters of different races, ages, genders and sexualities. They’re a cross section of the downtrodden and those involved with aiding them. Ex-convicts, the homeless, an Iraq war veteran, drug addicts, battered women and their children, social workers, staff members, law officers, a trans woman who incites divisiveness, and a wily Catholic priest who once threw a man off the roof of a building are all vividly realized by Mr. Guirgis’ supreme command of dramatic writing. Each one of these many figures are majestically fleshed out, some in great detail. Guirgis goes beyond offering a loving mosaic of character studies by gradually injecting a suspenseful narrative that reaches a bleak yet hopeful conclusion. [more]

A City of Refuge

December 17, 2019

The story itself has potential, yet despite the actors’ heroic attempts to bring truth to it, the script has its characters written to say and do so many unrealistic things that the core authenticity of what’s unfolding can’t be upheld. Physical and emotional boundaries get crossed in questionable ways, and unreasonable demands are made to unbelievable responses. Characters drop vague references and make mysterious insinuations, demonstrating resentment and distrust in each other without explanation. Understanding who is what to whom just takes too long to be revealed, and the audience must buffer so many mysterious references and unexplained pieces of information for so long that by the time the play concludes with a battery of accusations and revelations, the audience isn’t sure what’s happening and thrown up its hands in disbelief. [more]

The Thin Place

December 13, 2019

After pillaging Ibsen in "A Doll's House, Part 2" and lampooning the former First Couple for "Hillary and Clinton," vaunted playwright Lucas Hnath’s latest piffle, "The Thin Place" is a Wallace Shawn-style talkathon aptly dedicated to the late magician Ricky Jay as it’s an exercise in flimflam. There is more craft and profundity in the first season "I Love Lucy" episode “The Séance” with its immortal lines, “Ethel to Tillie. Ethel to Tillie. Come in Tillie.” [more]

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord

December 12, 2019

Alyssa May Gold, Rebecca Jimenez, Carmen Berkeley and Malika Samuel in a scene from Alexis [more]

The Gospel of John

December 11, 2019

After marveling at Ken Jennings’ power of memorization, one has to admire his ability to deliver the entire text of "The Gospel of John" with unwavering clarity and devotion to its meaning both as literature and as a Christian lodestone. An agile actor (and singer), Jennings (the original Tobias in "Sweeney Todd"), deftly tells the story of Jesus as seen through the eyes of John the Baptist. The actor roams about a simple raised platform in front of a rough-hewn back curtain made of wrinkled tan cloth. What looks like a handmade bench—a subtle reference to Jesus’ vocation?—completes the set. [more]

The Santa Closet

December 10, 2019

Houses on the Moon Theater Company’s delightful and earnest mission is to “dispel ignorance and isolation through the theatrical amplification of unheard voices.” "The Santa Closet," another one-man show written and performed by the company’s co-founder Jeffrey Solomon, doesn’t reach the lofty goals of some of his other plays; however, the newly updated, tenth-year anniversary production of this frothy, zany tale is nevertheless aloft with quite a few grins and chuckles. [more]

Harry Townsend’s Last Stand

December 6, 2019

Cariou is now appearing Off-Broadway as the titular character in playwright George Eastman’s slight though moving two-character work, Harry Townsend's Last Stand. Sharp one-liners, funny set ups and punchlines and wistful observations abound throughout Mr. Eastman’s effective familiar scenario. It is playwrighting at its basic best, delivering two hefty empathetic roles for actors to attack while delighting the audience. [more]

The Underlying Chris

December 6, 2019

Another way to look at the play is as the twelve stages of man and woman, going Shakespeare five more steps. Unlike Tracy Letts’ Mary Page Marlowe, in which the heroine was played by a different actress at each stage of her life, here we are asked to adjust to multiple versions of Chris whose name changes in each of the play’s 12 scenes: Chris, Christine, Kris, Christopher, Kristin, Topher, Christoph, Kit, Christina, and finally Khris. [more]

MsTrial

December 5, 2019

Prominent Georgia attorney Dep Kirkland “decided to listen to his own voice, and walked away from the legal field altogether to pursue his previously private dream of acting, writing, and directing...” This statement comes from Mr. Kirkland’s biography in the program for the play he wrote, "MsTRIAL." Its promising He Said, She Said premise is undermined by a disjointed structure and presentational flaws. Mr. Kirkland has come up with a viable plot, appealing familiar characters and expert dialogue, but his command of dramatic writing is shaky. It’s not the explosive legal drama it aspires to be, coming across more as a screenplay being workshopped instead of a realized stage play. [more]

