Maria Baranova

The Wind and the Rain: A story about Sunny’s Bar

October 14, 2024

Director Jared Mezzocchi uses the proximity of the actors to the audience to its best advantage. We don’t even question when one of our ranks is pulled out to play Young Sunny. It adds to the sense of community that is the cornerstone of this production. Kudos to Mezzocchi and the four actors in intuitively divining who in the audience is most right for participation. As the play dashes back and forth in time, the actors are kept moving, narrating as they go along. Again physical life clearly dictates whether they are in character or in narration mode. Mezzocchi incorporates projection design to complement the telling of the history of the ever-changing neighborhood. It provides a welcome steady stream of point-of-reference when one considers the land was once dry tundra in the shadow of a glacier twice the height of the Empire State Building. [more]

Fatherland

October 3, 2024

While the play is compelling, the question is what is the message? Is the play asking would we have done what the son did? The father is quoted by the son as calling him a traitor while the son defends his action as that of a patriot who was appalled by his father’s attacking the Capitol. The play is, to a great extent, preaching to the converted as only people who consider what happened on January 6th an insurrection would attend the play, while MAGA proponents will not view it that way. The ending is somewhat predictable though the twists and turns of the story do not always take the expected path. [more]

That Parenting Musical

September 23, 2024

While "That Parenting Musical" will not tell you anything you didn’t already know, it is a pleasant and undemanding way to spend an evening. The six attractive performers four of whom appear continually as other characters are good company and keep the show moving. That Parenting Musical is the latest in the series of cabaret style revues around a single theme. It is obvious Graham and Kristina Fuller are fully versed in their subject matter. [more]

Small Acts of Daring Invention

May 15, 2024

If the play's goal is to pay homage to Wright, it misses the mark for most audiences. If one is unfamiliar with Wright, most of the symbols revealed in the play will not be understood in terms of her life story. This fact is not necessarily a distraction from the action since the play provides a suitable level of mystery, imagination, and surprise, resulting in an entertaining but possibly unsettling experience, starting with the opening and carrying through to a satisfactory ending, all without spoken dialogue. [more]

Existentialism

March 10, 2024

The text created by Bogart in collaboration with Maddow and Zimet is a collage of assembled passages from the works of Sartre and de Beauvoir, amongst others. Maddow and Zimet don’t often speak to each other in the piece, yet they are still very much “in dialogue.” The piece is designed as to keep them separate, though inseparable. The moments where they share stage action: putting away groceries, having sex (brief, then on to the next thought), and dancing is charming as comic relief in contrast to all the other serious content of the piece. One tongue-in-cheek moment that sheds light on how much history they share is their little jazz dance routine abruptly segueing into the Jim Carroll Band’s New Wave classic, “People Who Died.” The change is as abrupt as it is disconcerting, but it is seamlessly incorporated into the stage business. [more]

you don’t have to do anything

February 15, 2024

"you don’t have to do anything" written by Ryan Drake is a story that explores a gay man’s coming of age from the time he was in seventh grade until graduating from college. It is set in the period when cell phone and computer messaging were becoming more prevalent. The central theme of the production is the psycho-social impact of homosexuality from a young man’s adolescence into his early twenties. Ryan Dobrin's direction is effective, given the nuanced presentation of the central theme with dialogue that suggests misinterpretation of events and misunderstandings of emotional content. [more]

The Following Evening

February 7, 2024

Although written and directed by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone of 600 Highwaymen, "The Following Evening" is a tribute and a summing up of the 50 year career and marriage of experimental theater legends Ellen Maddow and Paul Zimet, co-founding members of the Talking Band. In the past they were usually seen at La MaMa ETC, but the new show is part of the inaugural season at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) in the black box theater known as Theater C. The space is perfectly suitable to the minimalist performance piece which includes all four actors. [more]

The Whole of Time

January 8, 2024

Aside from the title not being explained, the Jean Graham-Jones translation seems to end very abruptly. Nothing is settled at the end of its short running time and it certainly feels like more is to come, unlike Williams’ play. There are also too many unanswered questions like what does Ursula do that supports the family of three, why has Lorenzo chosen Spain to move to, what event caused Antonia to stop going out, what is the relationship between Lorenzo and Maximiliano, etc. While Ursula is proud of her Hungarian and Mexican heritage we don’t learn much about it. The Whole of Time plays like a sketch of a play that hasn’t been written or that need a second act to deal with all the loose ends. [more]

Make Me Gorgeous!

