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Lady M (Heartbeat Opera)

April 22, 2023

Heartbeat Opera seems to have found the way to separate themselves from the rest of the pack of alternative opera companies here in New York. Their way is to inject the standard repertory of grand opera with fresh ways of presenting the rich beloved scores. Enter music director Daniel Schlosberg, a Brooklyn-based composer-pianist who is their ingenious arranger for both Puccini's "Tosca" and Verdi's renamed "Lady M," and conductor and pianist for "Lady M." He arranges "Tosca" for a band of eight, "Lady M" for a band of six. Consider both of these Herculean feats with sumptuous results. [more]

Post-Pandemic State of the Arts 2023

April 22, 2023

Many Broadway shows are also exorbitantly expensive. While smaller productions such as Off Broadway or Off Off Broadway used to be a comfortable option, producers such as Cyndy and Thomas are finding it more difficult to find financial backers. They are also struggling to rebuild audiences that they had before the pandemic and build up new ones. Finally, they still suffer closures when an artist gets sick. According to an unnamed film producer, a similar situation arose for artistic films – many film houses that used to show such films closed right before or during the pandemic. For example, while the Paris Theater is still open, the Lincoln Plazas Cinemas that used to sit on 63rd and Broadway has closed. According to several artists, a further challenge is that the home entertainment industry that boomed during the pandemic is now stiff competition for any live entertainment or art film houses. [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]

An Appreciation of Todd Haimes, Producing Artistic Director of Roundabout Theatre Company

April 21, 2023

Roundabout, under Haimes' leadership, was noted both for new works and for revivals of older shows with strikingly new elements (like this season's gender-bending revival of "1776.")  He was the first producer to try livestreaming a Broadway show ("She Loves Me" in 2016). And somehow, besides producing lots of shows (and 11 Tony Awards), Haimes also found time to teach at Yale University and Brooklyn College.  The biggest change he saw in theater in his career, he said, was the change in audience composition, with Broadway growing more and more reliant on tourists. He said it bothered him that nowadays, in his opinion, so many theater ticket buyers preferred to see crap so long as a star they knew from TV or film was heading the cast, than see a better play with better (but not necessarily famous) actors. [more]

Camelot

April 20, 2023

Unfortunately, though Sorkin may have made this "Camelot" more politically correct, scientifically accurate and less supernatural, it is much less entertaining and magical than earlier productions and certainly much darker as well as less funny. Whereas the original 1960 Broadway production billed itself as “the most beautiful show in the world,” Bartlett Sher’s revival has an almost empty grey stage most of the time (designed by Michael Yeargan) and drab costumes from Jennifer Moeller. Although the cast has 25 performers, the court scenes always look underpopulated as though not enough courtiers have shown up and there is almost no pageantry which one expects for a royal court of the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages. [more]

Tosca (Heartbeat Opera)

April 20, 2023

Just when you think you’ve seen an opera so many times you can’t imagine it being told anew along comes Heartbeat Opera with a riveting take on Puccini’s "Tosca."  Director Shadi G. sets it as a thriller in Teheran, Iran with a cast of singers trying to get through a performance in defiance of the censors. The opera "Tosca" has always been set under a dictatorship of an authoritarian regime. It is usually set 1800 with the Kingdom of Naples’s control of Rome threatened by Napoleon’s invasion of Italy. The Heartbeat production underlines the usual terror with Irani police officers in shadows, hidden in stairwells and behind stage entrances ready to arrest the performers if they do anything outside the strict code of ethics and behavior in the Irani culture. This added layer to the story provides a lot of exciting running exits into the audience to avoid capture by the authorities. [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]