The Half-Life of Marie Curie

December 4, 2019

Having won the 2014 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for "I and You," this is the fourth production of a Lauren Gunderson play in New York since then including her solo play "Natural Shocks" on domestic abuse which was produced in 100 American theaters in 2018. A specialist in biographical plays, her "The Half-Life of Marie Curie" is of particular interest in that it tells a little-known story of a very famous figure. It is also notable for the vivid performances of Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Faridany. Although Gunderson is not yet a household name, she has been the most produced American playwright since 2016. [more]

A Bright Room Called Day

December 1, 2019

Maddeningly alternating between being an absorbing historical drama and a grating exercise in self-indulgence, "A Bright Room Called Day" is author Tony Kushner’s reimagining of his 1985 first play. “It never worked” states a character regarding the play. It still doesn’t, but parts of it are entrancing. In contrast to his gargantuan two-part opus, "Angels in America," this runs a tolerable two hours and 45 minutes including an intermission. [more]

Fefu and Her Friends

November 30, 2019

While María Irene Fornés' "Fefu and Her Friends" is considered a feminist statement, in performance the play seems not to be very revealing about women or their positions other than the fact that the cast is entirely female. Set among the very rich in the 1930’s, the play is liberated only to the extent that the women have enough money to do what they wish. With its attractive sets and stylish clothes and the novelty of moving from one set to the other, the play seems to be rather a period piece than a statement of women’s lib. Unlike such all-female plays as Hazel Ellis’ "Women without Men," Clare Boothe’s "The Women" and Jane Chambers’ "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove," "Fefu and Her Friends" does not have a lot to say although it remains entertaining throughout. Of course, it is possible that a women critic might have a very different take on this work. [more]

The Young Man from Atlanta

November 29, 2019

Yes, Mr. Foote’s eloquent take on the souring of the American Dream has shades of Arthur Miller’s "Death of a Salesman," but with his idiosyncratic and powerful command of dramatic writing he creates a distinctive narrative. Looming over and central to the play is the implied and intimated notion that Will and Lily Dale’s unmarried son was gay and committed suicide. He had moved to Atlanta, taken a marginal job and lived in a rooming house, sharing space with a male “friend” who was ten years younger. This companion is an unseen though pivotal figure who perpetually contacts the grieving parents with shattering results. [more]

Other Than We

November 29, 2019

An old man who is an homage to Noam Chomsky is metamorphosed into an owl through the aid of a cloth mask and a print costume with a technician behind him flapping the wings, accompanied by thunderous music and ethereal singing. This bewildering coup de théâtre is the lame finale to the arid "Other Than We," the audience’s dubious reward for enduring and staying awake through its two soporific intermission less hours. [more]

Everything Is Super Great

November 28, 2019

Stephen Brown’s "Everything Is Super Great" is a small, unpretentious play about an American family in crisis. That is not a novel theme, of course, but "Everything" rises gracefully to the occasion. Brown demonstrates his considerable skill for creating characters you can latch onto and root for. Director Sarah Norris—along with a gifted quartet of actors—has gently and thoughtfully taken Brown’s story up a notch, finding colors that may not have been evident on the page but that augment the script nicely. The resulting production is a lovely thing to behold. [more]

The Crucible (Bedlam)

November 25, 2019

As produced by Bedlam in association with The Nora, Arthur Miller’s 1953 tragedy, "The Crucible," based on the Salem Witch Trials proves to be both riveting and relevant all over again. In the past, the play was seen as a cautionary tale about the McCarthy Era witch hunt that destroyed so many lives. Now in 2019 it becomes a story of truth and lies, fiction and fact. One of the judges refers to the situation in Salem as “this swamp.” In the age of Trump, Miller’s play has new meaning for our time. You could hear a pin drop during Eric Tucker’s unfussy production which becomes more and more scary as the Salem witch trials progress and the townspeople become entirely carried away by the hysteria. [more]

Confidence (and the Speech)

November 24, 2019

Political plots can be dry as toast. Hatem attempts to spice things up by crossing the genders of the actors playing Carter and young Cynthia; the convention is an interesting choice although it really doesn’t add any new light to the characters or story and is sometimes distracting. Not to worry, though, the script is smart, imaginative, humorous at the right times and keeps its audience interested. [more]

Virgo Star

November 20, 2019

Following a comically exaggerated shootout, the two men make out. A cowgirl and a Mexican woman get together. At one point performers blindfold audience members for a brief bit. There’s a hula-hoop dance number. Monologues detailing homophobia, racism and gay bashing are enacted. It’s all cryptic, edgy and well-executed entertainment for devotees of non-traditional theater. [more]

