Off-Broadway

A Man Among Ye

July 3, 2024

"A Man Among Ye" is episodic, with flashbacks and confusing dialogue. It is filled with sword fights, sea shanties, revenge plots, mermaids, witches, and mythical creatures. As a highly stylized dark comedy, it misses more than it hits. Despite the claims that it is based on a true story, it is mostly fiction and fantasy and lacks consistent explication. It needs a more straightforward, consistent storyline, and, in several cases, there is superficial character definition and development. The cast does a respectable job of trying to make sense of a show that doesn't know what it wants to be. [more]

cunnicularii

June 30, 2024

"cunnicularii," beautifully written by Sophie McIntosh and sensitively directed by Nina Goodheart, is a fantasy that deals with many of the adjustments in attitudes and perspectives encountered by new parents. It is a fable focusing on the sometimes overwhelming physical and emotional issues faced by mothers on their first time into the world of motherhood. It is a beautifully realized drama, both funny and serious. If you enjoy good theater, with solid acting, it will be very much worth the effort to see this production. It will only be around for a short time, so make the time to see it. [more]

Ella the Ungovernable

June 26, 2024

David McDonald has discovered onto an obscure and interesting story: 15-year-old Ella Fitzgerald’s incarceration in the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, after her mother was killed crossing the street, and her miraculous escape from it. While little is known of her life during this period, McDonald calls his play "Ella the Ungovernable" “speculative fiction.” As co-directed by actress Michele Baldwin (who plays Ella’s mother Tempie, short for Temperance) and the playwright, the play feels a bit long without an intermission. [more]

Isabel

June 25, 2024

"Isabel" is a story written by reid tang and directed by Kedian Keohan. It uses various stylistic techniques to tell the story of a trans sibling relationship. It has elements of dark comedy mixed within a dramatic arc of psychosexual exploration of gender, all wrapped within a framework of dark mystery but without a clear point of view. The performances are uneven, the “smoke” special effect is distracting, and the staging misses defining the locales of the scenes. The production comes across as more of a dress rehearsal than a fully-realized staging. [more]

The Welkin

June 24, 2024

It is the first year that Haley’s comet has been predicted. Sally Poppy, trapped in a loveless marriage at age 21, has committed a murder with her lover of a child from a rich family she has worked for. She has been sentenced to death by hanging and then to be anatomized (you really don’t want to know). However, she has declared she is with child. If it is true, she will be deported to America after the child is born. But is it true? Twelve local matrons have convened in an unheated upper room of the courthouse to decide on the truth of her statement, from women who know her to be a liar, to those who pity her hard life, from older women with many children, to young ones about to have their first child, from a gentlewoman down to a simple farmer’s wife. The central character is Elizabeth Luke (played by film and television star Sandra Oh), the local midwife who does not wish to see injustice occur. She has brought Sally into the world but though she doesn’t know her since, she feels that the all-male court has not given her a fair chance. On the opposite side is Mrs. Charlotte Cary, a colonel’s widow who is convinced from private knowledge that Sally is a bad one and could be guilty of any crime. [more]

The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

June 19, 2024

"The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century" is a tone-poem play adapted by Lauren Holmes and Jaclyn Biskup from a novel of the same name by Danish poet and novelist Olga Ravn (translated by Martin Aitken). Biskup directs an ensemble of four who portray multiple crew members on a spaceship sent to search for a new planet for the people of Earth. The novel's structure of narrative reports to tell a story about the human condition, the future of work, and the ills of late-stage corporate capitalism does not transfer well to a dramatic stage presentation. [more]