Shucked

April 17, 2023

In addition to a surfeit of approximate rhymes, the score for Shucked includes a paean to corn and a reprise of the following ready-for-Hallmark advice: "maybe love is like a seed/a little sun is all you need." Meanwhile, Horn blithely salts the earth with acerbic observations about how "marriage is simply two people coming together to solve problems they didn't have before." Foregoing any accountability for this philosophical inconsistency, director Jack O'Brien instead attempts to cover for it with turbo-charged pacing that not only sacrifices thought for an admittedly infectious energy but also, as a part of this devil's bargain, undermines the comic timing necessary for a lot of Horn's jokes to land properly. But the amiable cast never falters, even when the laughs do or the score becomes more saccharine than corn syrup. The cast is adept, too, at executing Sarah O'Gleby's inventive choreography on scenic designer Scott Pask's ramshackle barn of a set. Particularly enchanting is a rolling barrel dance that Durand daringly pulls off with impressive grace. It's just too bad that this delightful surprise isn't accompanied by many others. [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]

Life of Pi

April 7, 2023

"Life of Pi" is a unique theatrical experience with its animal puppetry, depiction of days on the ocean, and bringing to life an Indian city, circa 1977. It tells a fantastical story with brio and flair making use of all of the theatrical arts. With a cast led by Olivier Award winner Hiran Abeysekera, you could not imagine anyone else in these roles. However, the playwriting and the production do have their flaws which are eventually overcome by its theatricality and storytelling. Kudos to director Max Webster for orchestrating the production so well. [more]

Grief: A One Man ShitShow

April 6, 2023

For the audience, there is an ease of losing sight of the fact that what we are watching is a piece of theatre. Campbell is direct and warm and instructing and sensitive in this piece that he has written. He has the right amount of connection to the material, obviously, as this is a scene from his life, yet he creates the minimal distance from the piece so the audience doesn’t obsess over how maudlin the subject matter is. Instead, the audience can be enlightened by his path. [more]

Bob Fosse’s Dancin’

April 6, 2023

Perhaps it’s the difficulty of finding dancers who can perform the intricate, body isolation moves so emblematic of Fosse’s very individual style, but to those who know and experienced his brilliance when he was hands on, this cast is a bit too clean cut and even-tempered.  (The late Ann Reinking, a Fosse muse, was more successful staging her revival of "Chicago" still setting records on Broadway after moving from its New York City Center Encores! birthplace.) Nevertheless, Cilento is using a great deal of the original vignettes, excluding a few (most particularly Fosse’s perfectly ludicrous sexualizing of a ballet class) and adding more spoken lines, including an intermittent narration given by the charming, solid Manuel Herrera who also shows off his great dancing chops. [more]

Darkness of Light: Confessions of a Russian Traveler

April 5, 2023

"Darkness of Light: Confessions of a Russian Traveler," written and directed by Michael Mailer and Alexander Kaletski, is a story of an artist's journey from the restrictions of one political and economic system to the compromises needed in a more open and accepting system. It explores how a Russian artist, Nikolai Rodnin (Jonathan Glass), tries to hold onto the truth of his artistic expression while dealing with the material needs for survival. An important, subtle, and contrasting story is that of his brother Sergei Rodnin (Alex Yuille). [more]

Vanities – The Musical

April 5, 2023

Although the women grow up and change over the 26 years we see them, Heifner’s book tends to stay away from politics and the women’s movement other than mentioning markers like Kennedy, Nixon and Bob Dylan. However, the dialogue is bright and lively. The show is definitely a period piece ending as it does in 1990 but there are probably women who still live these lives. While in no way taking a feminist point of view, the characters do evolve and change over the years. [more]

The Harder They Come

March 31, 2023

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of its original film release, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has turned "The Harder They Come," the cult Jamaican film that starred later reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, into an exuberant stage musical now at The Public Theater. Led by British stage star Natey Jones and American Caribbean actress Meecah, the large cast does full justice to the new score which includes the ten songs used in the movie plus 26 other Jamaican and traditional songs, additionally interpolated ones by Cliff and others, and some with additional lyrics by Parks. There are also three original songs by Parks herself who when she is not involved with one of her plays fronts her own rock band. [more]

Iceland

March 30, 2023

Composer/librettists O-Lan Jones and Emmett Tinley have created what they refer to as “a re-Creation Myth” in this fascinating interdisciplinary opera theater work entitled "Iceland."  It is profoundly musical in that it embraces both opera and contemporary musical theatre by casting 12 opera singers as The Hiddenfolk and Mythic Beasts of Icelandic folklore and two musical theater singers who would be equally comfortable sitting on the Billboard Hot 100 as the two leads that are pushed together romantically over the course of 17 hours one New Year’s Eve in Iceland. [more]

