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  Theatre in Review: Once (New York Theatre Workshop)
On the face of it, is there a less likely candidate for the musical theatre than the film Once? An out-of-nowhere indie hit in 2007, it recounts a few days in the lives of an Irish street singer and a Czech pianist, in semi ...
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Theatre in Review: The Cherry Orchard (Classic Stage Company)
An antic mood has overtaken one and all in Classic Stage Company's revival of The Cherry Orchard. As Epikhodov, the trouble-prone clerk -- he is known far and wide as "Master Disaster" -- Michael Urie enters carrying ...
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Theatre in Review: The Man Who Came to Dinner (Peccadillo Theatre Company at Theatre at St. Clement's)
Not so long ago, I worried that The Man Who Came to Dinner was losing its luster. Unlike other comedies by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, it seemed too thoroughly rooted in the facts of life, circa 1939. ...
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Theatre in Review: Bonnie and Clyde (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)
"They're young...and in love...and they kill people." So goes the ad copy for the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. Back then, the words carried a sting of irony; today, you can apply them to the new musical at the Schoenfeld, but their ...
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Theatre in Review: Wild Animals You Should Know (MCC Theatre/Lucille Lortel Theatre)
Kids today. Wild Animals You Should Know begins with Matthew and Jacob - best friends and high school juniors - in their respective bedrooms, communicating via Skype. You can tell they have the camera option, because, in a ...
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Theatre in Review: Blood and Gifts (Lincoln Center Theatre/Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre)
The opening lengths on the long road to Operation Iraqi Freedom and its seemingly endless aftermath are traced with rare lucidity in Blood and Gifts. J.T. Rogers' wide-angle drama is also an illuminating lesson in the law ...
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Theatre in Review: Seminar (Golden Theatre)
In Seminar, the literary life is seen as nature red in tooth and claw. Theresa Rebeck has always had a special knack for creating characters who are only too willing to let fly their scalding opinions, and this talent has ...
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Theatre in Review: Private Lives (Music Box Theatre)
For reasons I've never really understood, Private Lives, conceived as a work of youthful daring, has, with age, become a warhorse for superannuated stars. To me, it's one of the key plays of the 20th century, a dazzling ...
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Theatre in Review: Horsedreams (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre)
One family's devastating history of addiction is recalled in harrowing detail in Horsedreams. It begins with Desiree, one of the army of young women making New York's club scene in the early '80s; we meet her with her ...
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Theatre in Review: The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness (Ma-Yi Theatre/Connelly Theatre)
The young siblings at the heart of The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness have been burdened with an extraordinary history of tragedy and displacement, and, as the lights come up on Carla Ching's drama, the ...
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Theatre in Review: Burning (The New Group/Theatre Row)
You can't say that Thomas Bradshaw isn't generous. In Burning, he gives the audience several diverse groups of characters, three sets of orphans with complicated back stories, two separate time frames decades apart, ...
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Theatre in Review: Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays (Minetta Lane Theatre)
As advertised, Standing on Ceremony is a collection of sketches and playlets on the topic of same-sex marriage, but its greatest glory involves a matchup between a man and a woman. I'm talking about the playwright Paul ...
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Theatre in Review: Godspell (Circle in the Square Theatre)
If the current Broadway revival of Godspell proves anything, it's that not every hit show of the past must be seen again. In this revival-happy era, Godspell must have seemed especially tempting. A blockbuster in its ...
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Theatre in Review: Venus in Fur (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
Things certainly do move quickly these days. It was only two years ago that Nina Arianda began her ascension to star status, and she's already reviving her greatest hits. Having made a big splash Off Broadway and barreled her way ...
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Theatre in Review: The Blue Flower (Second Stage)
The Blue Flower represents a milestone of sorts, I think. In recent years, we've seen many productions to which projections have made a valuable contribution. More recently, we've seen plays in which projections are ...
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Theatre in Review: King Lear (The Public Theater)
King Lear, as Shakespeare wrote it, begins with pomp and ceremony and rapidly moves toward chaos and ruin. Oddly enough, The Public Theater's current revival moves in the other direction. Ill-designed and ...
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Theatre in Review: Other Desert Cities (Booth Theatre)
Christmas has come early on Broadway this year, as the members of the spectacularly troubled Wyeth family are once again convening for a holiday filled with zingers, recriminations, and the unearthing of some shattering secrets. It's a ...
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Theatre in Review: Queen of the Mist (Transport Group/The Gym at Judson)
"I am a phenomenon," says Mary Testa in Queen of the Mist, and -- let's face it -- she is speaking God's honest truth. Cast as Anna Edson Taylor, who, at the unlikely age of 63, rode over Niagara Falls in a barrel, ...
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Theatre in Review: The Atmosphere of Memory (Labyrinth Theatre Company/Bank Street Theatre)
Basically, there are three kinds of bad plays -- ambitiously bad, run-of-the-mill bad, and oh-my-god-this-is-indescribable. The Atmosphere of Memory falls firmly in the last category, and it doesn't waste any time getting ...
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Theatre in Review: Chinglish (Longacre Theatre)
"Take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty." What's that, you say? Try this instead: "Slippery slopes ahead." That's one of the wildly mistranslated signs that turn up at the beginning of Chinglish, a play in which ...
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