Tomorrow We Love

June 18, 2024

The play is framed, movie style, by a trial of the leading character, so that the bulk of the play becomes a flashback to what led up to it. However, the show which is occasionally amusing is too dependent on name dropping and 1950’s references: "Leave It To Beaver," "Dragnet," Sputnik, Charles Atlas, Jack LaLanne, Flannery O’Connor, James Bond, Geritol, Jane Wyman, Henny Youngman, "Valley of the Dolls," Jack Kerouac, and quotes from "Damn Yankees," "South Pacific" and "A Star is Born." While the sound design by Morry Campbell is often witty with snatches of the themes from "Written the Wind," "A Summer Place," "West Side Story" and Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, much of the exaggeration is too farfetched without being remotely believable: Farley refers to his ex-wife Lena Horne and claims to have been brought up at The White House by President Calvin Coolidge and his wife. [more]

Push Party

June 14, 2024

"Push Party" is a story by Nia Akilah Robinson that reaches into the supportive community spirit that celebrates a woman’s status as a mother, independent of a child or children. It is a story that explores the relationships of a group of friends as they gather to celebrate the impending birth of a new child to one of their numbers, but in this case, a child that has been born but is not yet in the arms of her mother. It would be a relatively simple story if that were the only focus, but Robinson gives something much more with socio-political commentary on the conditions under which pregnant women must endure in a patriarchal society, and most especially, women of color. [more]

Midnight Coleslaw’s Tales from Beyond The Closet!!!

June 12, 2024

Perhaps "Midnight Coleslaw’s Tales from Beyond The Closet!!!" ’s tagline “an evening of boner-chilling terror” was not meant to be a typo. The premise of an evening of one-act plays that explore queer culture and perspective through (low) comedy and the macabre could be entertaining, if only the end result had enough macabre to fill out the evening. One act gives a truly creepy story of a young couple falling for a chair that appears to be made of human skin with a gender all its own that pleases both members of the heterosexual couple. The second act finds a lesbian couple on the eve of one of them turning her mother over to an assisted living facility. She in turn is haunted by the ghost of her long deceased father as the couple ready the mother’s house for sale. The last act is for the most part a monologue of a gay man that may or may not be celebrating his last birthday on earth. [more]

Party Clown of the Rich and Famous & The Hungry Mind Buffet

June 7, 2024

There’s so much fascinating material in "Party Clown of the Rich and Famous" and its companion compendium of four short works, "The Hungry Mind Buffet" that it pains me that the works aren’t presented with classier production values, unfortunately a reality in cash-strapped Off-Broadway presentations. Even so, the evening offers much to savor. [more]

Breaking the Story

June 6, 2024

The dialogue is smart and sophisticated. The author’s unfocused theme seems to be the conflict between Marina and Nikki as to journalistic ethics. Marina believes in reporting the story whatever it is and let the audience decide. Nikki only reports on people and stories she can champion not wanting to give an outlet to evil-minded people. (There is something to be said for both points of view.) However, Scheer doesn’t take this argument very far and drops it quickly each time the two reporters clash without a resolution. The playwright also flirts with the idea that the danger of her work is adrenaline for Marina who couldn’t live without it, rather than just obtaining and breaking the story. Aside from the obvious meaning of the title, Nikki wants to name her podcast on Marina “Breaking the Story: The Life of Marina Reyes.” [more]

How to Eat an Orange

June 4, 2024

This is the story of Claudia Bernardi, a visual artist and activist, as told in a one-woman show, "How to Eat an Orange." It tells of Bernardi’s time growing up in Argentina in the profound gloom of the military junta and the stories of the “desaparecidos,” the missing ones. It was written by Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American playwright who traveled to and wrote plays about human rights conflicts in countries worldwide. She brings a first-hand narrative understanding of what Bernardi experienced during and after the time of the junta and her work in other countries with this collection of desaparecidos' stories. [more]

The Opposite of Love

June 3, 2024

Ashley Griffin’s "The Opposite of Love" is not afraid to tackle questions of sex, intimacy, abuse and suicide. It does so with great sensitivity and delicacy. It is as though the author does not want to frighten off those who have similar problems. However, it is this very timidity that makes the play feel so tame, as though not only are the actors awkward around each other but the author is too coy with her material. However, the actors and the direction always hold our attention even when the subtext is left to the audience. [more]