Lunch Bunch

March 30, 2023

"Lunch Bunch" by Sarah Einspanier and directed by Tara Ahmadinejad is a rapid-fire comedy with farce ensemble timing in the service of a serious underlying topic, presented on a bare-bones set. It is about a group of overstressed lawyers in a public defender's office who think they have the perfect antidote for their daily struggles by sharing lunches. It is funny, touching, and worth experiencing the comic talent of the cast and the amazing flow of the story. [more]

Bad Cinderella

March 29, 2023

The book of "Bad Cinderella" plays like a series of unfunny "Saturday Night Live" sketches. Laurence Connor (who also directed the earlier London production) has given the show no particular style and each scene seems to be in another genre. The show can’t decide if it is taking place now - with its references to rock band Guns N’ Roses (parodied in the song “Buns ‘n’ Roses”),its use of both diversity and inclusion, a female Vicar, its erotic baker, reference to a “spare” prince, and its shirtless muscle hunks seen in the palace gym – or the Middle Ages. [more]

Best Friends

March 28, 2023

The Israeli Artists Project, dedicated to bringing the art and artists of Israel to American audiences, has mounted a production of Anat Gov’s "Best Friends," a zippy portrait of three best friends through the years.  The play, presented alternately in Hebrew and English, fits snugly on the stage of the Rattlestick Theater in the West Village. [more]

Parade

March 27, 2023

While Brown's tunefully varied score strives to historically situate the bigoted nightmare we're witnessing within the cultural context of the South's fabricated sense of nobility and victimhood, an offensive postbellum myth known as The Lost Cause, Alfred Uhry's reductive book ham-fistedly narrows our attention, transitioning from a corrupt law-and-order procedural in the first act to a preposterously scripted search for the truth after the intermission. Although Dane Laffrey's unremarkably fungible from-courthouse-to-prison-to-gallows set overbrims with historical figures, most of them exist on a character believability spectrum somewhere between "My Cousin Vinny" and "Driving Miss Daisy" (also written by Uhry). If not for Sven Ortel's rear-wall historical projections of these real people, an audience might suspect at least a few of them were invented out of whole cloth. [more]

Drinking in America

March 26, 2023

Some critics would say Eric Bogosian’s "Drinking in America" is dated, but that’s very much up for argument. The script given to critics for the new production at the Minetta Lane Theatre is marked “Tweaked Drinking In America Script For Audible,” all in caps actually. In all fairness, some of the “current references” particularly with regard to in-demand actor names bandied about in the scene entitled “Wired” are names clearly from another age. That could have easily been “tweaked,” if they really wanted to do that. References to Quaaludes in the scene “Our Gang” reek of history rather than current usage, but then again, is there an easy 2023 replacement for Quaaludes, a drug that was taken off the market around the time the play was first produced? Aside from those references, the twelve scenes that comprise the play remain shockingly topical for our era. [more]

The Good John Proctor

March 25, 2023

Unfortunately, Monohon’s play which takes its cues from Miller’s drama, assumes a thorough knowledge of "The Crucible" and leaves out a great deal of information that would make it easier to follow. For example, John Proctor’s name is never uttered by the girls even after Abigail goes to work for him and his wife in the play. Caitlin Sullivan’s direction is too tame by far so that the play is not very dramatic. The most exciting event, the trial itself, is left as an afterthought and narrated years later by one of the girls after her death. [more]

Trilogy II

March 25, 2023

"Trilogy II" by Garry Batson, directed by Evria Ince-Waldron, is three one-act plays depicting the struggles of African-American families faced with difficult and troubling events. The good and bad things that happen seem random or unfair. According to Batson, the common link among the stories is the clash between good and evil. However, except for "Fort Knox," the remaining two plays, "Flight Risk" and "Ill Winds," focus on aspects of good and bad, not specifically evil. For this reviewer, something evil is an extreme form of bad because not all bad things are necessarily evil. [more]

