Erin Darke

Kyoto

November 26, 2025

Unlike J.T. Rogers’ Tony Award-winning "Oslo" which handled similar material about the secret Oslo Peace Accord conference, "Kyoto" by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson makes little concession to its audience giving almost too much information and depicting too many characters, while being patently undramatic much of the time. However, the topic is so explosive that it carries its audience through its 11 conferences. (One hardly notices Natalie Pryce’s costumes so closely does one have to listen to follow the flow of the arguments.) One does come away with the knowledge these sorts of conferences are almost futile with each nation having its own agenda and limits to how far it will go even at the expense of other nations. It is almost remarkable that the Kyoto conference reached any consensus at all. The question now is how much of that was actually enforced by the signatories to the protocol. [more]

Vladimir

October 24, 2024

Essentially a cri de coeur, "Vladimir" desperately wants to answer affirmatively; however, Sheffer forthrightly acknowledges that it's a dangerously knotty road to yes, requiring Raisa (Raya in the diminutive form) to not only imperil herself but also possibly cause the deaths of others. In particular, passivity is the much safer choice for Yevgeny (David Rosenberg), a financial analyst who, despite having experienced virulent anti-Semitism while attempting to navigate the Russian educational system, helps Raya link that aforementioned suspicious tax refund to the upper echelons of Putin's corrupt administration. Like Raya, Yevgeny is not purely plucked from Sheffer's imagination, as he also possesses a non-fictional counterpart, Sergei Magnitsky, who, in a tragic similarity to Politkovskaya, savagely lost his life for having the courage to tell the truth about Putin's misdeeds. [more]

The Spoils

June 5, 2015

Can an obnoxious, sadomasochistic nerd be the central character of a play? This is the thought that will run through your mind as you watch Jesse Eisenberg’s third play, "The Spoils," being given its world premiere by The New Group. As it turns out if you knew Ben, the latest role Eisenberg has written for himself, you would probably run the other way. However, staged by The New Group’s artistic director Scott Elliott,"The Spoils" is absorbing theater and you sit riveted to see if Ben will get what he deserves. [more]