The Fires

May 28, 2024

Raja Feather Kelly, an award-winning choreographer of recent Broadway musicals "A Strange Loop" and "Lempicka," as well as "Teeth," the recent Playwrights Horizons success imminently getting a commercial Off-Broadway run, makes his debut as a playwright with "The Fires," a work drenched in sorrow. The play examines three, actually four, Black men who inhabit the same third floor South Brooklyn railroad apartment in vastly different eras: 1974, 1998 and 2021. [more]

All of Me

May 24, 2024

Laura Winters’ "All of Me" is a lively rom-com of rich boy meets poor girl much on the lines of 1930’s film comedies. However, the new wrinkle here is that Lucy is disabled using a motorized scooter and a text-to-speech Augmentative and Alternative Communication device to speak, while Alfonso uses a motorized wheelchair and also uses an AAC device to speak as well. Both are independent people though Lucy needs a great deal of help while Alfonso’s wealth gives him staff to take care of his needs. They would seem a perfect fit for each other except that their mothers don’t think so. Ashley Brooke Monroe’s production is spirited and animated. What she cannot overcome in the smart and nimble dialogue is the delay in the response time using AAC devices so that there is an unavoidable pause between the responses in the repartee. Another problem is that though the main characters are played engagingly by Madison Ferris and Danny J. Gomez, the rest of Lucy’s dysfunctional family seems clichéd and familiar. [more]

A Groundbreaking Achievement of Outrageous Importance That People Scroll By, Barely Impacted

May 23, 2024

Playwright Jake Shore has something serious on his mind but his scatter-shot take on Artificial Intelligence does not make the case. The repetitious dialogue and events only undercut the intended satire. The attempts at humor like “You just make sure to tell the cell phone you’re dating that I’m excited to meet her,” “Love is like … a charcuterie board. All different types of pretzels and cheeses … and crackers,” and “I think I want to triple major in English, Math and Non-human Biologics” are neither funny nor absurd enough to count as satire. The acting and directing style fail to elevate all this to a level of farce or lampoonery. There is a very important play to be written about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence but this isn’t it. [more]

Jimmy Tingle: Humor and Hope for Humanity

May 21, 2024

Watching Jimmy Tingle is like encountering a fascinating guy at a bar : you listen, you're engaged, you're just enjoying the ride. Tingle has been at it a long time, and he has stories to tell as well as political takes on events past and present. In his 60 Minutes II segment, he discusses the possibility of a presidential candidate Donald Trump, sounding prescient since this is many years before it actually happened. [more]

Just Another Day

May 20, 2024

Dan Lauria’s "Just Another Day" is quite leisurely in its delivery but Lauria and McCormack inhabit their roles. While the play could use some pruning, it is a charming portrait of two elderly people drifting into an age when they cannot count on their memories but know that there is something important they wish to recall. Their hidden backstories and their changing recollections at times make this play like a mystery as well as a comedy. "Just Another Day" is a tribute to those people old enough to know that their pasts are slipping away unless they can pin them down. [more]

The Actors

May 20, 2024

Ronnie Larsen, Allen Lewis Rickman and Jeni Hacker in a scene from Larsen’s “The Actors” at [more]

Small Acts of Daring Invention

May 15, 2024

If the play's goal is to pay homage to Wright, it misses the mark for most audiences. If one is unfamiliar with Wright, most of the symbols revealed in the play will not be understood in terms of her life story. This fact is not necessarily a distraction from the action since the play provides a suitable level of mystery, imagination, and surprise, resulting in an entertaining but possibly unsettling experience, starting with the opening and carrying through to a satisfactory ending, all without spoken dialogue. [more]

