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  Theatre in Review: Closer Than Ever (York Theatre)
Given the rapidly receding level of craft in our modern musical theatre, I'm beginning to think we should keep Closer Than Ever on permanent display. If we did, aspiring composers and lyricists could study the incomparable ...
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Theatre in Review: Harvey (Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54)
Well, hello there, Harvey; long time, no see. It may not seem like it, but Roundabout has taken a considerable risk in putting on Mary Chase's war horse, which racked up no fewer than 1,775 performances between 1944 ...
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Theatre in Review: 3C (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre)
What if there was a revisionist version of Three's Company, in which Jack, the John Ritter character, was a tormented, closeted gay; Chrissy (Suzanne Somers to you) was promiscuous, thanks to a history of sexual abuse; and Janet (Joy ...
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Theatre in Review: Medieval Play (Signature Theatre)
It may be an early candidate for worst play of the season, but Medieval Play has one of the best openings in town. A lush red velvet curtain -- part of Walt Spangler's expansive and devilishly clever set design -- ...
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Theatre in Review: As You Like It (Delacorte Theatre)
Rosalind, meet Lily Rabe; Lily Rabe, meet Rosalind. Then again, introductions are hardly necessary. Ever since she stepped onto the Delacorte stage in The Merchant of Venice two summers ago, it's been clear that she was fated ...
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Theatre in Review: This is Fiction (InViolet Repertory Theater Company at the Cherry Lane Theatre)
At the beginning of This is Fiction, Amy, the heroine, is learning that attaining one's dream can be a nightmare. A writer who has spent years grinding out magazine articles on such searching, world-changing topics as "How ...
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Theatre in Review: Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep)
The director Sam Gold has said that his ambition was to create a production of Uncle Vanya that retained the intimacy of a living room reading. To achieve this, he has built a small house inside Soho Rep. Andrew ...
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Theatre in Review: Love Goes to Press (Mint Theatre Company)
"They run this lousy war on sex appeal!" So says one of the beleaguered males left blindsided by the heroines of Love Goes to Press. Obeying the write-what-you-know rule, Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles, who ...
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Theatre in Review: Tiny Dynamite (59E59)
Somehow, one feels Abi Morgan must have viewed Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim several times before writing Tiny Dynamite, a story of friendship, triangular romance, and suicide. In any case, an air of romantic ...
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Theatre in Review: Rapture, Blister, Burn (Playwrights Horizons)
"That's a wonderful toast! Biting yet generous," says one of the characters in Rapture, Blister, Burn, as martinis are hoisted. It's also a pretty accurate description of Gina Gionfriddo's approach to her characters. ...
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Theatre in Review: Once on This Island (Paper Mill Playhouse)
If you're a fan -- as I am -- of the scores of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, this is something of an event -- a chance to revisit, after two decades, their most successful show after Ragtime. But the real news here ...
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Theatre in Review: Escape (Creation Production Company at La MaMa)
Everybody in Susan Mosakowski's comic triptych is in need of, well, escape. There's Harry Houdini III, grandson of you-know-who, who works hard at getting out of a straitjacket, a set of chains, a giant milk can, and a coffin, with ...
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Theatre in Review: Murder in the First (59E59)
Musicals based on films are a dime a dozen, but plays drawn from cinematic source material are exceedingly rare. This alone makes Murder in the First an object of curiosity. Dan Gordon has adapted his own screenplay, ...
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Theatre in Review: Food and Fadwa (Noor Theatre/New York Theatre Workshop)
In what may be its most daring aesthetic gambit yet, New York Theatre Workshop -- a company that puts a premium on experimentation -- is presenting a thoroughly conventional, naturalistic domestic comedy-drama. The innovation is in the ...
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Theatre in Review: I Am a Tree (Theatre at St. Clement's)
A woman explores her bizarre, fragmented family history in I Am a Tree, written and performed by Dulcy Rogers; she appears as Claire, who, at the age of 37, finds herself confronting a trio of aunts she never knew ...
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Theatre in Review: My Children! My Africa! (Signature Theatre)
"I think it is necessary for me to remind you what a debate is supposed to be," says Mr. M, the schoolteacher who presides over the action of My Children! My Africa! The statement is meant to quell a pair of students whose ...
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Theatre in Review: The Common Pursuit (Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre)
Time's wicked way with the ideals and ambitions of the young provides the theme for The Common Pursuit. Watching Moisés Kaufman's revival at the Roundabout, I felt the sting as deeply as any of the beleaguered ...
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Theatre in Review: " " The Cockfight Play (The Duke on 42nd Street)
Certainly the new production at the Duke on 42nd Street doesn't lack for attention-getting stratagems. First of all, there's that title, which we dare not mention in the headline, for fear of sending thousands of our email newsletters into ...
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Theatre in Review: Title and Deed (Signature Theatre Company)
It happens to everyone, sooner or later. A playwright is received with acclaim, hailed as a fresh voice and the wave of the future, and you are left, purely and simply, baffled. While others are composing rhapsodies, you stand outside, ...
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Theatre in Review: February House (Public Theater)
If you're going to populate your musical with the likes of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, and Gypsy Rose Lee -- and that's just for openers -- audiences have every right to expect some fireworks. If February House offers less ...
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