Pumpgirl

November 20, 2019

Told as a series of alternating, interlocking monologues, there is a "Rashomon"-esque quality to "Pumpgirl" that grows more obvious as the play's story comes into focus. Not only do the relationships between the characters subjectively deepen as they each take their turns speaking under lighting designer Michael O'Connor's isolating glare, but a life-altering crime is also revealed, one that is committed with stomach-churning cruelty. Though, unlike in the Kurosawa movie, its details are never in doubt. [more]

Fires in the Mirror

November 17, 2019

The Reverend Al Sharpton, Angela Davis, and Sonny Carson are among the two dozen celebrities, cross section of New Yorkers, and male and female integral figures of diverse ethnicities that are given astounding portrayals by actor Michael Benjamin Washington. These simulations occur during this bedazzling revival of conceiver and writer Anna Deavere Smith’s acclaimed 1992 solo play about the Crown Heights Riots, "Fires in the Mirror." [more]

Fur

November 13, 2019

Migdalia Cruz’s "Fur" (presented by Boundless Theatre Company at Next Door @NYTW) has the sensibility of a folk tale, the coherency of a fever dream, and the trappings of a horror movie. It’s an unsettling piece of theater. After you’ve seen it, don’t be surprised if it noses its way into your psyche and burrows into your personal dreamscape. This production, directed by Elena Araoz, is the play’s New York City premiere. (It debuted in Chicago in 1995.) According to Cruz’s stage directions, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles suburb, but the playwright isn’t necessarily concerned about specifics of time or place. In fact, the play seems to transpire in some shadowy corner of the collective unconscious. [more]

BrandoCapote

November 13, 2019

In 1957 Truman Capote disingenuously misled the legendary actor Marlon Brando into opening up to him under the guise of helping to publicize the soppy melodrama, Sayonara which Brando was then making in Kyoto. This now infamous interview caused quite a stir for its snarky tone and caustic observations about Asian women. In their "BrandoCapote," Sara & Reid Farrington have sliced and diced this article, added music, fanciful Japanese costumes and rather severely stylized choreography and come up with a fascinating theater piece. [more]

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf

November 12, 2019

Seven vibrant and diverse women of color take the stage and speak, sing and dance at the start of this shining revival of author Ntozake Shange’s landmark play, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide /When the Rainbow Is Enuf." They’re wearing costume designer Toni-Leslie James’ beautiful fluorescent dresses, each in a different color, and some have regal headpieces. The dynamic cast of Sasha Allen (Lady in Blue), Celia Chevalier (Lady in Brown), Danaya Esperanza (Lady in Orange), Jayme Lawson (Lady in Red), Adrienne C. Moore (Lady in Yellow), Okwui Okpokwasili (Lady in Green), and Alexandria Wailes (Lady in Purple) vividly perform Ms. Shange’s self-invented “choreopoem,” a theatre piece embracing poetry, movement, and music. Each of these magnetic performers brings distinction and individuality to their roles. [more]

The Black History Museum…According to the United States of America

November 11, 2019

Revolutionary War patriots Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Richard Henry Lee, John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin are eerily represented by male and female black performers wearing tweaked 18th century garb, half-white wigs and garish makeup. They’re on a raised platform sitting on period furniture and cynically thrashing out The Declaration of Independence with the aim of enforcing white male hegemony. This is the satirical wild opening of "The Black History Museum...According to the United States of America." It’s an immersive two-hour performance art piece performed all over the two floors of New York City’s HERE theater complex. [more]

The Michaels

November 10, 2019

Richard Nelson’s latest play, "The Michaels" (subtitled a “Conversation During Difficult Times”) is a thing of beauty. Low-key like his "Apple Family" quartet and his "The Gabriels" trilogy, it is Chekhovian in the best sense of the word: very little happens but life passes by. The characters who sit in a Rhinebeck, New York, kitchen (also the setting for the other seven plays) talk of life and death, love and desire, memories and accomplishments. They reveal secrets and ponder changes and ultimately make decisions. Not much takes place but then again all of life occurs in the course of the play’s two hours. [more]

A Life in the Rye

November 9, 2019

A seated actor dressed all in black wearing a beret beats a conga drum on a confined playing area. Other actors in period costumes sit at small cabaret tables and chairs as thick wafts of smoke envelop the stage. On the back wall is a white screen and from behind it is the shadow of a woman dancing. Such is the arresting 1950’s classic beat coffee house imagery director Joe John Battista conjures up for playwright Claude Solnik’s fascinating fantasia derived from the life of J.D. Salinger (1919-2010), "A Life in the Rye." [more]

Seared

November 8, 2019

As directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, the play is fast-paced and engrossing and the smell of garlic coming from the stage convinces us that real cooking is going on. The completely working industrial kitchen designed by Tim Mackabee is a wonder of economy on the small stage of the Susan & Ronald Frankel Theater at The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space as we watch many meals get prepared in record time. The flaw in the play is that Esparza’s Harry spends so much time ranting about his beliefs and requirements that he becomes both tiresome and unsympathetic. Harry may be an artist fighting capitalist necessities, but he also sabotages his own success. We eventually discover that he is not as ethical as he pretends to be even though he claims not to care about money – or adulations. And as none of the money in the restaurant is his, ultimately he has no say in what is decided. [more]