Arden of Faversham

March 25, 2023

The problem with this production is that although the characters’ behavior is utterly outrageous on the verge of satire, Berger has directed in so flat and bland a style, that shocking lines that should get embarrassed laughter fail to make any impression. Has Berger directed the play absolutely straight knowing that his audience is unlikely to be familiar with it? It would be more fun and rewarding if was as over-the-top as the murderers’ plotting. [more]

This G*d Damn House

March 21, 2023

The direction by Ella Jane New delivers this emotionally complex story with skill and sensitivity. There are only a few instances when the action doesn't entirely ring true, such as the opening scene when the brothers first enter the house. Gostkowski's presentation is somewhat distracted as if he is looking for the character's voice. Rysdahl is more in tune with his character at this early stage but is also somewhat flat in affect. They may be trying to bring out the awkwardness of two brothers trying to find their emotional footing with each other after a number of years apart. They find their footing as Act I progresses and deliver fine performances. [more]

The Hunting Gun

March 21, 2023

Not for everyone, this minimalistic theatrical event is performed entirely in Japanese with English language supertitles above the stage so that for non-Japanese speakers it requires reading of the text throughout. More’s the pity as Nakatani is a very expressive actress (having won six Japanese Academy Awards) and one doesn’t want to miss a moment of her performance. [more]

The Coast Starlight

March 20, 2023

When it comes to plot, characters, or often both, even the best theater tends to require a suspension of disbelief. Given that it's hardly a sucker's bet for indolent playwrights to pin their hopes on the lack of effort it requires an audience not to think, what Keith Bunin does in "The Coast Starlight" is astonishing. Taking its title from the Amtrak overnight sleeper that scenically services an ocean-hugging route from Los Angeles to Seattle, the play is primarily set in one of the train's coach cars, where the passengers, a group of strangers, are reluctant to break the silence between them. Mostly, like real human beings, they don't, or at least not when it might have done some good. [more]

A Doll’s House

March 19, 2023

Like Ivo van Hove’s pared-down revival of Arthur Miller’s "A View from the Bridge," Jamie Lloyd’s new Broadway production of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 "A Doll’s House" uses no sets or props and all black costumes for the entire cast. Going even further than van Hove, he has the heroine Nora Helmer played by film star Jessica Chastain seated almost for the entire length of this intermission-less three-act play. Using a new version by Amy Herzog recast in spare modern vernacular, this Doll’s House proves to be riveting and intense, even if you know the play very well,  focusing our attention on the dialogue, the acting and emotion, rather than the décor and the historical trappings of 19th century Norway as we usually do. [more]

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch: Água

March 19, 2023

"Água," making its American debut, created in 2001 during a residency in Brazil, is a work of great beauty, humor and creativity —and dishearteningly, an overlong dance/theater work.  Even the most beloved visitor who overstays his welcome, enervates rather than stimulates. Its series of discrete sections never congealed into a seamless whole, each, though fascinatingly staged and performed by this impeccable troupe, not making much sense even in the surreal world of Bausch’s imagination. As usual, Bausch combined speaking with movement, not pairing them particularly smoothly in this work.  Água actually began with a dancer speaking as she peeled and ate an orange, going on about a muscle cramp that caused her to leave her bed and gaze at the heavens through her window. [more]

The Conductor

March 18, 2023

"The Conductor," by novelist Ishmael Reed and directed by Carla Blank, is a play that uses the revival of the Underground Railroad system as a device to address several contemporary socio-political issues related to race and ethnicity. It is a show that directly addresses extremist conservative groups and their movements that seek to restrict and limit governmental and social actions used to address institutional inequality. Reed utilizes the result of a school board recall election in San Francisco as the basis for illustrating the insidious nature of these reactionary groups. [more]

Dear World (New York City Center Encores!)

