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Plays

Cowl Girl

August 12, 2023

Pee-Wee Herman looms large in Cowl Girl, now playing through August 27 at the Steve & Marie Sgouros Theatre of The Players Theatre. The play, written by Anna Capunay, began its life back in 2013 and this Off Off Broadway production started around the time Paul Reubens passed away. How could the playwright or the producers (Unattended Baggage) have known that their show would have extra resonance for fans? In fact, anyone with a deep fandom for nerd culture in general will be able to relate to this play, and most will be envious of the incredible collection of memorabilia on display. [more]

As You Will, An Unscripted Original Shakespeare Performance

August 9, 2023

It takes great skill and imagination to make an impromptu idea flow with conviction and commitment. And, so it is with the wonders of As You Will, a company of engaging, talented actors who invent Shakespearean “epics” from thin air, or more literally from the confines of the renowned, Off-Off Broadway theater UNDER St. Marks. The production is presented as part of the 2023 Little Shakespeare Festival. The actors/directors ask the audience to provide a name for a Shakespearian play that has never been produced, or written, for that matter, and from which they will spend 50 minutes creating, directing, and acting in whatever the title from the audience suggests. My evening was the wonders of "Julius MacHamlet," and, oh what a delicious dish served cold it was, if revenge be the name of the presentation. [more]

Wheel of Fortune

August 5, 2023

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]

Flex

August 1, 2023

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]

Lightweight

August 1, 2023

Lightweight, the cleverly titled one-woman play currently being performed at the SoHo Playhouse, shines an important light on the subject of anorexia, and who better to tell her own story with this condition than the playwright herself, Amie Enriquez. Enriquez has taken her serious challenges with anorexia and put them into an engaging script. She, her character of “Amie,” a lone anorexic among drug addicts in a long stay rehabilitation center, regales the audience with stories of her behavioral obsessions about food, being watched through an open toilet stall to make sure she doesn’t throw up, powering up on laxatives and defecating in her clothes being some of them. She can so barely contain her excitement when Natalie, a bulimic, is admitted to the rehab, that Jayne, the head therapist (who “looks like a walking Barbie doll… how am I supposed to learn to love my body from a Bond Girl?”) insists she give up the talking stick to Natalie. [more]

The Cottage

July 31, 2023

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]

Vermont

July 23, 2023

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]

Orpheus Descending

July 18, 2023

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]

I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire

July 17, 2023

Playwright Samantha Hurley does beautiful justice to the life and times (and the inner workings of the mind) of this early teen with not a lot going on but for her own fantasy world and self-importance in the face of neglect, emptiness and lack of love. Shelby kidnaps Tobey Maguire because she has figured out how to get it done. Trapped inside her house with the object of her affection she realizes “Be careful what you wish for” only too well. We watch her growing pains as we see the actor she traps come to terms with his own failure to make success bring him happiness.  In the end, they leave us with our own hearts full. [more]

A Girl Far From Normal

July 17, 2023

"A Girl Far From Normal" by Robyn Bishop-Marin takes us on that stroll down the lanes of her memory, and it is fearsome, delightful, heartfelt, wrenching, and funny. Matthew Harrison's direction allows Bishop-Marin to engage in a conversation with the audience. It is a technique that allows, as he puts it, for her "...courage, humility, and passion..." to shine and share some deeply personal aspects of her life. The play is, in a sense, a romantic comedy, in the grand tradition of those types of shows. Still, it is also a revelatory therapeutic journey into how the rom-com idea is a pale substitute for reality. It is a play that will take you on a journey into your places of light and dark, but do it with empathy and compassion for what a daunting trip can be. It will be worth your while to spend some time with Robyn. [more]

Chanteuse

July 16, 2023

The Nazis persecuted not only Jews, political opponents and its own, but also homosexuals.  Jews were forced to wear the infamous yellow stars; gays, the pink triangle. Alan Palmer, in his one-man show "Chanteuse" at HERE Arts Center, gives an intimate, heartbreaking look at one victim—fictional or not—that turns impersonal facts into passionate theater. [more]

How to Find a Husband in 37 Years or Longer

July 12, 2023

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 Doctor

July 10, 2023

Juliet Stevenson as Dr. Ruth Wolff in a scene from Robert Icke’s “The Doctor” at the Park [more]