Bettye and the Jockettes Spinning Records at the Holiday Inn

May 15, 2024

Christie Perfetti Williams’ genial new play "Bettye and the Jockettes Spinning Records at the Holiday Inn" transports the audience back to the moment Elvis Presley became an international star via his appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in July 1956. Working at the tiny all-female Memphis radio station, WHER, tucked off the lobby of a Holiday Inn, Bettye (Heather E. Cunningham) is devoted to spinning jazz records and does the occasional interview. She is not a fan of Presley’s music but is given the assignment of interviewing him, a task made all the more important for the station now that Presley’s career is about to zoom into the stratosphere. [more]

October 7

May 13, 2024

The play, taken by Phelim McAleer from witness accounts in interviews performed by Ann McElhinney and McAleer in Israel in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, is incredibly powerful, if a bit relentless. It opens with people dancing at what we learn is the Nova festival, one of the sites of the October 7 attacks. Told mostly in direct address monologues, the cast is uniformly excellent, and quick costume changes keep things moving (the simple but effective costume design is by Sara Tzipi bat Devorah). It's difficult to call out any cast member in particular but Paul Louis and Jeff Gurner do nice work as people who go out of their way to help others. Geoffrey Cantor, best known as an actor, does a terrific job staging a complicated narrative. He should get more directing work. [more]

Jordans

May 12, 2024

In fact, the play which ought to be hilarious is almost devoid of jokes as the premise which is politically incorrect will make many white playgoers uncomfortable – unless this is the point of the play. As the setting is an event space/rental studio/production facility, we see a trendy photo shoot of a high fashion model, a taping of a motivational speaker, and a business meeting to plan a new advertising campaign for a rapper’s new product line, a pop star whose street cred is that he is on trial for aggravated assault and has been to jail a few times for drugs and theft. All of this is pushed to the limit which undercuts its humorous possibilities. Of course, there are the obvious jokes about Michael Jordan and wearing Jordan jeans. [more]

Staff Meal

May 11, 2024

Koogler began writing "Staff Meal" in January 2020 and completed the first draft in April 2020…well, he certainly had time on his hands, but so did a lot of people. It’s a wonder we didn’t have a great outpouring of “the great American novels” during Covid, or at least as we were being released from our lockdowns so we’d have something to read as we made our way back into the subway. What is striking about "Staff Meal" is that we begin with what passes for so much normalcy – two people begin conversation, even if it’s minimal Millennial-bleats, and graduate towards commiserating about the coffee in this particular café finally leading up to finding lunch somewhere…but this won’t be a quick run into a (low-end) McDonald’s or (slightly better than low end) Pret a Manger…this will be a foray into Ruth Reichl territory. They land in a high-end perhaps Michelin-starred restaurant where the staff gathers to eat gourmet cuisine before the dinner crowd comes in. [more]

Redemption Story

May 11, 2024

"Redemption Story," written by Peregrine Teng Heard, is an exploration into the psyche of Connie Lee, an actor with 20 years of experience acting in noir films of the 1940’s and 1950’s, who now calls herself a housewife. Christine Toy Johnson expertly embodies the character, skillfully revealing the psycho-social dynamics that keeps her somewhere between the reality of 1971 and the roles she played in film. Director Sarah Blush guides a strong cast, effectively supporting the narrative themes of the show as it explores the idea of redemption in a self-perception fashioned by past film roles. It is coupled with the social alienation of being an Asian woman playing stereotypical characters. It was the norm in the movie business in those years, but if those issues are not enough, mix in feelings of conditional love and estrangement. [more]

I Ought to Be In Pictures

May 9, 2024

Director Nicholas Viselli has done well with the characterizations but is unable to resolve the thinness of the backstories which are not fleshed out by the script. The shallow set which has most of its furniture and appliances lined up across the stage makes some of the blocking awkward and repetitious. Making her Off Broadway debut as Libby in the role that won Dinah Manhoff the Tony Award, Makenzie Morgan Gomez is spunky and quick with the retort. She has a breezy, wise stage presence. Her use of a wheelchair and a cane is no problem to the character but when she says that she has hiked and hitched her way across half of America one wonders if this is realistic. And today in 2024 do 19-year-old women risk hitching alone that distance? [more]

