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  Theatre in Review: Yosemite (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre)
Yosemite begins with a young man digging a hole downstage right. It's pretty big, but it isn't nearly as deep as the one the playwright, Daniel Talbott, has dug for himself. After establishing a creepily compelling ...
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Theatre in Review: The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (Richard Rodgers Theatre)
Thanks to the storm center of controversy that enveloped it even before its Boston tryout, The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess has become the hot-button show of the season (after Spider-Man, of course). The complaints began ...
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Theatre in Review: Stopped Bridge of Dreams (La MaMa)
To those of you who think of projections as the cutting edge, I give you John Jeserun, who has been exploring the intersection between live performance and video for three decades. (Among other things, he's the author of Chang in ...
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Theatre in Review: The Fall to Earth (InProximity Theatre Company/59E59)
The best thing about The Fall to Earth is the chance to catch up with Deborah Hedwall, an actress who doesn't turn up all that often. The loss is ours; she's responsible for two of the more unforgettable performances ...
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Theatre in Review: The Picture Box (Negro Ensemble Company/Theatre Row)
Did you ever go through the family albums of someone you don't really know? Not much fun, was it? That's the experience I had watching The Picture Box, an 80-minute trip down memory lane for some very thinly drawn characters.< ...
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Theatre in Review: The Road to Mecca (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre)
You won't be surprised to hear that Rosemary Harris, Carla Gugino, and Jim Dale are doing fine, subtle, quietly revelatory work in The Road to Mecca. With these three, how could it be otherwise? They're enough ...
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Theatre in Review: Leo (Theatre Row)
Recently, it's begun to seem as if the theatre is undergoing a video takeover. Only a few seasons ago, the use of any projected imagery seemed like an expensive add-on, to be used only when strictly necessary. But the march of technology ...
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Theatre in Review: Outside People (Vineyard/Naked Angels)
If nothing else, this season has given us a new dramatic genre: the East-West culture clash comedy. Outside People will inevitably be compared to David Henry Hwang's Chinglish, and for good reason. Both plays feature ...
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Theatre in Review: Sontag: Reborn (Under the Radar Festival/Public Theatre)
Sontag: Reborn begins, startlingly, on a note of unintended comedy. We see a video image, in extreme close-up, of Moe Angelos, the piece's sole perfomer, as the older Susan Sontag, that mane of hair crossed by a ...
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Theatre in Review: The Bee (Under the Radar/Japan House)
One hostage situation multiplies into two in The Bee, a black comedy-horror parable about man's addiction to violence. Hideki Noda's script, based on a story by Yasutaka Tsuitsui, is a bipolar exercise in ...
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Theatre in Review: Chimera (HERE/Under the Radar)
The things one learns at the theatre -- for example, there's chimerism, which is the state of having two different sets of DNA in one body. (I didn't believe in it until I Googled the term and found numerous references.) Jennifer Samuels ...
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Theatre in Review: Goodbar (Under the Radar/Public Theater)
Does anyone remember Looking for Mr. Goodbar? Until a few nights ago, I would have said no. Judith Rossner's blockbuster novel, published in 1975, tracks the progress of a troubled young woman through New York's singles-bar ...
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Theatre in Review: Close Up Space (Manhattan Theatre Club/New York City Center)
It must be the dream of every young playwright to have a production at a venue such as Manhattan Theatre Club. Suddenly, all those out-of-reach amenities are yours -- a name cast, a first-class director, a design team with the ...
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Theatre in Review: Lysistrata Jones (Walter Kerr Theatre)
The good news is that Lysistrata Jones has made the leap to Broadway, nicely fluffed up, with almost all of its charm intact. The not-so-good news is the show doesn't put it best foot forward at the top, a misstep that ...
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Theatre in Review: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (St. James Theatre)
Talk about history repeating itself: The revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever -- a musical about reincarnation -- is in danger of flopping all over again. In 1965, Alan Jay Lerner had a clever idea for a show, about ...
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Theatre in Review: Stick Fly (Cort Theatre)
The best thing about Stick Fly is that it introduces us to a talented new playwright named Lydia R. Diamond. The bad news is that Stick Fly may be not quite ready for Broadway.
Even so, Diamond has a distinct ...
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Theatre in Review: Titus Andronicus (The Public Theater)
Buckets of blood are deployed in the Public Theater's Titus Andronicus -- and, no, that's not a figure of speech. During the murder spree that constitutes the climax of Shakespeare's most unashamed potboiler, pails ...
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Theatre in Review: Farm Boy (59E59)
If you've seen War Horse and are wondering whatever happened to Joey, the title character, you can gallop on over to 59E59 to check out Farm Boy. Taken from a children's book (ages nine and up) by Michael Morpurgo< ...
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Theatre in Review: Maple and Vine (Playwrights Horizons)
In a vintage year for plays with flagrantly unbelievable premises-- just off the top of my head, The Submission, Burning, The Atmosphere of Memory, and Wild Animals You Should Know immediately leap to mind -- none is nuttier than ...
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Theatre in Review: Neighbourhood Watch (Stephen Joseph Theatre/59E59)
It's a truism that the vision of Alan Ayckbourn -- originally a purveyor of light comedies- -- has darkened considerably over time. Certainly few are as deliciously dark as Neighbourhood Watch, which begins with the ...
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