Dr. Ride’s American Beach House

November 7, 2019

Plays about lives of quiet desperation are difficult to pull off because you run the risk of boring the audience. Liza Birkenmeier’s “Dr. Ride’s American Beach House” has all the elements of a fascinating drama but as presented by Ars Nova at Greenwich House it is all about subtext and undercurrents which may go right over the heads of many audience members. Little happens but there is much tedious talk which is a cover-up for what goes unsaid. [more]

One Discordant Violin

November 6, 2019

What this team of artists has created is a serious piece of storytelling that is also a glorious treat for the eyes and ears. If you’ve figured that the show will just be a guy narrating a short story while another guy plays violin, you’re certain to be pleasantly surprised. [more]

A Woman of the World

November 3, 2019

Kathleen Chalfant adds another feather to her cap as Emily Dickinson’s posthumous editor Mabel Loomis Todd in the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman’s new one-woman play, "A Woman of the World," presented by The Acting Company in association with Miranda Theatre Company at 59E59 Theaters. Staged by Miranda’s artistic director Valentina Fratti with elegant assurance, Chalfant is both fascinating and seductive as this real life woman who in the 1880’s and 1890’s scandalized conventional Amherst, Massachusetts, with her liberated and bohemian behavior long before such goings on became acceptable for women – or men. [more]

The Catastrophe Club

October 31, 2019

Mr. Burnam’s futuristic conceit is engrossing and the theme of a repressed figure looking back at a more joyous way of life is potent. The present day portions are amiable but only fitfully compelling, so The Catastrophe Club doesn’t quite fulfill its striking premise. Reaching a polished and wistful conclusion, and with its site-specific presentation, it sustains its 90 minute length with interest. [more]

The Hope Hypothesis

October 31, 2019

The play’s title comes from Carew’s character. The “hope hypothesis” is the notion that, in our current environment, people have universally given up hope. Consequently, they are either attempting to destroy themselves or aiming to destroy others. That’s a fairly dire assessment of the world we live in, and one that Miller doesn’t strive to dispel. That she can project that kind of cynical outlook in such a sparkling entertainment is impressive and a bit unnerving. [more]

Monsoon Season

October 31, 2019

Vieh’s script is extremely clever in its telling two sides of a story completely by separate monologues. The dialogue is real and yet extremely funny, never revealing too much, allowing the audience to piece together what’s going on as the actors deliver their lines with impeccable timing and tumult. [more]

Bella Bella

October 31, 2019

Like a great many history plays, Harvey Fierstein's "Bella Bella" is as much about the present as the past, paralleling everything that's gone wrong now with what went wrong then. Unsurprisingly, it's also shamelessly biased, with the first word in the play's title apparently meant to be read in Italian as part of Fierstein's banally straightforward tribute to Bella Abzug, the feistiest of feisty 1970's New York City politicians, best known for her take-no-prisoners liberalism as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. One's enjoyment of the play probably depends on how prone you are to clap or hiss along with the rest of the unambiguously sympathetic Manhattan Theatre Club audience, even if it's only in your own head. [more]

Macbeth (Classic Stage Company)

October 28, 2019

There has been a recent trend to perform Shakespeare as minimally as possible and with as few actors as possible. However, the question arises what is gained? When the doubling of roles proves confusing so that when actors appear it is difficult to know who they are playing, what is the point? Here the two actors who play the murderers Macbeth hires to kill Banquo report to him and then take their seats with the guests at his banquet which is quite disconcerting. In Doyle’s version, Macbeth himself kills Lady Macduff and her children rather than his henchmen – so who is minding the palace? Antonio Michael Woodard, the young man who plays Banquo’s son Fleance, appears in this scene as Macduff’s son but we know we have seen him before. [more]

Fear

October 28, 2019

"The Cosby Show," "Home Improvement" and "Roseanne" are among Mr. Williams’ prominent credits as a television writer and producer. Williams also has had several plays produced and has directed a number of theater productions. Fear is in the venerable tradition of "The Petrified Forest" and "The Desperate Hours" with dashes of "The Bad Seed." It exhibits a technical facility for dramatic writing with its sharp dialogue delivered by its diverse well-drawn characters enmeshed in a suspenseful scenario out of French cinema. Lamentably, Williams doesn’t go all the way in rendering Fear’s classic whodunit aspects. It all plays out inconclusively and without satisfaction. [more]

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