The Opponent
Guy Van Swearingen and Kamal Angelo Bolden in a scene from The Opponent (Photo credit: Carol [more]
Off-Broadway
Summer Shorts: Series B
Jack Hofsiss, the Tony Award-winning director of The Elephant Man, keeps the acting reined in while the dialogue becomes more and more blasphemous. Veteran actress Brenda Currin makes the discontented Mother Superior a believable character but the other four performers seem to be asked to posture rather than put any faith in their roles. [more]
Strictly Dishonorable
Travis Chinick's costumes are period perfect for the tail end of the Jazz Age while Liz Scherrier's two sets suitably set the mood for both the main room of the speakeasy and the bachelor apartment above. Beth Lake's sound design includes snatches of tenor arias as well as pertinent outside noises. [more]
Between Riverside and Crazy
This breakfast chat is in the opening of scene of Between Riverside and Crazy, by Stephen Adly Guirgis. In a series of plays that include Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train and The Motherf***er with the Hat, Mr. Guirgis
has become known for affectionately dramatizing the lives of passionate, off beat, New York City characters with inimitably colorful dialogue. [more]
Gertrude: The Cry
The PTP/NYC company are directed to carry on adeptly, fervently, with considerable aplomb in Mark Evanchos' monumental setting, amid some of the best and lavish costume changes – by Danielle Nieves --ever seen Off-Broadway, including Gertrude's, most of the time, that is. [more]
Summer Shorts 2014: Series A
Warren Leight's "Sec. 310, Row D, Seats 5 and 6" is the most ambitious of the three plays as it attempts to cover 20 years in the lives of three friends who share a two-seats subscription at Madison Square Garden for the Knicks games. "Riverbed" deals with the loss of a child by married couple Adam and Megan in a freak drowning accident. The theme of men's friendships when they are away from their women is also evident in the curtain raiser, Roger Hedden's "The Sky and The Limit." [more]
Pentecost
Director Cheryl Faraone knows that to keep the ideas going it is vital to have her characters be seen as human as possible so that we are not confronted with stereotypes and agit-prop, so that we become invested, begin to put our own values on the line. I particularly liked Jonathan Tindle, Alex Draper, Nina Silver, Lawrence Nathanson and Matthew Ball. A unique, priceless artifact, a creation of the finest in the human psyche, precious to the world, versus a gypsy baby, a gypsy mother, a Bosnian, a Kurd, a Palestinian Kuwaiti, an Azeri, a Mozambican, an Afghan, a Ukrainian, a Russian, how can we decide? [more]
Enter at Forest Lawn
Author Roberts plays Jack, the megalomaniacal producer/writer of a TV hit about a charming, witty, womanizing uncle who runs off the rails regularly. [more]
The Qualification of Douglas Evans
Presenting himself thus, in the character of Douglas Evans, with such vigorous, non-stop awfulness, takes courage as well as rampant ego and a chilling comment on his, the actor/playwright's own life, which might well have been written and delivered with an ironic god-awful humor and given the audience something to care about but Ahonen sticks to his guns. [more]
Picture Ourselves in Latvia
Playwright Ross Howard gives us a locked-ward play. Set in a psychiatric hospital, we meet three long-term residents, their orderly, a nurse, and a doctor. The patients' maladies are not specified. Mostly they seem merely simple, with mental ages of between roughly five and eleven, so it's not clear why they're in hospital rather than some sort of group home. Martin (Christopher Daftsios) in particular seems an innocent; Anna (Dana Benningfield), a recent emigrant from Latvia, is a bit paranoid; Duncan (Andy Nogasky) is intelligent but awkward like an early adolescent, and struggles with hydrophobia. [more]
The Religion Thing
The Religion Thing is set in Washington, D.C., and explores the lives of two couples who are friends and the conflicting issues they discover about their relationships after getting married. [more]
The Muscles in Our Toes
Whoever said high school reunions are a good time was sorely mistaken. The food is lousy, the music is kitschy, hairlines are higher, waists are larger, and ancient resentments are suddenly relevant again. When you think about it, these milestones are hardly cause for celebration. [more]
Donogoo
What the production does have is a ravishing scenic design made up of colorful and witty projections (sometimes animated) by Roger Hanna & Price Johnston for the play's 23 tableaux, moving from Paris to Marseilles, Saigon, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, & mythical Brazilian city of Donogoo-Tonka. [more]
When We Were Young and Unafraid
Yes, it's TV soap trap. Yes, it's really good movie. And yes, it's some of the best theater, because it's the purest entertainment, storytelling, the hardest and the easiest thing to do, all in one. People are endlessly fascinating. All you need is Sarah Treem to let you in. [more]
Ayckbourn Ensemble
Part of the fun of the Brits Off Broadway Festival at 59E59 Theaters each June are the new plays that Sir Alan Ayckbourn sends us periodically with the original casts from his Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, England. This year he has sent us three running in repertory – two new plays in their world premiere productions (Arrivals &Departures and Farcicals: A Double Bill of Frivolous Comedies) and a revival of his 1992 Time of My Life, making its New York debut. [more]
The Village Bike
A very visceral play, The Village Bike is not for prudes; on the other hand, it should open a conversation that is long overdue in our theater concerning men and women's sexuality as it is understood today. [more]
These Troubled Times
Director Jennifer Ortega does a masterful job of staging all of the comedy and seriousness as well as getting sharp performances from the cast. Concept designer Moira Shaughnessy's work includes the stark slides above the playing area that depict the lush Florida scenery as well as grisly situations. [more]