La Musica Deuxième

May 8, 2024

Jessica Burr’s Blessed Unrest production of Marguerite Duras’ "La Musica Deuxième" in the 1992 translation by Barbara Bray is like a violent Jean Paul Sartre short story directed in the cool style of filmmaker Éric Rohmer. Whether this is best for the material, you will have to decide for yourself. Aside from the 2023 film of Duras’ play Suzanna Andler, this is the first New York presentation of one of her plays since Savannah Bay at the Classic Stage Company in 2003. [more]

Exagoge

May 7, 2024

As we are instructed early on, the meal and the service are divided into 15 sections. The Seder is held in the midst, or as a significant part, of the whole of the play. It is then complemented by the opera portions. Einhorn gets a big assist from composer Avner Finberg’s exotic score and musical director Mila Henry as she leads the chamber sextet from the piano. Tenor James Benjamin Rodgers as Moses, soprano Tharanga Goonetilleke as Tzippora, one of the God voices, and a messenger, and lyric bass Matthew Curran as the Pharaoh, Reuel, and the other God voice are exemplary. [more]

Fingers & Spoons: The Ins and Outs of an Open Marriage

May 5, 2024

"Fingers & Spoons" does have its titillating moments, with descriptions of sex and even mild simulations. (The show is sexual enough that it would probably be a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe.) You will leave knowing that Pascale Roger-McKeever, the author and star, likes to be called a slut, at least under the right circumstances. You will not, however, leave with a greater understanding of open marriage. [more]

The Frybread Queen

May 1, 2024

"The Frybread Queen," a unique narrative penned by Carolyn Dunn and brought to life under the direction of Vickie Ramirez, delves into an intergenerational conflict sparked by the death of a man who held significant roles in the lives of four Native American women. While the making of frybread serves as a tool to highlight the characters' diverse attitudes and emotions, it is not the central theme of the play. The primary focus is on the fate of the deceased man's daughter and the mystery surrounding his death. [more]

Orlando

April 30, 2024

While the ensemble cast is excellent throughout, we do feel Taylor Mac’s absence when he goes offstage to change costumes (and that is quite a few times, one more sumptuous than the other – though not rivalling what goes on at a Cher concert). Most importantly the “new gender reveal” in Constantinople also occurs offstage. Inhabiting Orlando as a woman, Mac gives us one of the most heartfelt realizations, “How odd. When I was a young man, I insisted that women be obedient, chaste and scented. Now I shall have to pay in my own person for those desires. For women are not…obedient, chaste and scented by nature. They can only attain these graces by tedious discipline. There’s the hairdressing…that alone will take at least an hour of my morning…there’s looking in the looking glass…there’s being chaste year in and year out…Christ Jesus.” [more]

Sally & Tom

April 29, 2024

In the very first scene it becomes apparent that we are watching "The Pursuit of Happiness," a new play from the Good Company, an indie theater group that has been known for radical and experimental work that no one came to see but now wants to reach a wider audience and find a producer who will foot the bill. African American playwright Luce is in an unmarried relationship with her director and costar Mike, similar to that of Sally and Tom whom they are playing, and just like Sally Hemings who bore Jefferson six children, Luce discovers that she is pregnant. The play alternates between scenes backstage among the actors in their dressing rooms and onstage as they rehearse the play with opening night only two days away, making changes as they go along. [more]

In the Common Hour

April 28, 2024

"In the Common Hour" is a play with text by Marie Glancy O'Shea inspired by the writings of Italian author Italo Calvino of six stories about an other-dimensional place on the edge of reality. A dream world filled with the consequences of people lost in the projections of their being, unsure of what the next moment holds for them. It is a story, or more realistically, a series of episodes, exploring the liminal space created by dreams and hallucinations. The stories bring to mind the speculative and absurdist work by Rod Serling, Ursula Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick, among others. [more]

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