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  Theatre in Review: The Jacksonian (The New Group/Theatre Row)
After a brief stay in The Jacksonian, you'll want to check in to the nearest Holiday Inn. The Jacksonian is a motel in Jackson, Mississippi, circa 1964; it is the Christmas season and the rather sad attempts at holiday cheer do little to ...
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Theatre in Review: Becoming Dr. Ruth (Westside Theatre)
If we must have these one-person, story-of-my-life exercises, we'll be lucky if they all focus on personalities as sparkling as Dr. Ruth Westheimer. We are referring, of course, to the giggling grandmother of sex advice, famed for ...
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Theatre in Review: Murder for Two (New World Stages)
As Stephen Sondheim said, you gotta get a gimmick. Hence, Murder for Two, which could be subtitled "a musical stunt." A sort-of spoof of the old locked-room genre of mysteries, it features a young policeman investigating the ...
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Theatre in Review: Disaster! (St. Luke's Theater)
It is 1979, and the Barracuda Floating Casino is parked in the Hudson River. Tony, the shady, celebrity-mad owner, has spared no expense for the opening night party -- even if he has skimped on every possible safety feature. Nevertheless, ...
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Theatre in Review: Betrayal (Ethel Barrymore Theatre)
There's a great old Mike Nichols and Elaine May sketch called "Adultery," the joke of it based on the idea that people in different countries break the sixth commandment in different ways. The Americans, of course, are so ...
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Theatre in Review: A Time to Kill (Golden Theatre)
I would like to make one thing perfectly clear: I like potboilers. They keep the theatres open, they keep audiences happy, and, after all, we have to do something while waiting for the masterpieces to show up. In fact, if every Broadway ...
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Theatre in Review: The Snow Geese (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman)
We've long had The Seagull; now say hello to The Snow Geese. Located solidly in the Scandinavian-Russian tradition of delicately rendered depression, Sharr White's new play is an odd duck, a meticulous, but ...
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Theatre in Review: The Winslow Boy (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre)
Beware critics (or anyone, really) who labels a play "old-fashioned" or "a chestnut." Plays are as old-fashioned as the people playing in them; give one a probing director and a cast that hasn't been told that they're starring in something ...
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Theatre in Review: Honky (Urban Stages)
The killing of a young black boy for a coveted pair of sneakers sets several lives spinning out of control in Honky, a scattershot but sometimes very funny satire that introduces Greg Kalleres, a playwright who is very much ...
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Theatre in Review: Grasses of a Thousand Colors (Theatre for a New Audience/The Public Theater)
Entering the Susan Stein Shiva Theater at the Public, an usher cheerfully informed us that if we left during Grasses of a Thousand Colors we would not be permitted to return until after intermission. "A hostage situation," joked the ...
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Theatre in Review: A Mind-Bending Evening of Beckett (Irish Repertory Theatre)
For a playwright often considered to be forbiddingly difficult, Samuel Beckett has never been so popular. Coming up next month is the much-anticipated revival of Waiting for Godot, starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. ...
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Theatre in Review: The Downtown Loop (3LD Art and Technology Center)
The weather is cooling, but you can still take a tour of Manhattan in The Downtown Loop. Ben Gassman's play is set on one of those tour buses that can be seen all over town, and because this is being staged at 3LD, the ...
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Theatre in Review: A Night with Janis Joplin (Lyceum Theatre)
What with jukebox musicals like Mamma Mia! and Rock of Ages; bio musicals like Jersey Boys, Motown, and the upcoming Beautiful (about Carole King); and tribute shows, like the recently departed Let It ...
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Theatre in Review: Fun Home (The Public Theater)
At first glance, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home seems like a perfectly dreadful basis for a musical -- which makes the achievement now onstage at the Public Theater all the more remarkable. It's a graphic memoir -- a self ...
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Theatre in Review: Romeo and Juliet (Classic Stage Company)
I really hate to state the obvious, but these are confused times, so here goes: If you're going to stage Shakespeare's plays, you will need actors who can handle his verse. Got it?
This seemingly irrefutable proposition is apparently big ...
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Theatre in Review: The Model Apartment (Primary Stages/59E59)
Donald Margulies has called The Model Apartment his "problem child," meaning that it didn't get much attention in its 1995 debut at Primary Stages. The production was hobbled by the sudden departure of a lead actor, ...
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Theatre in Review: Two Point Oh (The Active Theatre/59E59)
Marriage is a virtual thing in Two Point Oh, a clever, if superficial, thriller about our brave new world of digital technology. How brave? Well, playwright Jeffrey Jackson's protagonist, Elliot Leeds, is a virtual ...
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Theatre in Review: Bronx Bombers (Primary Stages at The Duke on 42nd Street)
Playwright Eric Simonson fields an all-star lineup of baseball greats in Bronx Bombers, a whimsical, sentimental comedy about the New York Yankees. Following Lombardi and Magic/Bird, this is Simonson's ...
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Theatre in Review: Lady Day (Little Shubert Theatre)
The best thing about this potted biography of Billie Holiday is that it lets us spend a couple of hours with Dee Dee Bridgewater. A fabulous jazz singer with Broadway chops to boot, she thoroughly nails the signature Holiday ...
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Theatre in Review: Bad Jews (Roundabout/Laura Pels Theatre)
In her young career, Tracee Chimo has shown a distinct knack for playing tough customers. As a skeptical drama student in Circle Mirror Transformation, the meanest of the mean girls in Bachelorette, and a hard-headed ...
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