Much Ado About Nothing
While Jack O'Brien's production of Much Ado About Nothing is in no way definitive, it is tremendous fun. His strength here as a director is that his 20 person ensemble has become a true community, one that lives and loves together, one we can believe gets involved in each other's problems and joys. [more]
Power Plays
The obvious initial reaction without taking into context their mission is that the plays deal with or lend power in some way, together or separately to the characters, to the audience. That is, of course, the primary goal, usually. Not, however, in this case. [more]
And If You Lose Your Way, or A Food Odyssey
Scenic designer Carolyn Mraz, lighting designer Mike Inwood and sound designer Will Pickens creatively utilize the expansive space. Their contributions to this minimalist stylized spectacle very effectively renders the farm, thrilling battle scenes, a galley ship with watery sound effects, a Trojan horse, cooking areas and a television studio for a culinary show. Brooke Cohen's artful costumes have a delightfully timeless rustic quality, adding to the visual splendor. [more]
The Killer
Much of the work of the play is left to the smoke and lights added by the designers but these elements fail to create mood on TFANA's stage. Matthew Richards' lighting is suitable without becoming a real character in the play even when the scenes are performed on a bare stage. The off-stage noises created by sound designer Jane Shaw don't go far enough as Ionesco intended them to fill the stage with the off-stage crowds, locales and events that we don't see. [more]
Double Crossed: The Ballad of Rodrigo
Much of the action takes place in a greasy spoon run by cheery and kindhearted Sally. Underworld figures, a fast-talking reporter, G-Men, honest and crooked cops, a double-crossing dame and the conflicted hero gather there to conspire and eat grub. The author vividly renders all of these typical characters with attributes and personalities true to the ones encountered in hard-boiled movie yarns. [more]
Within the Law
What is the most famous play currently running in New York that you have probably never heard of before? Bayard Veiller's Within the Law, Metropolitan Playhouse's final entry in its "Justice" season, has been filmed six times since its Broadway debut in 1912, most famously as Paid with Joan Crawford, revived once on the main stem, and still packs quite a punch. [more]
The Diorama
A diorama presents an obvious simulacrum of life at some period. The closest thing here is a simulacrum of a simulacrum. With embellishments by authors Jennifer Brown Stone and David S. Stone that took over whatever concept they had, presumably something to do with when a loony tune becomes a flat out loon and how to tell the difference. This is dangerous territory for experienced authors. The authors have rushed in. [more]
A Fable
Playwright David Van Asselt's is set "Somewhere, almost anywhere, below the equator." It feels like an academically imagined recreation of something that would have played at LaMaMa in 1967 for a thesis project. Debatably borrowing from Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, The Living Theatre, Candide, Urinetown and The Cradle Will Rock, it's a wearying odyssey. [more]
The Essential Straight & Narrow
Shifting abruptly from flashbacks to a form of the present, we follow Jo, a young woman formerly a folk/country musician and now an actor. Periodically she is shown reading from and trying to memorize a script indicating that she's preparing for a role, seemingly in a television police drama. Much of the action takes place in 1974 in a rundown New Mexico wood-paneled motel room where an estranged trio of country western performers has gathered to launch a reunion tour. [more]
The City of Conversation
The City of Conversation is very rewarding theater whatever your political persuasion may be. The use of the social and political climate of the last 30 years is astutely delineated and always part of the fabric of the play, rather than a history lesson. [more]
Too Much Sun
Over a 25-year career as a playwright, Mr. Silver has become known for his eccentric black comedies with abrupt shifts in tone. This one feels like a breakthrough being his most ambitious and successful on many levels. The unison of remarkable writing, grand performances, and assured direction make Too Much Sun a highly outstanding play. [more]
The Few
Gideon Glick as Matthew is terrific, physically disappearing into his character so completely that he would not be recognizable in the street. Actors can get away with playing misfits as a collection of tics, so it's a great thing to see Glick dig deeper and infuse Matthew's every movement with his particular personality. [more]
Under My Skin
Under My Skin with its 20 scenes and endless set changes (designed by Stephen Dobay) is lame in the humor department and has nothing new to say about the healthcare system. Had director Kirsten Sanderson toned down the exaggerated acting style, some of the material might have worked. [more]
A Loss of Roses
While Dan Wackerman's production is always absorbing, the muddled psychology in the script and the debatable choices made by the actors keep the play from joining Inge's more important major plays. [more]
Honor Bound
Playwright Albert J. Repicci structures his theatrical debut work in twelve scenes of varying length taking place at multiple locations and the uneven results dilute the effectiveness of the interesting political and personal themes that are explored. [more]
Sea Marks
Gardner McKay's Sea Marks is beautifully written but leaves a great deal up to the actors and the director as does a scenario for an opera or a ballet. The performers must flesh out the underpinnings of the story. Director Ciarán O'Reilly has done a fine job with the characterizations but has not brought out the passion that underlies the tale. [more]