Vivian Beaumont Theater

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]

The Frogs

November 9, 2023

MasterVoices acquitted itself well in this deliciously comic concert staging of "The Frogs." Why this Stephen Sondheim score is not better known or revived more often remains a mystery after seeing the fine production that fit the Fredrick P. Rose Hall of the Rose Theater. Hopefully, this concert will lead to more fully staged productions now that MasterVoices demonstrated how many star turns are available in this comic masterpiece by Shevelove, Lane and Sondheim. [more]

The Light in the Piazza

June 23, 2023

New York City Center Encores!’s new production of the musical, directed by Chay Yew, stars another Tony Award winner, the sensational Ruthie Ann Miles, as the determined Margaret Johnson with beautiful-voiced Anna Zavelson as a believably three-dimensional Clara. The Encores! production is more down-to-earth than either the film or the original Lincoln Center production and more satisfying as a human drama. There’s no stinting on humor, but the characters’ formerly trivial problems now seem more worthy of our attention. [more]

Camelot

April 20, 2023

Unfortunately, though Sorkin may have made this "Camelot" more politically correct, scientifically accurate and less supernatural, it is much less entertaining and magical than earlier productions and certainly much darker as well as less funny. Whereas the original 1960 Broadway production billed itself as “the most beautiful show in the world,” Bartlett Sher’s revival has an almost empty grey stage most of the time (designed by Michael Yeargan) and drab costumes from Jennifer Moeller. Although the cast has 25 performers, the court scenes always look underpopulated as though not enough courtiers have shown up and there is almost no pageantry which one expects for a royal court of the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages. [more]

Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & The Pool

November 20, 2022

Still, rest assured, most of what Birbiglia says is funny, even for any fans well aware that Birbiglia is leading us somewhere that is not. Given the eponymous Hemingway allusion, the show's mortal endpoint is obvious, but the journey to it is full of surprising, and sometimes touching, laughs. They begin with an annual health checkup that includes a worrisomely poor performance on a spirometer, the ball-and-hose machine that measures lung function. The results baffle Birbiglia's doctor, since they seem to indicate he was having a heart attack while taking the test. [more]

The Skin of Our Teeth

May 4, 2022

You would think that at the tail end of a pandemic Thornton Wilder’s 1943 Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Skin of Our Teeth" would be the perfect play for our moment. This experimental play which pays tribute to the resilience of the human race offers hope in time of adversity. The experimental nature of the play uses techniques promulgated by James Joyce, Luigi Pirandello and Bertolt Brecht, none of which are so new or unfamiliar anymore: actors addressing the audience directly and stepping out of character, anachronistic events or references, etc. There are allusions to the Old and New Testament, Greek Mythology and Shakespeare. Writing in the middle of World War II, Wilder presciently made use of such themes as the problems of climate change, refugees, dysfunctional marriages, nepotism and political corruption, which remain at the forefront today. Even after 80 years, Wilder’s play seems eternally forward-looking, eternally novel, and continues to be an important piece of American theater. [more]

Flying Over Sunset

December 20, 2021

"Flying Over Sunset," Pulitzer Prize-winning bookwriter/director James Lapine’s new original show, is a “What If?” musical: using historical facts that are known about writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley, politician and diplomat Clare Boothe Luce, and actor and film star Cary Grant, he has created a fictitious story about their experimenting with LSD together in the late 1950’s together. The problem seems to be that he doesn’t appear to know much about them so that the results are extremely thin though the musical still manages to run a little under three hours. The songs by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Michael Korie don’t add a great deal and the production design which ought to be psychedelic is subdued and unadventurous. Stars Harry Hadden-Paton as Huxley, Carmen Cusack as Luce and Tony Yazbeck as Grant try valiantly but they can’t breathe life into generic cardboard cutouts. [more]

The Great Society

November 6, 2019

LBJ’s ambitious social programs in the United States of the 1960’s being sidetracked by the folly of the Vietnam War and his mishandling of the unrest caused by the Civil Rights Movement, have been the subject of books, documentaries and television docudramas. Playwright Schenkkan’s stage treatment of this material is a clumsy waxworks affair of a multitude of forgotten and remembered personages spouting off during two choppy acts. [more]

My Fair Lady (Lincoln Center Theater)

May 14, 2018

With an enormous painted backdrop depicting London and featuring St. Paul’s Cathedral and a lamppost (the glorious sets have been designed by Michael Yeargan), the musical begins as Covent Garden pivots into view on a revolving stage. Though, from the moment that we see him in the opening scene, Hadden-Paton seems too young as Higgins in comparison to Rex Harrison, who originated the part, he is actually closer in age to Shaw’s intentions. He also sings more melodically than Harrison, who famously song-spoke his way through the role. Though Ambrose’s voice seems weak at first (“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”), it gains in strength and stature as she proceeds. [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]

Oslo

May 4, 2017

The clarity of this new play by J.T. Rogers does not only rely on the smart yet surefire way it’s written, but also on the masterful staging by Bartlett Sher, who, after recent productions of both "South Pacific" and "The King and I," is no stranger to directing gargantuan shows at Lincoln Center. Given its subject--the Oslo Accord or peace treaty between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) in 1993--Oslo is ultimately, an enormous play. But it is told in intimate terms. [more]

The King and I

May 12, 2015

The Lincoln Center Theater revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I is a provocative, eye-filling and poignant experience. Both younger and older theater writers and audience members can learn a good deal about how to tell a story on stage that is both emotionally moving and makes you care about the characters from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s expert storytelling. "The King and I" will send you out of the theater feeling that you have had a fulfillingly memorable experience filled with unforgettable songs, dances and theatrical moments. [more]

Act One

May 5, 2014

James Lapine's stage adaptation of Moss Hart's celebrated autobiography of his early years, Act One, is a bit unwieldy at under three hours in length as it does contain so many characters and incidents. However, like an absorbing mini-series you have lived with over a period of time, you will be sorry when it is over. [more]

BROADWAY’S 2006 Fall/Winter Season

January 27, 2007

The White Way barely had time to recover from last season’s exciting Tony race when Martin Short roused the sleeping giant with his manic ode to himself, Fame Becomes Me. [more]