November 25, 2023

As Kenneth/Kate Marlowe, Wade McCollum not only becomes the character but inhabits it. Required to act as narrator as well as performer in both male and female attire, McCollum is totally convincing. His personal charm and rapport with the audience also makes this a pleasurable experience. Make Me Gorgeous! is an unusual biographical show as the details of Kenneth Marlowe’s story will likely be unfamiliar to most theatergoers who will also be entertained by the musical portions of the evening. [more]

Ode to the Wasp Woman

November 16, 2023

"Ode to the Wasp Woman," written and directed by Rider McDowell, is a play done in the style of film noir and true crime films of the 1950’s. The show focuses on the events leading up to the death of four actors from the B-movies of the 1950’s: Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Susan Cabot, George Reeves, and Barbara Payton. It is essentially four acts in style and dialogue that are uneven in terms of theatrical structure, but given the nature of B-movies, they fit within the two dominant styles of noir and true crime. Even though McDowell captures the feel of a B-movie, there are issues within the production that don't fit. It also takes some knowledge of B-movies in terms of genres and styles. If you do not know what the B-movies were like, you may not like the show, and even if you are a B-movie fan, you may not pick up on the resemblance to those movies. [more]

Salesman 之死

October 22, 2023

Not only is Jeremy Tiang’s "Salesman 之死I" an important document of a classic American play, it is also an illustrative reminder of the cultural differences between China and the United States. Under the direction of Michael Leibenluft, the cast of six is always engaging and always convincing playing both men and women alternately. The design puts the audience directly into the rehearsal room from March to May 1983. The play also allows us to watch major American playwright Arthur Miller as he explores and rethinks a play he had written over three decades before. The fact that the Chinese actors eventually did so well with this typically American text demonstrates the universality of Miller’s greatest play. [more]

Helen.

October 20, 2023

"Helen." is a new play by Caitlin George based on Greek myths that is being given a terrific production at La MaMa by SuperGeographics in association with La MaMa and the storied company En Garde Arts. The acting is top-notch, the direction excellent, and the lighting (by Jackie Fox and Connor Sale) is atmospheric and evocative. [more]

Zoetrope

September 23, 2023

Clearly, "Zoetrope" often becomes difficult to follow for non-Spanish speakers. The dearth of realistic sets makes knowing which location is which confusing, despite the occasional descriptive titles. Then, the fact that most of the actors—all of whom are terrific—play several parts in a rapidly time-shifting plot makes figuring out who’s who and who is in a relationship with whom difficult to ascertain. Why is Puerto Rican independence glossed over? How does Claudio become a filmmaker? It’s the debut of his movie that ends "Zoetrope." [more]

Prometheus Firebringer

September 22, 2023

Somewhere there are rules for what theatre is supposed to do: it should entertain, it should instruct, it should provoke. To say that Annie Dorsen’s "Prometheus Firebringer" checks all the boxes is an understatement of what she has done here. It is a brilliant reactionary, and yes, even cautionary, piece that takes a 2,500-year- old play that doesn’t really exist anymore (what is left of it is the title and a fragment or two – the rest has been lost over time) and thrusts it into an exercise for the unwitting specter of Artificial Intelligence. The results are fascinating, yet unremarkable; provocative, yet giddy. [more]

No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh

September 13, 2023

Everyone loves a good immigrant story, from The Godfather on down. 'No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh" doesn't reach that high, but it succeeds in what it tries to do, which is to be an accurate portrayal of a specific experience. Agata (played by reliable veteran Kellie Overbey) is an aging Russian tailor with a shop in Queens who wants to retire. She's 64 years old and hasn't had a vacation in 12 years. She'd like to give the shop to her young assistant Janice (Carmen Zilles). Janice is interested but also boy crazy and generally doesn't have good judgment. [more]

What Else Is True?

