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Elizabeth Harper

Conversations with Mother

March 7, 2025

While the characters do not change much, they roll through the years dealing with the various crises with various levels of success. However, the play is peppered with one liners and zingers that make this one of the most entertaining plays this season. Under the polished direction of Noah Himmelstein, Aaron and Doyle get a great deal of mileage from these jokes, not all of them new, but all of them hilarious. [more]

Uncle Vanya

May 1, 2024

Things are not helped by Mini Lien’s bland setting that looks more like a furniture showroom than the family manse held for decades and passed down to the present inhabitants. The new adaptation reduces the plot to one more dysfunctional family story while Chekhov is always more than that. Even more damaging is that the direction by Lila Neugebauer (best known for new plays by Sarah DeLappe, Zoe Kazan, Kenneth Lonergan, Brandon Jacobs Jenkins, Tracy Letts and Annie Baker) has staged the play so that it is in isolated conversations, one that should be called Scenes from the Life of Uncle Vanya. The lighting design by Lap Chi Chu and Elizabeth Harper highlights this by isolating various characters with light changes. Kay Voyce's costumes, except for the surprising brightly caftans of the grandmother, are characterless and monochromatic. [more]