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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
The latest play to reach New York by Anna Ziegler, author of 'Photography 51," "Boy," "The Last Match" and "Actually," has a complicated structure she appears to have invented. "The Wanderers," her fascinating study of faith, love and fulfillment, parallels two Jewish couples a generation apart who appear to have been each other’s destiny (the Jewish concept of “bashert”) but who do not seem to be able to live together successfully. The play also has an email correspondence between a celebrated and controversial novelist and a Hollywood film star played by Katie Holmes, who really is a Hollywood film star. Barry Edelstein who also directed the play’s world premiere at The Old Globe theatre in San Diego keeps the separate parts bubbling along but without achieving the depth of character that the play implies. [more]
The problem with rediscovering lost plays from the past is that works that are 100 years old may have gotten dated or express views no longer held. Back in the 1920’s, Harlem Renaissance author Eulalie Spence wrote a great many prize-winning one acts for which she could not get full productions. Metropolitan Playhouse is correcting that oversight by offering an evening of three of these entitled "She's Got Harlem on Her Mind." Unfortunately, they play like short stories rather than fully formed plays. As the characters are mainly grifters and con-artists, they do not show African-American life in the 1920’s in a very good light. A great deal of care and thought has gone into Timothy Johnson’s production which is set in 1927 including period songs between the plays and before and after, but his direction is often too slow and much of the acting is too studied to be naturalistic. [more]
The set is a bare-bones representation of a boat with fishing gear, picnic coolers, and fish made from paper. The lighting is basic, given the nature of the venue, a small basement theater. It is the nature of Fringe Festival productions since it is a chance for playwrights and actors to showcase their work with very tight budgets. None of these things matter with Kingfish since the play and performances are strong enough to make the reality of the set of no great importance. If you like short, well-written, thought-provoking, dark comedy, Kingfish will be a good choice. And if this is representative of the plays in the festival, there should be more good work to be found. [more]
"Pictures from Home," a stark, but eventually moving vision of a family, is based on the photo memoir of the same name by Larry Sultan. Sharr White, the playwright, has taken Sultan’s expansive volume of family remembrances and reduced its literary and visual extravagances to the size of the stage of Studio 54. The director Bartlett Sher and his colleagues have fashioned a microcosmic look at a mother, father and son, all hiding behind façades carefully sculpted over decades. That they are played by three terrific theater veterans—Nathan Lane, Zoë Wanamaker and Danny Burstein—helps spin this play into theatrical gold, an intimate, human-scale work that stands out in a season of blaring musicals. [more]
In the most elementary explanation of a play’s dramatic structure, the protagonist is the character who drives the action and is the emotional heart of the narrative. Everyone knows how the play "Othello" is going to end, so really the artistic and entertainment value hinges on whether an audience can sympathize with Othello as he is manipulated by the extent of Iago’s hatred for him. Unfortunately for Eliott Johnson as Othello, we meet him as the already heralded general of the Venetian army but witness nothing heroic about him. This monotone Othello doesn’t even raise his voice until Act 3, Scene 4, with “Zounds!,” an epithet meaning God’s wounds, and only upon his exit after confronting Desdemona about the missing heirloom handkerchief. [more]
"Untitled Calamity Jane Play" by Kati Frazier is a memory play attempting to make sense of all the different versions of the iconic woman, Calamity Jane. As directed by Akia Squitieri, the play is well-told from the perspective of different versions of Martha Jane Cannary. It leaves the viewer with an idea of who this person is without establishing a clear identity. It also shows that it is not so important to know the truth of her life as much as to revel in the wonder of it. [more]
This moment is where the message of the play becomes apparent. From this point on, the dialogue will be about the planet's condition and humankind's responsibility for that condition. Although there are moments when it seems "preachy," the discussion is handled well without distracting from the story's core. It is clear from the ensuing conversation that Tom's report will be a recommendation to destroy the planet. In terms of the report, Dick is a dissenter, Harry uncaring either way, and Pat struggling to understand the enormity of what is being discussed about the future of humankind and all the living creatures on the planet. [more]