Hamlet (Free Shakespeare in the Park)

June 30, 2023

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]

Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground

June 27, 2023

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]

A Simulacrum

June 25, 2023

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]

Wake Up

June 19, 2023

Spencer Aste in a scene from his one-man show “Wake Up” at the Axis Theatre (Photo credit: [more]

Freedom Summer

June 15, 2023

"Freedom Summer," written by Toby Armour and directed by Joan Kane, is a semi-autobiographical story of the playwright's experiences that summer as one of those students risking their lives in the cause of racial justice. It is an important story in the present time as the same "Jim Crow" racist attitudes that controlled the social and political structures of Mississippi in 1964 have come out of the shadows in an effort to restore the white supremacist mechanisms of voter suppression and control. Unfortunately, this play does not deliver the drumbeat of tension that a deeply felt sense of fear, bordering on terror, engenders. That type of feeling was experienced by the participants that summer. Sadly, this production does not well serve that critical, timely subject matter. [more]

The Comeuppance

June 12, 2023

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]

Wet Brain

June 11, 2023

Caswell’s dialogue for and wry observation of a family this dysfunctional is quite compelling. Scenes where two of the siblings verbally gang up on the third are fraught with humor as much as real-life situations. Communication is “at your own risk,” with each goading the other about their addictions, instigating full-on relapses at every turn. It is no secret this is a very personal piece for the author. The dedication to the play reads: ”For my father if he’s out there. And for my siblings.” It is a play as much about love and loss (and grief) as it is about the addictions that create chasms in a family. And it is a play that deep down reveals a family with a lot of heart. [more]

Fallen Angels

June 9, 2023

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]

Love + Science

June 8, 2023

As for the play itself, "Love + Science" tells a good story, even if not necessarily a new one. It’s largely another history of AIDS with a few scientific sprinkles thrown in. Where Glass’ script succeeds is in its characters and their determination. There are two especially poignant moments, conveyed by Melissa and Jane (both played by Williams), where they each confront Matt about how damaging his indecisiveness over owning his homosexuality is. And the scene where Jeff reproaches Matt for telling James that AIDS is 100% fatal is riveting. Lastly, it’s in the final scene where Glass’ play provides its most powerful message, when a now middle-aged Matt in 2021 compares the body count of AIDS to that of COVID-19, contrasting the swiftness with which the governments of the world produced a vaccine for COVID-19 where they have yet to create a vaccine for HIV, 40 years into the AIDS pandemic. [more]

The Shylock and the Shakespeareans

June 8, 2023

Einhorn has reshaped the dramatic elements of the original play to focus primarily on antisemitism. What he achieves is a show that highlights how the antisemitism of the 16th century is connected to the religious dogma of that period, with aspects of it extending to the present day. Although it is superficially faithful to the themes of the source, it is still a play that deals with the elements of prejudice, justice, love, and societal norms within the context of antisemitism. It is for an audience that enjoys a well-acted, thought-provoking story with a solid point of view. [more]

This Land Was Made

June 7, 2023

In its earliest scenes--as a Marvin Gaye record spins on the turntable, Adam Honoré's lighting design pairs naturalistically with Wilson Chin's meticulous set, and Dominique Fawn Hill and DeShon Elem's beautifully redolent costumes delight our eyes with vibrant patterns--"This Land Was Made" achieves an authenticity that makes you want to sit at the bar and order some lunch, too. Ironically, it's when Newton (Julian Elijah Martinez) and his comrade Gene (Curtis Morlaye) enter the story that the play's verisimilitude begins to come undone. Abandoning realism for audacious dramatic license, "This Land Was Made" turns into an intellectual showdown between Newton and Troy, with the latter becoming entangled in the fatal incident that led to Newton's imprisonment. [more]

