Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams

Degenerates

October 25, 2026

Elsa Went’s last play "Initiative" was a five-hour epic about a group of high school students from their first day to graduation. "Degenerates," her new play being given its world premiere currently at Playwrights Horizons, is about another tight knit group, the incel community, that is young men who cannot find a romantic or sexual partner even though they want one. This three-hour play is difficult, challenging and has characters who are either unpleasant, unlikeable or extremely damaged. The play also includes much jargon (the script comes with a three-page glossary) that many theatergoers won’t know. Ultimately, the play is powerful and emotional but it takes quite a while to get there. These are men who consider themselves degenerates as they are unable to find a satisfactory relationship. It might be based on early traumatic experiences, bullying or low self-esteem. They have compared themselves to Chads (men who are attractive to women) and found themselves wanting. They are sure that the system is rigged against them and have stopped even trying to meet anyone. Some them hardly go out, while other contemplate suicide. [more]

An American Daughter

August 12, 2026

In "An American Daughter," Wendy Wasserstein approaches a topic still relevant: how American women in public life are expected to be perfect in all things while the men are given a pass for similar behavior. Notice that 29 years after this play appeared on Broadway, the United States has still not had a woman president. Unfortunately, the play is too schematic to be convincing and without enough humor to carry the story to its logical ending. While this production does not make a strong case for this as one of Wasserstein’s better plays, it is still possible that a future staging with a different cast might solve the current problems in this one. [more]

Call Me Izzy

June 13, 2025

Portraying the eponymous Izzy--or Isabelle per the formal preference of a long-ago teacher--the charismatic Smart earns our rapt attention throughout the play, though she cannot begin to overcome a first-person narrative that doesn't know that person particularly well. Wax, with journalistic straightforwardness rather than dramatic breadth, essentially reduces Izzy to a collection of abject sorrows and artistic inclinations, much of which Izzy shares while on a lid-down toilet seat in a locked bathroom. A grim sanctuary, it's where Izzy reads and writes poetry nightly, accomplishing the latter with an eyebrow pencil and a roll of toilet paper as her husband, Ferd, menacingly slumbers nearby in the bedroom of their Louisiana mobile home. [more]

Letters of Suresh

October 13, 2021

Although the characters never meet in person, they communicate mostly through letters that are spoken by the actors directly to the audience, and then halfway through the play, in texting which appears on the back screen as well as Facetime from across the world. Letters of Suresh is the perfect play for the pandemic as its characters are separated from each other across the stage as they declaim their letters, a reminder to all of us that without meeting in person we can communicate in writing. And the letters presented as monologues are never dry or dusty, but vibrant and revealing as if the other person is opposite you on the other side of a room or table. [more]

Katsura Sunshine’s Rakugo

September 29, 2019

Katsura Sunshine is the stage name of this charismatic 49-year-old Toronto-born performer who relocated to Japan and apprenticed to a Rakugo artiste. Mr. Sunshine eventually became a notable practitioner in his own right and has the distinction of being a Westerner. Sunshine is affable, animated and possessed of a pleasing fast-paced vocal delivery that demonstrates comic timing and dramatic heft with a Canadian lilt. This vocal expressiveness combined with his shock of jagged blonde hair, striking facial features that he contorts into a gallery of expressions enables him to command the stage. Wearing a kimono, kneeling at a small table and handling the hallowed props of a fan and a hand cloth, he evokes the genre’s essence with assured authenticity. [more]

Dragon Spring Phoenix Rise

July 3, 2019

Sometimes you don’t need a long, complex story — or even an engaging one — to hook an audience. At the showing of "Dragon Spring Phoenix Rise" at The Shed that I attended, audiences clapped and hooted for heroes and villains alike, despite being given no logical reason to do so. The heroes and villains possessed no distinguishing character traits, other than differing accents, and they voiced no discernible reasons to be fighting. The fighting was just that awesome.The visual bombast and fight choreography of "Dragon Spring," a world premiere Shed commission, are thrilling enough to recommend the show as an expensive diversion, at the very least. There are moments when the show’s production elements come together so spectacularly that they almost lift the rest of the show with them. Almost. [more]

Hold These Truths

December 9, 2017

With expressive and limber physicality, animated facial features, piercing eyes, and a smoothly resonant voice, Mr. de la Fuente vividly depicts Mr. Hirabayashi from youth to old age. Magnifying his towering performance, de la Fuente also plays a gallery of characters that include Hirabayashi’s parents, his friends, and American military personal as well as other incidental characters. His uniformly sharp characterizations are accomplished with ease, precision and depth. He is totally commanding during the play’s 90 minutes. [more]