When the Countess Olivia played by glamorous Christina Sajous declares “How wonderful!” in the final scene of The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s return engagement of its production of William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," she most likely has the whole audience in agreement. Director Carl Cofield has created a colorful, imaginative and humorous staging of a romantic comedy classic that usually has two melancholy leading characters and is not very funny. Add music and dance to the talented cast led by the dynamic Kara Young as well as visual stage pictures which are very cinematic and you have a top-notch revival for audiences of all ages. [more]
Writer/director Erica Schmidt's "Lucy" is a play struggling to find a point of view, or perhaps a point of view struggling to find a play. If the latter is true, then that narrative position seems to be "good help is hard to find," which generally only satisfies an audience, at least the "help" part of it, when there's a "My Man Godfrey," or even "Mary Poppins," spin attached. But Schmidt apparently has adopted her position sincerely, with some topical digressions into issues like healthcare coverage and paid sick leave. Or maybe Lucy is just an exceptionally slippery satire, and I failed to grasp its profundity while wondering why the play had to last more than one scene. [more]
Dixon Place, a mecca for LGBTQ culture in the quickly gentrifying Lower East Side, is offering a return of the campy play, "The Village! A Disco Daydream," written by Nora Burns, a dizzy, sometimes sad, revisit to the pre-AIDS seventies, an era of sexy go-go dancers, sugar daddies, hunky hustlers and eager newbies. First produced last fall, its popularity propelled this current revival. [more]
David Greenspan, the shape-shifting thespian, has taken on yet another multi-character play, as if his one-man "Strange Interlude" and his more recent "Four Saints in Three Acts" whet his appetite for Joey Merlo’s "On Set with Theda Bara," a mysterious take on the life of the silent picture era vamp and her intrusion into a family whose lives become a film noir. Directed smartly by Jack Serio, the surreal play, just one hour long, took the audience on a colorful journey that included a truly spooky séance. [more]
Sam Morrison’s poignant "Sugar Daddy" has been “on the boards” for just under a year, but first coming to prominence at last year’s East to Edinburgh presentations at 59 East 59th Street Theatres as the Brits say “with a proper sendoff” before he struck gold at the Edinburgh Festival in August. It was only a matter of time before this jewel of a show received a longer run here in New York. It is truly a comfortable fit at SoHo Playhouse, with the only pity being it doesn’t have an open-ended run. "Sugar Daddy" is so many things. It is an off-beat love story; it is an expression of love as much as it is an expression of grief. Most importantly, it is an intensely personal story that he has chosen to share with total strangers, yet we don’t feel like strangers when he’s done. [more]
Living in his "palatial" rent-controlled apartment on one of Manhattan's most stunning architectural stretches, Walter "Pops'' Washington (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is an aging man of aging principles. A Black ex-cop, he presides over a crumbling kingdom from the figurative throne of his dead wife's wheelchair in Stephen Adly Guirgis' Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Between Riverside and Crazy." The gruffly engaging Henderson, along with the rest of the heady ensemble, feast on Guirgis' piquant dialogue that blends the sacred with the profane, the comic with the tragic, and earnest social commentary with intense silliness. It's just unfortunate that Guirgis' shaggily constructed plot inspires doubts about whether a brilliant cast and brilliant writing necessarily equate to a brilliant play. [more]
"Ari Wind’s Inner Circle" is so incredible that it defies the imagination. Can these be called sleights of hand when we see everything that happens at all times? It is the sort of show that you just have to see for yourself and experience firsthand to believe. Not even magicians have been able to explain many - or all - of the tricks. It would be unfair to describe the tricks more completely – though how they are handled will completely amaze and dazzle you. [more]
And that's the agonizing tension in "Without You;" in his lyrical responses to Larson, Rapp is well aware that it's not a back-and-forth, that Larson can't say anything more than he has already. But, just as with "Rent," there is still solace, because I'm sure Rapp, the show's impressive five-member band cozily tucked into Southern's set, and the production crew could hear what I did in the audience: lots of crying. It came with a palpable feeling of not being alone in your thoughts for the dearly departed, especially those taken much too soon. A generation or two removed from having attended "Rent," it was an unspoken bond not only worth revisiting but, if I'm being honest with myself, desperately needed. [more]