Grey House

June 6, 2023

Eerie and irritating in equal measure, Levi Holloway’s "Grey House" at the Lyceum Theatre dredges up the classic plot device of many horror films:  strangers stumbling into a den of oddballs and suffering the consequences. The couple that does, indeed, invade the eponymous domicile, Max and Henry (Claire Karpen – subbing for Tatiana Maslany - and Paul Sparks, both excellent) actually refer to this conceit and even joke that the results are always bad. Sometimes this premise results in hilarity as in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and sometimes, as in "Grey House," it causes unintended hilarity for its obvious stunts (faces at a window, smoke emanating from a scary basement) along with some gruesome imagery, too bloody to describe here; but suffice it to say Henry, whose left leg is injured in a snowstorm-caused car/deer collision, suffers in a ghastly manner.  That the car was driven by his wife doesn’t help matters. [more]

King James

May 31, 2023

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]

Bernarda’s Daughters

May 29, 2023

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]

GAS

May 28, 2023

"GAS" by Charles Cissel explores the “never-never land” of a war without end. It is a time when the characters examine the unreality of the experience. It occurs within an ill-defined dimension resembling a bombed-out children's playground. Felicia Lobo guides the able cast through what is, at times, a complicated, multilayered story that ultimately fails to deliver the nuances of the script engagingly. [more]

The Fears

May 27, 2023

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]

Evelyn Brown (A Diary)

May 27, 2023

While the painstaking entry upon entry yearn to be something of import, we can’t help but feel it takes a certain steadfastness and desperate commitment to make the banal seem so extraordinary. This is where the brilliant attack of performance by Ms. Lauren as Evelyn, and Violeta Picayo as Evelyn Brown, come into play. Ms. Picayo can be thought of as the younger Evelyn, but the fact is they are both the same person usually on the stage at the same time, experiencing the same ennui. Ms. Lauren is the human map of a sometime wordless exploration of isolation. There is nothing secretive about it. We are witnesses to every one of her emotions as it makes its way across her face and into her beaten down yet stalwart physical life. Ms. Picayo sometimes has that innocent wide-eyed wonder that gets her through to the end of a scene, making us pity her for her stiff upper lip and beatific smile in the face of a life not well-lived. [more]

Primary Trust

May 25, 2023

Eboni Booth’s "Primary Trust" at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre is a genial, gentle tale of a genial, gentle young man and his difficulty negotiating the speed bumps of life. What keeps "Primary Trust" afloat is the light touch of its director, Knud Adams, who never lets Booth’s play bog down.  Rather than wallow in sadness, Adams permits the actors—all fine—to ride the gentle waves of their fates. [more]

Sorry for Your Loss

May 23, 2023

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]

Misconceptions

May 21, 2023

Abortion, pro or con?  The Blessed Unrest theater company has taken on this thorny issue. Steven Wangh’s "Misconceptions"—an ironically perfect title—unfolds in the form of a series of interviews which take us into every nook and cranny of the issue—pro and con.  It is by no means just a dry documentary or a blasting screed, but a warm, sophisticated and ultimately moving humanization of the subject. [more]

Samuel Clemens: Tales of Mark Twain

May 20, 2023

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]

Romeo and Juliet (NAATCO/Two River Theater)

May 20, 2023

And the production is loaded with action. Except for the tender love scenes, the play moves at almost breakneck speed. Where most modern productions of Shakespeare tend toward languor, this "Romeo & Juliet," skillfully directed by the playwright and her co-director Dustin Wills, fills the moments that traditionally let the mind wander.  A couple of back-to-back scenes that inform the audience, but with virtually the same content, are now played simultaneously. This makes the audience work more industriously to listen and separate out the conversations and Hansol Jung’s contemporary take on Shakespeare’s text make it that much easier to accomplish. [more]

Hidden

May 18, 2023

The play is structured as a mystery and that is being revealed with sensitivity and care. As each element is shown, a clearer picture of what is at stake emerges. A discussion in Act II about Hannah Arendt's work "Eichmann in Jerusalem, A Report on the Banality of Evil" triggers a conversation on the meaning of evil. This discussion of the idea of the banality of evil is the thought-provoking idea being acted out in the play: How does one judge what is truly good and what is truly evil? [more]

Muses

May 14, 2023

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]

shadow/land

May 14, 2023

"shadow/land" by Erika Dickerson-Despenza is a play about the August 2005 disaster, Hurricane Katrina. It is the first episode of a ten-part magnum opus. "shadow/land," though, is more than a play.  It is a painfully rich vision of what hundreds and hundreds of stranded rooftop denizens, so touted in the media, must have gone through behind the waterlogged walls of New Orleans.  It is the rare theatrical work that recreates the agony and frustration of a natural disaster that transcends the fourth wall, seemingly without artifice, so involving is the entire endeavor. [more]