March 17, 2023

"Dear World," the not terribly successful 1969 Jerry Herman musical based on Jean Giraudoux’s "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1945), was basically a vehicle for the brilliant Angela Lansbury.  It needs a star to pull off its quirky inconsistency and New York City Center Encores! has a gem, Donna Murphy, who, though under-rehearsed due to a Covid scare and carrying her script, gives a colorful and moving performance as its central character, Countess Aurelia. [more]

The Rewards of Being Frank

March 17, 2023

While playwright Scovell has a facility for language, she does not have the wit to mimic Wilde’s classic one-liners. Instead, she borrows expressions from the play and attempts to imitate the format of his humor. Lines like “It is imperative to be an attentive hostess, but never forgot that you are your most important guest” and “I’m glad to hear that your fervor for the truth is tempered by your humanity” pass for witticisms. Much time is spent on whether a wedding was “elegantly extravagant” or “extravagantly elegant.” The opening scene of the first act (and the end of the second act) is devoted to a discussion of cucumber sandwiches, which Wilde did justice to in his play and as such this comes as no surprise to an audience versed in the earlier work. [more]

Elyria

March 16, 2023

What makes "Elyria" intriguing is how its American location affects the hidebound ritual social rules of its Southeast Asian characters.  That all the characters emerged from an African diaspora that seemed to have little influence on their ingrained Indian culture only adds to the colorful rendition of an old-hat story. [more]

Crumbs from the Table of Joy

March 14, 2023

While this first New York revival of the 1995 "Crumbs from the Table of Joy" does not reach the heights of Nottage’s later Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, "Ruined" and "Sweat," it proves to be a very charming and competent look at growing up Black in Brooklyn during the McCarthy Era. Under the direction of Colette Robert, the fine cast holds our interest with this domestic comedy drama. Always engrossing, the play demonstrates Nottage’s ability to write about race, social change and economic deprivation in an engaging manner. Nottage proves to have been a very accomplished playwright from the outset of her career. [more]

Pericles (Target Margin Theater)

March 13, 2023

Director David Herskovits must have looked at this as a true labor of love, but not all of the touches support the hard work of the actors. In some of the early ensemble scenes, the actors put on exaggerated courtly poses. The poses do nothing to further what is going on dramatically;, they appear done just for the sake of being curious. But Mr. Herskovits succeeds with the handling of deeply humane and touching scenes. [more]

1+1

March 12, 2023

Eric Bogosian’s latest play to reach New York is his 2008 "1+1" which feels like a made for television movie written without taking into consideration the #MeToo movement that has occurred since then. While its Hollywood milieu of pornography, drugs, and easy money exists, this seems like a rather simplistic view of it all. Director Matt Okin, founder of The Black Box theater company of Englewood, N.J. which has coproduced the play now at the SoHo Playhouse, has done the actors no service allowing for a kind of soap opera acting. The minimalist production values undercut the discussion of the perks and glitz of the film world. [more]

War Dreamer

March 12, 2023

"War Dreamer" is a compelling exploration into the psychology of a female veteran who served in Iraq. It is a depiction of the struggles of a veteran to make sense of the memories, nightmares, paranormal events, and mental dislocations that intrude daily. Those experiences are more than a function of post-traumatic stress disorder. They result from a life lived in the alien world of war and all that is that experience. The play is a frighteningly accurate presentation of the process that some veterans must navigate as they try to return to a "normal" life. Written by Leegrid Stevens, "War Dreamer" has a storyline that is not straightforward in time and place. It is disconnected from a regular flow of action, with jumps in time, place and reality. However, he skillfully keeps the audience guessing what is real and what is not without losing the story's underlying thread. Stevens makes the audience both witness and participant as he brilliantly weaves his story of trauma and disassociation. [more]

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

March 11, 2023

While it may have appeared a huge gamble to mount this 'Cat" again, the results are so well worth it. While other productions of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" have been mounted as star vehicles for actors whether they were right for the roles or not, this new Ruth Stage production brings it back to what the playwright originally intended – an incredibly solid ensemble piece. Here we see it as we’ve come to know it – one of the finest American plays of its generation. It is unequivocally a must-see! [more]

