Lauren Helpern

King of the Jews

October 31, 2023

How does a Holocaust-themed play land with such emotional impact as Leslie Epstein’s "King of the Jews" at the HERE Theatre? Based on his novel of the same name, "King of the Jews" is a searing, eye-opening glimpse of a dark period in world history. Set in the formerly elegant Astoria Café in 1939 and 1941 Poland, "King of the Jews" turns the employees and customers into a microcosm of Jewish society, a community being crushed under the boots of the invading Nazis. These trapped Jews emerge as real people. As the eleven p.m. curfew, enforced by Gestapo goons, approaches, they each react in their own way. [more]

Harry Townsend’s Last Stand

December 6, 2019

Cariou is now appearing Off-Broadway as the titular character in playwright George Eastman’s slight though moving two-character work, Harry Townsend's Last Stand. Sharp one-liners, funny set ups and punchlines and wistful observations abound throughout Mr. Eastman’s effective familiar scenario. It is playwrighting at its basic best, delivering two hefty empathetic roles for actors to attack while delighting the audience. [more]

Skintight

June 29, 2018

Harmon’s new play resembles "Admissions," his last New York offering seen at Lincoln Center this March, in that it debates a topic from many sides but then fails to give us the author’s point of view on it at the end. Like all of his four plays so far it offers a strong character who has a very big gripe with the way things are and who attempts to change people accordingly. And like the others, "Skintight" is very funny while it deals with a serious topic but ultimately seems rather superficial, though here that maybe because of the extremely wealthy milieu in which money is no object and things magically appear via live-in servants. As is Harmon’s wont, the acerbic repartee is tossed about plentifully and as directed by Daniel Aukin, the six actors get the most out of their snappy lines. [more]

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City

June 21, 2016

Ms. Feiffer’s rudimentary characters communicate by the sledgehammer approach to comedy. Until the mawkish finale there is a barrage of zingers, one-liners and vulgarisms. If a theatrical awards body had a category that honored the most abundant use of the word “fuck,” this play would be a major contender for such an honor. [more]

Then Silence

June 9, 2016

There’s a cascade of military interrogations, implied torture, romantic interludes, sex talk, political sloganeering, vague reminiscences, and other semi-comprehensible digressions that fill the time and that by its conclusion don’t add up to much. Initially there is a modest sense of interest in attempting to discern the events and characters depicted, but that soon evaporates and is replaced by numbness. [more]