Miriam Silverman

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window

March 6, 2023

Unfortunately, the latest revival now at the BAM Harvey Theater cannot be counted as having reversed the play’s fortunes. It still seems vastly overwritten and verbose as it attempts to cover too many topics (political corruption, anti-Semitism, racism, artistic fulfillment, prostitution, drug addiction, marriage, homosexuality, etc.) Almost no social issue of the day except foreign politics has been left out. At a current running time of three hours and five minutes with one intermission, the play seems long and lugubrious though it has a great deal to say that is admirable and prescient. The script being used could see a judicious edit and a pruning of topics covered. [more]

Anatomy of a Suicide

February 23, 2020

"Anatomy of a Suicide"’s title is more than accurate as two suicides are depicted. Dramatizing such subject matter would usually be intrinsically harrowing. However, acclaimed British playwright Alice Birch is concerned with hollow technique rather than rendering fleshed out characters straightforwardly grappling with life’s travails. Instead, we get three women’s cryptic underdeveloped stories mashed together, enacted simultaneously, structured as short scenes in this 90 minutes play. It’s an unsatisfying minor exercise with flashes of emotional resonance. [more]

Junk

November 22, 2017

The protagonist of "Junk" is one Robert Merkin (Steven Pasquale), whose name alone is reminiscent of the real-life person he represents, Michael Robert Milken, the “Junk Bond King” of the mid 1980’s, who went to jail in 1990, and whose practices led to the world market crash a decade or so ago. “This is a story of kings, or what passes for kings these days,” says Forbes reporter Judy Chen (Teresa Avia Lim), in the play’s opening lines. “….enthroned in sky-high castles and embroiled in battles over, what else? Money.” [more]

A Delicate Ship

September 7, 2015

Anna Ziegler’s "A Delicate Ship" is an intelligent, intensely absorbing play that treats its three thirty-something characters like chess pieces moving warily about Reid Thompson’s raised platform apartment set, floating amidst a rock garden which becomes a life-sized game board. [more]

Everything You Touch

February 14, 2015

It’s a stylized “family secrets” drama, presented with a broad comedic tone. Heightened and arch (often including lengthy florid speeches) the dialogue has shades of "The Devil Wears Prada." Though mostly dense and opaque, there are emotionally involving sequences, particularly as the play reaches its conclusion. Ms. Callaghan also explores the theme of women’s self-image and how that issue clashes with society’s idealized view and the resulting conflicts. Bordering on the didactic, this nevertheless does yield moments of poignancy. [more]

Summer Shorts 2014: Series A

July 30, 2014

Warren Leight's "Sec. 310, Row D, Seats 5 and 6" is the most ambitious of the three plays as it attempts to cover 20 years in the lives of three friends who share a two-seats subscription at Madison Square Garden for the Knicks games. "Riverbed" deals with the loss of a child by married couple Adam and Megan in a freak drowning accident. The theme of men's friendships when they are away from their women is also evident in the curtain raiser, Roger Hedden's "The Sky and The Limit." [more]