Daniel Rader

Our Town

October 26, 2024

Wilder’s experimental play uses no scenery except for two tables, some chairs, a piano and usually two ladders for the upstairs bedroom windows of the young people. Here, however, Leon and set designer Beowulf Boritt have eliminated the ladders for two windows that open in the wooden back wall. Parsons’ description of the town and the street is so vivid that your imagination sees all that is meant to be there. Many of the stage effects are created by Allen Lee Hughes’ subtle lighting plot which takes us back to the end of the last century with lanterns both on the footlights and in Parsons’ hand. Leon has also added another one of the five senses by piping in the odors of heliotrope, vanilla, and bacon, one in each act. Professor Willard is here played by a woman, and as John McGinty playing milkman Howie Newsome is hearing challenged, the other actors speak to him in sign language, a new effect for this drama. [more]

The Spirits’ Speakeasy

September 24, 2024

There is no program for the event nor a press script, which makes sense, since "The Spirits’ Speakeasy" is less theater and more experience. There are missed opportunities for the actors to move the attendees around so they experience more of what is going on in both rooms. My companion and I thoroughly enjoy catching up with each other, so much so that when Margery finally arrives in the lounge to give a few lackluster readings (based on the billets dropped into the box but presumably not seen by her, and half of the guests names she calls out do not answer anyway) we are unfazed. Finally, Houdini bursts into the room, challenges Margery’s authenticity by calling her a fraud, and insists she participate in a mysterious magic box trick, which was dramatic and fun. All told, although the activities of the evening are infrequent, we do not feel the evening is a disappointment at all. [more]

N/A

July 4, 2024

Correa who for many years worked for Congresswoman Constance A. Morella knows his way around government and his characters are very convincing. The casting of Diane Paulus’ production is superb and Taylor and Villafañe make excellent sparring partners. The encounters which take place mainly in N’s congressional office that of first Minority Leader and then later Speaker of the House (the same set by Myung Hee Cho) include fast-paced repartee, quips, retorts and wordplay, all worth listening to. You are required to listen intently as the dialogue is fast paced and rapid fire. When we meet them A has just won her first primary in the Bronx and Queens, defeating the Democratic Party candidate that N has supported. In the course of the five scenes of the play, we next meet them when N needs A’s vote to regain the Speakership, while the last scene takes place four years later when the Republicans have regained the House and N is packing up her office, having stepped down from her position as party leader. [more]

The Fears

May 27, 2023

The world premiere of Emma Sheanshang’s "The Fears" is a hilarious and poignant satire on self-help groups and the sort of people who take their emotional temperature all day long – literally. It is the latest in a new genre of plays in which the humor comes from something that may be painful but it is still possible to laugh at. Smoothly and astutely directed by Dan Algrant who has mainly worked in film, the ensemble of seven actors are entirely convincing as a group of damaged people who meet once a week at a Buddhist center in New York City to deal with early traumas that are keeping them from moving on in their lives. While the play fails to make a bigger statement, it remains entertaining and engrossing throughout. [more]