August 21, 2023

Another problem with the play is that although the subject is “Improv” we never actually witness any, just theater games to prepare for group improvs. Games like Mind Meld, Mating Call, 99 Problems, Zip Zap Zop and the Pattern Game are practiced but as the rules are not made clear, many in the audience be confused by what is happening. Throughout the play we are told that Miles is the most brilliant of them all, based on his auditions and performances, but except for a brief moment in the next to last scene in which he performs two characters in an improv alone, we are never shown any evidence of this. [more]

Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground

June 27, 2023

Based on a range of Eisenhower’s memoirs, speeches and letters, the play demonstrates without a doubt his belief in moderation and his liberal bent of which many people today are unaware. Set at his Gettysburg farm in 1962, two years after the end of his presidency at age 71, the premise is that while recording his memories for a book on his White House years, he is incensed by a New York Times poll of 75 historians which places him 22 out of 31 presidents, “a great American, not great president.” He then attempts to defend his life and work in the two acts that follow, with the first half taking us through W.W. II and the second half delineating his presidency. [more]

GAS

May 28, 2023

"GAS" by Charles Cissel explores the “never-never land” of a war without end. It is a time when the characters examine the unreality of the experience. It occurs within an ill-defined dimension resembling a bombed-out children's playground. Felicia Lobo guides the able cast through what is, at times, a complicated, multilayered story that ultimately fails to deliver the nuances of the script engagingly. [more]

Misconceptions

May 21, 2023

Abortion, pro or con? The Blessed Unrest theater company has taken on this thorny issue. Steven Wangh’s "Misconceptions"—an ironically perfect title—unfolds in the form of a series of interviews which take us into every nook and cranny of the issue—pro and con. It is by no means just a dry documentary or a blasting screed, but a warm, sophisticated and ultimately moving humanization of the subject. [more]

The Orchard

June 26, 2022

Such an event is the high-tech adaptation at the Baryshnikov Arts Center calling itself "The Orchard," conceived and directed by Igor Golyak, described as based on "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov as translated by Carol Rocamora. If you don’t know the play, you will be entirely at sea. If you know the play, you will marvel at all the totally unnecessary tricks used by the director that do nothing to help with understanding the play or ferreting out its meaning. Although the production has a fine cast headed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jessica Hecht, the actors are swamped by all the unnecessary trappings around them. [more]

Islander: A New Musical

June 7, 2022

An import from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, "Islander" embraces that renowned international jamboree's artistry and experimentalism, most notably by forgoing musicians for sound looping machines operated by Findlay and Tennick themselves. Especially for the technophobic (cough, cough), it's an extraordinary feat to witness actors become part of the production crew without the conceit ever feeling gimmicky or compromising the flow of the storytelling. That's no doubt due mostly to Findlay and Tennick's on-the-spot sound engineering abilities, which, to be sure, still take a backseat to their even more remarkable singing and acting. [more]

Sky of Darkness

June 6, 2022

Following the lead of Francis Ford Coppola’s "Apocalypse Now," Siting Yang has updated Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness" to the present but left the story mainly set in Africa. In "Sky of Darkness" as the narrator Ma Luo (Yang’s new Marlow) is Chinese, the tale is now an exposé of Chinese interference in African affairs both financial and military. However, Yang complicates the story by having it periodically interrupted by The Ghost of Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe who famously gave a lecture criticizing Conrad’s novella in 1975 from an African point of view as racist and stereotyped. But this Achebe doesn’t object to the story as a xenophobic work of post-colonialism but criticizes Conrad for what he says he did not see. He doesn’t take into consideration that Conrad’s story is told by a series of narrators and that Captain Marlow is horrified by the repression he does see by the European rulers (in his time the brutal Belgian occupation). [more]

¡Americano!

May 12, 2022

Tony Valdovinos who grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, was 18 before he found out that he was an undocumented immigrant. The new musical "¡Americano!" is based on the true story of his life and challenges. Impassioned and spirited with an animated cast that seems to be living their roles rather than acting them, the show is a superior musical entertainment. Staged with vigor and energy by Michael Barnard, artistic director of The Phoenix Theatre Company where the show premiered in 2020, and choreographer Sergio Mejia, ¡Americano! is both moving and entertaining, moving along with the speed of an express train with never a minute wasted in its urgent storytelling. [more]

Hart Island

March 13, 2022

Whether or not Tracy Weller’s "Hart Island" directly harkens back to Masters, it certainly has similarities, most particularly in its poetically rendered revelations of the underbelly of life and death. Weller turns Hart Island, impeccably rendered in Christopher & Justin Swader’s set occupying most of the Gym at Judson, into a dark metaphor revealing more than any statistics or headlines could ever do about existence during the Covid pandemic. Hart Island is where the bodies of indigent and anonymous people wind up, usually buried by prisoner work details from nearby Riker’s Island. Of course, during the last two years Hart Island’s necropolis has burgeoned both in reality and in Weller’s imagination as fertile in this time as Masters’ was in his. [more]

