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  Theatre in Review: Macbeth (Ethel Barrymore Theatre)
The new Macbeth at the Ethel Barrymore is the kind of without-a-net high-wire act that only the most daring actor would risk -- daring or just plain out of his mind. Having seen Alan Cumming's high-concept solo take on ...
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Theatre in Review: The Assembled Parties (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
The Assembled Parties takes place on two Christmas Days, in 1980 and 2000. In the intervening decades, just about everything happens to those in attendance -- and yet somehow, improbably, almost defiantly, life goes on. If ...
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Theatre in Review: Here Lies Love (The Public Theater)
For their first foray into musical theatre, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim have seized upon the life of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, she of the vast shoe collection, $5 million shopping tours, and Potemkin village ...
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Theatre in Review: The Nance (Lincoln Center Theater/Lyceum Theatre)
Like most great artists, Nathan Lane's technique has grown simpler and more refined with age. Time was when he would scurry about the stage, expending epic amounts of energy in search of his next laugh. (He usually found it.) Now, ...
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Theatre in Review: The Big Knife (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre)
Among the many playwrights who have mined their self-hatred for their art, none ever did it quite so nakedly as Clifford Odets. As many noted when Golden Boy was revived earlier this season, Odets' tale of a gifted violinist ...
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Theatre in Review: Motown (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre)
The reviewers for Motown formed a veritable Greek chorus, dismissing the show's libretto -- the Berry Gordy story, as told by Berry Gordy -- but finding themselves unable to resist the tunestack of Motown ...
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Theatre in Review: The Dance of Death (Red Bull Theater/Lucille Lortel Theater)
If, passing by the Lucille Lortel, you detect the scent of brimstone and sulfur, don't be surprised; it is merely Daniel Davis and Laila Robins taking part in the Satanic rituals of marriage, as depicted in The Dance of Death. Whatever ...
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Theatre in Review: The Last Will (Abingdon Theatre Company)
It's tempting to wonder what Robert Brustein, the critic, would have made of Robert Brustein, the playwright of The Last Will. The former was a tough customer, with a lethal eye for the false and trivial; the latter is a much ...
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Theatre in Review: The Call (Playwrights Horizons/Primary Stages)
A couple's decision to adopt opens up a soul-shaking world of anxiety and icy truths in The Call. Frustrated at their inability to conceive a child, Annie and Peter decide to adopt. Young, intelligent, and solidly middle ...
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Theatre in Review: Matilda (Shubert Theatre)
It's safe to say you've never seen anything quite like Matilda, the weirdly charming and charmingly weird new musical that opened last week to the kinds of critical hosannas previously bestowed only on the likes of The ...
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Theatre in Review: The Last Five Years (Second Stage)
The Last Five Years has always been a heartbreaker, for more than one reason. Jason Robert Brown's scenes-from-a-marriage chamber piece is so packed with powerful emotions that the foreshortened nature of its original ...
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Theatre in Review: Sleeping Rough (Page 73 Productions/The Wild Project)
Sleeping Rough is a good chance to meet up with a talented new writer, Kara Manning, even if one has to wonder if she has chosen the right medium for her sorrowful story, about a fractured family's response to a tragic ...
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Theatre in Review: Goldor $ Mythika: A Hero is Born (New Georges/New Ohio Theatre)
A true crime story is converted into a hard-sell theatrical extravaganza in Goldor $ Mythika: A Hero is Born. The title characters are a pair of Indiana losers who, thanks to their obsession with Dungeons and Dragons, ...
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Theatre in Review: Lucky Guy (Broadhurst Theatre)
Lucky Guy was originally called Stories About McAlary, a title that is far more indicative of the event now taking place on the stage of the Broadhurst. In a rather bold move for 2013, the playwright, Nora Ephron ...
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Theatre in Review: Kinky Boots (Al Hirschfeld Theatre)
"Drag queens are mainstream," proudly asserts Lola (née Simon), the cross-dressing lead character of Kinky Boots -- and, really, who in the packed Al Hirschfeld Theatre is going to contradict her? From its first ...
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Theatre in Review: Buyer and Cellar (Rattlestick Theatre)
It's easy to imagine Barbra Streisand -- not known for her sense of humor, especially when it comes to herself -- preparing a cease-and-desist order once she gets wind of Buyer and Cellar, but really, she needn't bother. What ...
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Theatre in Review: Good With People (59E59)
A middle-aged woman working the welcome desk at a seaside hotel has an oddly tense encounter with a young male guest in Good With People, an initially intriguing but ultimately enervated two-hander by David Harrower ...
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Theatre in Review: Hands on a Hardbody (Brooks Atkinson Theatre)
The people behind Hands on a Hardbody have gotten their hands on a rich piece of material, and it's a pity that they don't know what to do with it. Their subject, taken from the 1997 documentary of the same name, is the ...
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Theatre in Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's (Cort Theatre)
In 1966, David Merrick produced a musical based on Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. To call it a disaster is to understate the case: The project burned through three librettists (including, of all people, Edward Albee) ...
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Theatre in Review: The Mound Builders (Pershing Square Signature Theatre Center)
Theatregoers are getting a crash course in Lanford Wilson this season. Roundabout Theatre Company is offering Talley's Folly, his masterpiece in miniature and one of the two or three plays by which he will take his place in ...
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