Public Obscenities

March 11, 2023

Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s "Public Obscenities" having its world premiere at the Soho Rep is an immersive story into Bengali culture in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta. Directed by the author in 12 episodes which are given chapter names, this two hour and 50 minute play is as much like a television mini-series as it is a family saga. The realistic production resembles a film as much as it is possible on a stage with our attention being guided to various alcoves as though they were film cuts on the remarkable setting by the collective dots. The play is challenging as the first long extended scene is mainly in Bangla, the language of Kolkata, without supertitles. While the rest of the play is translated when it is bilingual, the dialogue is studded with Bangla words which are left up to the audience to figure out. [more]

I Love My Family, But…

March 10, 2023

The show is billed as a musical, but it is more concert than play, strong in music and weak in the storyline. The songs cover a lot of emotional ground, many with a humorous edge, but the book only provides a slim dramatic structure for the characters' actions. What is missing is more detail about who the characters are and for what reason we should care about the events being depicted. The dialogue is more of an introduction to the songs than a dramatic link to the overall story. [more]

Fall River Fishing

March 7, 2023

Absurdist to an increasingly ho-hum degree, Szadkowski and Knox let their imaginations run amok with silly speculations about pre-double-homicide life in the Borden household that are punctuated by head-scratchingly anachronistic jokes involving Tinder, Cabbage Patch Kids, John Belushi, and whatever other free associative references apparently sprung to mind during their no-doubt personally enjoyable writing sessions together. The problem is that Szadkowski and Knox are incapable of bridging the gap between their evident fun and our actual entertainment, an obnoxious shortfall made cringe-worthy by the fact that they both star in "Fall River Fishing." For the charitable among us, I suppose, seeing Szadkowski and Knox delivering their own unfunny dialogue might compel a forced giggle, especially in such close downtown quarters. But theater is expensive and time is fleeting, so a lack of chortling generosity is also perfectly understandable. [more]

The Trees

March 7, 2023

Borinsky’s dialogue is filled with colorful, quirky lines which are often funny and entertaining, but the entire script borders on absurdity without a cohesive through point. There are a handful of lines which carry a promise of meaning, but most are tossed into the air like tweets, missing connections and lacking purpose. There’s a passage inspired from ​Deuteronomy 20:19, which, if it’s supposed to be the inspiration for the plot, stands alone as one of the few sage moments in the story. [more]

The Best We Could (a family tragedy)

March 6, 2023

Hands down Emily Feldman’s "The Best We Could (a family tragedy)," at the Manhattan Theatre Club, wins the most ironic title of the year.  Not one character does the best he or she could in this heart-twisting five-actor drama. The play details the long, slow descent of a family, cushioned only by an occasional jest and buoyed by the intensely moving acting by the ensemble with Frank Wood standing out in a superb demonstration of artistry. [more]

LOVE

March 6, 2023

Alexander Zeldin’s "LOVE" seems much longer than it actually is due to much silence and the reenactment of everyday tasks usually skipped onstage in plays. There is little dialogue and what there is tends to be rather ordinary talk about daily living. The play mainly works as a sort of experiment in the way that the Federal Theatre Project dramatized burning issues in the 1930’s. However, the play is a valuable record of life in a shelter using a documentary approach so real that it makes us feel like voyeurs. While the title remains unexplained, by the end each of the adult characters get to say it as a reminder that they have the backs of the others. [more]

Letters from Max, a ritual

March 4, 2023

When a tall, lanky Max Ritvo entered Sarah Ruhl’s playwrighting class at Yale, she knew this was no ordinary 20-year-old student. Self-described as a poet with a sense of humor, he managed to capture her heart, and she remained forever changed. "Letters from Max, a ritual," now being presented by Signature Theatre, is not just a collection of correspondence between the two, but a document of a deep emotional bond between two creative souls that can’t even be severed by the untimely death of one of them. [more]