Being Chaka

May 13, 2023

There’s no shortage of race-related storytelling in today’s theater and film arenas, and it takes a special entry to become seen among the offerings. "Being Chaka" is one such play; thoughtful, sensitive, and earnest, it weaves an exploration of racism throughout its distinct and intriguing characters, with compassion and without a heavy hand. [more]

Robin & Me: My Little Spark of Madness

May 11, 2023

Under the direction of Chad Austin, Droxler uncannily becomes not only Williams (and all of Williams cinematic characters who each serve up different helpful advice), but also his father Ed; mother Mary; and other characters, all, of course, just facets of his own persona.  He even conjures the comic actor Jim Carrey who, for a short time replaces Robin Williams as an ad hoc advisor.  Even Jack Nicholson makes a guest appearance. [more]

Good Night, Oscar

May 9, 2023

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]

Hong Kong Mississippi

May 5, 2023

From the moment he walks out with a stuffed “Disneyfied” dragon to tell us a fairy tale his mother told him when he was little, we are enraptured by Pinky, an 11-year-old Chinese boy growing up in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Written and performed by Wesley Du, "Hong Kong Mississippi" is a coming-of-age tale that speaks innocently, yet often in frank terms, of racism. And providing the real dose of irony, the only other character to experience a seismic shift in the play is the man who resents Pinky the most, a man who against his better judgment unknowingly becomes Pinky’s mentor and father figure he never had. [more]

Summer, 1976

May 5, 2023

Auburn (Pulitzer Prize winner for Proof) has a knack for writing complex female characters.  That knack hasn’t failed him in "Summer, 1976."  Diane, the lustrous Laura Linney, is an aloof artist/university professor who meets Alice, the warm and magnetic Jessica Hecht, a stay-at-home mom, via their very young daughters.  Alice’s husband, the unseen, but occasionally heard, Doug, an economist on the tenure track at the university where Diane also teaches, devised a babysitting co-op that involved coupons exchanged for hours of babysitting, a system that eventually breaks down quite humorously. [more]

The Knight of the Burning Pestle

May 3, 2023

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]

Peter Pan Goes Wrong

May 1, 2023

The Company soon loses its way as bunk beds self-destruct, lines get mangled, Peter Pan flails about in failed attempts to fly and crocodiles and mermaids parade about on skateboards. If this sounds like a normal production of Barrie’s classic tale, then I am telling it wrong. The main problem with "Peter Pan Goes Wrong" is that virtually all the jokes are physical, an unending series of scenic disasters that become not just predictable, but tiresome.  Even the great physical comedians of the silent film era knew when enough was enough. [more]

Prima Facie

May 1, 2023

The mesmerizing Jodie Comer, making her Broadway debut in the Olivier Award-winning best new play after starring in the genre-subverting BBC show Killing Eve, portrays Tessa (for which Comer also won an Olivier in her West End bow) with stunning fidelity to the pain she causes and endures. While the tension between these two aspects of Tessa's personal history eventually ignite a fervent reassessment of who she has been, who she is now, and who she should be, Comer never gets ahead of herself in the performance. Early on, as Tessa recounts, in predatory terms, conducting a cross-examination that frees a rapist, Comer convinces us, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Tessa not only perceives practicing law as a "game" but also is emotionless about the outcome, no matter the consequences for others. At this point, in hearing Tessa trumpet her job so blithely, the horror is ours alone, because, for Tessa, everything she's saying is just another day at the office. [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]

God of Carnage

April 28, 2023

The direction by Nicholas Viselli ultimately misses a key point in this plot, which is that Alan and Annette should be staged as perpetually trying to leave Veronica and Michael’s apartment. These two couples are strangers to each other; they are not friends or even acquaintances. Yet the staging plunks the four of them together with too much familiarity and intimacy. Their situation does not call for them to remain in each other’s company for so long, or for backrubs to be exchanged, etc.; it’s just not believable. The entire premise of the plot is made implausible by blocking and acting choices that should have been redirected. [more]