The Daughter-in-Law

February 24, 2022

The Mint Theater Company which gave the first New York production of "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd," Lawrence’s best play and one of the great British tragedies of modern drama, has revived "The Daughter-in-Law" which it first staged in 2003 in an excellent new production again directed by Martin Platt. While the authentic and thick Midlands dialect (developed with specialist Amy Stoller) may be a problem for some theatergoers, not only does it get easier as the play develops but the local slang is easy enough to figure out. Unlike the other two plays in the trilogy, the engrossing Daughter-in-Law is not usually considered autobiographical (Lawrence had not married Baroness Frieda von Richthofen Weekley at the time he wrote it), but it was written at the time of his very autobiographical Sons and Lovers which has similar themes: mothers and sons, and wives and husbands. [more]

The Hang

January 25, 2022

After a grand Pippin-style introductory opening, one exhilarating number follows another in acclaimed theater maker Taylor Mac’s "The Hang." Derived from jazz and opera, this vibrant musical fantasia is inspired by the Greek philosopher Socrates’ last hours in 399 BC Athens. He’d been sentenced to death by drinking the poison hemlock for “corrupting the youth” and “impiety.” The show is based on his student Plato’s account of these events. As there’s a homoerotic strain to the Greek philosophical milieu, "The Hang" has a raucous queer vibe. [more]

Morning’s At Seven

November 16, 2021

Dan Wackerman’s revival for The Peccadillo Theater Company and Woodie King, Jr.’s New Federal Theatre has an equally starry cast some of whom have not appeared on New York stages for quite a while: Lindsay Crouse, Alma Cuervo, Tony Roberts, John Rubinstein and West Coast stars Patty McCormack and Alley Mills. Demonstrating the enduring worth of this piece of Americana, the production is as equally delightful as the previous two revivals. It is also graced by a beautifully realistic setting by Harry Feiner for the shared backyard of the two homes where all the action takes place. The new production emphasizes the humor in the dialogue and, if memory serves, it is more dramatic than the previous two revivals. [more]

Tammany Hall

November 5, 2021

Co-creators and co-directors Darren Lee Cole and Alexander Flanagan-Wright have crafted a novel documentary premise, enforced with immaculate historical detail without being pedantic. The events and sense of this period are imparted through precise information characters deliver. That’s aided by the company wearing costume designer Grace Jeon’s smart dark suits, a variety of hats, and smashing flapper dresses. Lighting designer Emily Clarkson and sound designer Megan Culley add to the authenticity with their high caliber contributions. [more]

1-2-3 Manhunt

October 11, 2021

DiMurro writes with an acute sense of the rhythm of New York speech and its old-school jargon, helped by director William Roudebush’s complementary sense of timing, not to mention four expert actors who know how to embody these characters. Herrick Goldman’s atmospheric lighting and Andy Evan Cohen’s brilliant urban soundscape immeasurably added to the overall impact of "1-2-3 Manhunt." [more]

Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories

February 13, 2020

The Mint Theater Company has rediscovered and championed British actor/playwright Miles Malleson with Conflict and Yours Unfaithfully. Now they have combined two of his one acts adapted from great short story writers in an evening called "Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories" in their premiere pairing. While the production directed by Jonathan Bank and Jane Shaw (each directing one play) is able to be performed on basically the same set, the two plays have little to do with each other and represent love in two different ways. Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy are major writers, but the adaptations appear to be minor and do not show off their authors at their best. Although the Chekhov story is basically an anecdote, the Tolstoy tale is a fable with a message. [more]

Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes)

February 11, 2020

ICE raids, harrowing border crossing journeys and transferring money home are depicted in the rousing and moving play "Fandango For Butterflies (and Coyotes)." It’s derived from undocumented Latin American immigrants’ stories of why they left their countries and of their lives in the United States. Reminiscences and dramatic complications are interwoven with terrific dance sequences and lovely songs. [more]

The Gospel of John

December 11, 2019

After marveling at Ken Jennings’ power of memorization, one has to admire his ability to deliver the entire text of "The Gospel of John" with unwavering clarity and devotion to its meaning both as literature and as a Christian lodestone. An agile actor (and singer), Jennings (the original Tobias in "Sweeney Todd"), deftly tells the story of Jesus as seen through the eyes of John the Baptist. The actor roams about a simple raised platform in front of a rough-hewn back curtain made of wrinkled tan cloth. What looks like a handmade bench—a subtle reference to Jesus’ vocation?—completes the set. [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]

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