The Seagull/Woodstock, NY

March 3, 2023

Aside from the problem of which translation from the Russian to use, the  thorny problem with American productions of the plays of playwright Anton Chekhov is how to deal with the fact the author himself called them comedies but everyone from his early director Konstantin Stanislavski on has seen them as tragedies. Playwright Thomas Bradshaw has neatly solved both problems: in his new adaptation renamed "The Seagull/Woodstock, NY" which recasts the play as an updated modern comedy, he also made the play a very funny satire of today’s culture vultures, thespians and the literati. His version in which all of the names have been Anglicized makes Chekhov’s turn-of-the-last century play very accessible to contemporary audiences which is not often the case with Chekhov adaptations - without making drastic changes. In doing so, it makes whatever parody there was in the original of theater and literary icons of Chekhov’s time now understandable to today’s audiences due to updated references they can recognize. [more]

Becomes a Woman

March 1, 2023

Originally entitled "Francie Nolan," the same as the title character of her later "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," but unrelated to that story except for sharing its Brooklyn setting, the play does incorporate anecdotes and scenes that would later appear in Smith’s novels. "Becomes a Woman" is uneven in tone, with a first act that is comedic, a second that is melodramatic, and a final act that is dramatic. On the one hand, the play is now a period piece depicting strict mores and values that have loosened up a great deal; on the other hand, much of its cavalier treatment of women is still unfortunately true today. While the first two acts resemble a great many films and plays of the 1930’s concerning fallen women, it is the third act which is progressive and ahead of its time, so much so that it may have scared off the all-male producing fraternity of those days. While the women are beautifully written, the male characters are undeveloped and not believable. As a result, the acting is the same with the best performances by the actresses and some unreal work by the men. [more]

A Bright New Boise

February 28, 2023

The second play of Samuel D. Hunter’s residency at Signature Theatre is the first New York revival of his 2011 Obie Award winning 'A Bright New Boise," not seen by too many people in its short schedule run at The Wild Project in the fall of 2010. Oliver Butler’s production is a taut drama with rising tensions throughout until the climax. At first appearing to be a workplace drama set in big box store breakroom, the play turns out to be a meditation on faith, relationships and expectations. The ensemble cast is excellent and makes this a riveting piece of theater. The title is ironic in that all of the characters are going through crises and do not see the promise of a new world, in fact, they are mostly pessimistic about the future. [more]

Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany

February 28, 2023

Garner is a wonderful actor, shifting easily and subtly from one character to another, her voice, posture and gestures are just right. She avoids being maudlin and thereby makes her narrative even more heartbreaking.   Even when Eleanor is reunited with her favorite apple tree back in New Jersey, she hits just the right note of sweetness and hope. [more]

Conversations After Sex

February 28, 2023

Setting aside societal shame and judgment, anonymous sexual encounters have their benefits. If the chemistry works, then there’s the immediate gratification in the form of pleasure. If the connection isn’t perfect, then deciding to make a quick exit (either before or after the experience) can be awkward, as well as deciding whether a “repeat” is in order. A bigger question which might come to mind is why does a person choose an anonymous “quickie” over getting to know someone first? Are they looking for validation, or avoiding fears of loneliness, commitment, or rejection? Are they wearing anonymity like armor? Such thoughts come to mind as Mark O’Halloran’s swift and engaging play “Conversations After Sex” unfolds, a collection of scenes in which the unnamed character of “She” (played by Kate Stanley Brennan) engages in post-coital dialogues with several different men she has met on-line, in bars or in passing (all portrayed by Fionn Ó Loingsigh). [more]

Kissing the Floor

February 26, 2023

The ensemble in this show does an outstanding job. Christina Bennett Lind as Annie gives us a direct and well executed view of a frightened, emotionally conflicted woman amid a psychological breakdown. Wilson convincingly plays Izzy, showing us a character who appears balanced and somewhat detached from the emotional conflict but still leaves room for questions about what may be behind that stable, rational façade. Eckert, as the Warden, plays a crucial part as the bridge to the understanding of the show's central theme and later provides a path to the ending. Finally, Ingulsrud is both Paul and Eddie, presenting characters who, although growing up together, developed radically different reactions to the dysfunction that was and is their family. His embodiment of the disturbed mental state of Paul is exceptional, as is his detached, somewhat arrogant depiction of Eddie. [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]

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]
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