The Singing Sphere

April 27, 2023

I left with questions about what I had just experienced. It was not a feeling of dismissal but one of consideration for the experience. It was and is not a question of good or bad but whether it works or not as a play. The average theatergoer thinks "Waiting for Godot" or "Endgame" are bad plays because understanding them is not readily accessible. While "The Singing Sphere" is not an easy play to engage with, I think it does work, but it is for a select audience. [more]

Plays for the Plague Year

April 26, 2023

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]

Cellino v. Barnes: The Play

April 21, 2023

Where does one begin to tell the story of two manifestly successful lawyers who mixed professionalism with adolescent ideation? A case where one wants a career as a serious law practitioner and the other not so much. But they both want to make money, and they both have egos that want to be in the spotlight. I suspect that Mike Breen and David Rafailedes, the writers, performers and directors of "Cellino v. Barnes: The Play," asked themselves the same question in 2017 when they decided to write a humorous play about the creation and impending demise of the Cellino & Barnes personal injury law firm. Unfortunately, in their effort to find the broad humor in the partnership's creation and end, Breen and Rafailedes missed the mark. [more]

Muse

April 21, 2023

Tangredi’s script has some lines that could stand revisiting, but even in its lack of polish it does have good dramatic bones. Unfortunately, "Muse" fails utterly on delivery. Although the direction by Hazen Cuyler demonstrates some inventive staging in scenes which take place simultaneously in different times, it completely misses the mark by not insisting the actors listen to each other in earnest and find their dialogue organically. Thus, the acting is unilaterally unbelievable; the performances are stiff and filled with maudlin, melodramatic mugging and grandstanding. [more]

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]

*mark (A solo performance of the Gospel of Mark)

April 17, 2023

Fortunately for us, “Magisian” Drance is quite the storyteller. Under the reasonably succinct direction of Jackie Lucid, he spryly moves around the space, emphasizing parables with chalk drawings and applying subtle changes to his inflection, body language, and eye contact to make the various characters distinct. Intense and playful, somber and jubilant, he makes this story engaging yet simple, without the help of costumes, scores, and songs which allow shows like "Godspell" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" to thrive in the contemporary theater canon. The Magis Theater Company endeavors to share this gospel as it might have been done in older times, from start to finish and on the backs of its storytellers alone. [more]

Television

April 17, 2023

Bossert directs his own work here, thereby unfortunately removing any crucial distance from the material.  Where the story of the play and the relationships we see are engaging, the play-within-the-play enacted by Sandra and Barry is not. The narrative there is a sequence of conversations cut off by interruptions that neither add nor detract from the scene at hand.  The real-life interruptions by Wesli as the “director” unhappy with the way the scenes are moving are almost a relief from what the audience has just listened to. The fact that an entire town anxiously awaits each new episode is somewhat unbelievable unless they are truly desperate for diversion. [more]

Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight

April 14, 2023

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]

Regretfully, So the Birds

April 13, 2023

Silliness and whimsy can often be admirable qualities in a play, but not when taken to the degree playwright Julia Izumi has in her new work, "Regretfully, So the Birds Are," a co-production of and WP Theater and the Playwrights Horizons where the show has been well launched. "Regretfully," directed by Jenny Koons, centers on the trials and tribulations of the Whistler family:  mother, Elinore, in prison for burning her husband alive; Illy and Neel, brother and sister who want to marry each other; sister Mora the cynical third sibling; and Cam, the dead father who has morphed into a snowman. [more]

Bringer of Doom

April 11, 2023

"Bringer of Doom," written by Joe Thristino and smoothly directed by Mark Koenig, is a comedy about Lotte and her effort to exact revenge against her estranged mother, Esme, because of a public humiliation her mother inflicted. She uses an ex-comedian, Demetrius, or more precisely, a no-longer-performing comedian, as the waiter to serve her revenge, cold, but with a measure of spice. His job is to "roast" Lotte's mother with clever rejoinders and barbed put-downs when she comes for dinner at Lotte's apartment. He is to make her highly uncomfortable without causing her to leave. [more]

Smart

April 9, 2023

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]
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Copyright Jack Quinn, 2001-2026