The set by Sascha van Riel has the feel of an unfinished work, with minimal props and an amateurish feel. His lighting does help in moving the story along, but the play itself doesn’t rise above the blandness of the set. The eleven actors, most of whom are seasoned performers, give an almost affectless reading of the script as if they are working with no direction and no understanding of the characters or the intent of the play. [more]
"Small Talk," like its title suggests, is less unified than Quinn’s earlier shows. He also uses its format to wander from topic to topic, seemingly randomly without much structure. It allows him to focus on his pet peeves which seem to be the real topic of the show. While some of his earlier shows were big on humor, this one is more interested in provoking thoughts than laughs. [more]
Not only is Livian Yeh’s "Memorial" revealing in its historic depiction of a recent piece of American history, it is additionally a very satisfying dramatic work. It is also very pertinent now with its depiction of racism against Asians shown to have been just as prevalent 40 years ago, as well as how deeply ingrained our unexpressed prejudices go. Jeff Liu’s direction mines all of the play’s nuances, twists and turns. The superb design adds greatly to bringing the play to life, suggesting more than is actually on the stage. With this world premiere, the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre has a current winner as well as a play that should travel well to other theaters around the country. [more]
Eduardo Machado’s 11th play to premiere at Theater for the New City is called "Not About Me" which is a complete misnomer as it is about his life for the last 40 years with his alter ego at its center. Marketed as a “memory play that takes audiences on a haunting journey through the mind of a playwright during Covid-19 lockdown,” in fact, it is about his friends who died during the last pandemic, the mysterious “gay disease” that came to be called AIDS. Other than as a tribute to those lost friends, it is difficult to see the message of the play as it depicts a great deal of risky behavior. [more]
Ivan Faute’s "The Dog Show" is ambitious in trying to tell a story by holding back on the details. Unfortunately, the method has grave, unresolved problems. For most of the first act we have no idea why it has been given this title. Neither the direction nor the script allows the performers to develop their characters who remain at the end the same as at the beginning. There is a play buried in this material but as of now it has not surfaced. [more]
"Offal Endings" is billed as "a dark comedy" but it is more of a drama with some comedic elements. It grapples with complicated subjects and is not always successful. It "reads" better than it plays, which is not to say that it is a bad play, just that it needs more structure in its story development and execution. The topics it touches on are important given the increased commercialization in the delivery of medical care and, more importantly, psychological care in the complex socio-political environment of the present and near future economy. It presents challenging ideas but doesn’t clarify the challenges those ideas represent. [more]
While Bettany and Pope are each very convincing as Warhol and Basquiat since they are made up to look exactly like they did in life, they seem to be in two different plays, using different acting styles. The other problem with "The Collaboration" is that it feels very superficial, like a laundry list of items for them to discuss, while at least several of the dramatic devices are taken out of context or are relocated in chronology. It is certainly a fascinating premise: an older famous and fabulously successful artist whose star is fading and a younger rising star who has taken the art world by storm and seems to be unstoppable, brought together by their shared dealer. [more]
Under the direction of Karl Janes and Andy Smith, Tim Crouch is a very commanding performer, using his resonant baritone to paint pictures with words, holding our attention at all times. Narrating alone he makes us see all he describes from the theater, to the audience, to the landscape on stage and the other unseen actors. However, the play is not for all theatergoers simply because the format is complex and hard to follow and knowledge of the plot of "King Lear" is mandatory. On the other hand, for those who are into experimental theater, this is an exemplary model of the genre boldly pushing the envelope to what is possible. [more]
"Darkness: unfolds in many very short scenes with some confusing transitions. Dubashin, the traitor to Russia, finally gets to confront Number One in a knock-down personal battle. The only thing that can be said for this denouement is that it is wishful thinking of the highest order. There is more than a whiff of a vanity production here, leavened by Morrow’s “good intentions.” Morrow is, perhaps, a tad self-indulgent to have put himself in the action hero part of a military do-gooder and he could use a dramaturg who could shape the disparate scenes into a well-oiled whole. [more]
