Alexander Bartenieff

Soup in the Second Act

October 7, 2024

Barry Primus’ "Soup in the Second Act" is described in press materials as a "dramatic comedy" but it's more drama than comedy. The humor comes from old-fashioned actor jokes such as this one: "Two actors bump into each other on Times Square. 'God, where have you been? I haven't seen you in such a long time.' 'I'm doing a one man play all over the country.' So the other says, 'That's great. That's great. Anything in it for me?'" If you like that sort of thing, you'll enjoy "Soup in the Second Act" (which is itself the punchline for another actor joke). [more]

Orson’s Shadow

March 29, 2024

For those interested in both theatrical history and the lives of our former artistic heroes, Pendleton doesn’t disappoint, even if he exaggerates and manipulates the facts a bit. He does better with Welles and Olivier, both played smartly and quirkily, than he does with Taff’s almost invisible Plowright and Menna’s ghostly, but glamorous Leigh. Hamilton’s Tynan is more didactic than dramatic, but he looks terrific and keeps the show rolling along. Listening to these giants kvetch and spew is fascinating and strangely satisfying. [more]

Fair Winds and Winds of War

March 17, 2024

Kahn has a good ear for the subtleties of each character and the period. However, "Fair Winds" doesn’t handle all the major themes smoothly and the use of the narrator sometimes feels like a way to make up for her storytelling shortcomings, although Maisonett is an accomplished enough actor to make it work. [more]

The Boy Who Listened to Paintings

February 5, 2024

Alyson Reim Friedman, Thom Brown III, Niko Zylik as young Nicky, Donovan Counts, Alisa Ermolaev and [more]

The Conductor

March 18, 2023

"The Conductor," by novelist Ishmael Reed and directed by Carla Blank, is a play that uses the revival of the Underground Railroad system as a device to address several contemporary socio-political issues related to race and ethnicity. It is a show that directly addresses extremist conservative groups and their movements that seek to restrict and limit governmental and social actions used to address institutional inequality. Reed utilizes the result of a school board recall election in San Francisco as the basis for illustrating the insidious nature of these reactionary groups. [more]

Who Murdered Love?

February 10, 2023

What is a mystery inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma? A Winston Churchill question from 1939 aptly fits a play with music set in 1924 that toys at being a murder mystery. As a play with music "Who Murdered Love?" doesn't work. As a play without music, it doesn't work as well. It is Dadaism with Surrealist overtones, and Surrealism with Dadaist overtones, if anyone in the audience knows what Dada or Surreal means. [more]

A Healthy House

June 7, 2022

Diriwachter is particularly skilled in writing working class vernacular. The Father and Tim speak the same language and he catches all the subtleties of decades of ups and downs. He also is wonderful with the two salesmen, cleverly finding the rhythm of their spiels that build up to the final pitches. His salespeople are written as clever but not unfeeling so that the audience never totally believes that the Father and son are being betrayed and cheated. [more]

I Just Want to Tell Somebody

January 11, 2022

He used the gimmick of preparing to perform the very show he was performing for his audience in the Cabaret Theater of the Theater for the New City; but by the end of his fascinating and grueling life story he was on fire with his tale of his life in the theater and film. He grew up in the Sixties when the U.S. was in turmoil and it seemed that everyone was getting high. Smokey’s career began with a first prize in his Washington, D.C., high school talent show and some performances at the Arena Stage. He quit school to try his luck in California but failed and returned to D.C. where he joined an all-Black repertory theater and appeared in his first commercial which he showed on a large screen. Much later he appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s "The Cotton Club" as a featured musical performer. His number in the film was shown proving he was an impressive dancer and singer partnered by Jackée Harry. [more]

Hooked on Happiness

November 19, 2019

Although the show is 80 minutes without an intermission, it just breezes right by and one is never bored. The music, played by Peter Dizozza (on piano), Ralph Hamperian (on bass) and Art Lilliard (on drums), keeps the show moving at perfect tempo. From ballads to disco tune, from rap to group numbers, the music is spot on. Sound designer Alex Santullo delivers a pitch-perfect musical. [more]

Shareholder Value

March 31, 2019

Attea’s point concerns business models that are overly focused on the needs of shareholders, rather than on those of management and employees. But the play is curiously bloodless. Strong plays about the ferocity of capitalism—from Arthur Miller’s "Death of a Salesman" to David Mamet’s "Glengarry Glen Ross"—take interest in the human equation. They focus on the personal anguish that the system can induce. Attea doesn’t delve that deeply here. [more]

Thelonious!

February 18, 2019

Welch and the play’s director, Jonathan Weber, seem to be going for a sort of Ionesco-esque ambience here. The story unfolds in a broadly played, cartoonish way. Occasionally, a satirical jab at ivory-tower academics will land, thanks to Welch’s depiction of the shallow and creepy professor, who—as played by the bearded Slone—looks like he just stepped out of a daguerrotype. But, generally speaking, this comedy is rambling, unwieldy and not especially funny. (Few audience laughs were audible during the performance under review.) In the last stretches of the play, a meta element is introduced, with the characters talking about having entered “the epilogue” stage of the story. Once we’ve stumbled into this self-referential territory, it becomes even harder to engage in any real way with the play. [more]

America’s Favorite Newscaster

January 15, 2018

Another irony is that while Fury is kind of a bore, another character is not. Yeah, you guessed it. Him. When the president (David O. Friedman) appears in Fury’s bedroom like the Ghost of Christmas Present, Attea’s writing finally comes to life. His take on you-know-who isn’t unique, but the situation is wonderfully silly, and Friedman’s impression is a funny profile in petulance. [more]

Rosario and the Gypsies

February 22, 2015

Premiering in 1982 as a one-act play with music, author Eduardo Machado, has now revised and expanded it into a full length musical. The first act is a decent all around effort, but the second act is leaden. Taking place 10 years after the first, it’s an interminable update of the character’s lives with numerous flamboyant plot twists. [more]