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  Theatre in Review: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Second Stage)
I'm beginning to think that Lynn Nottage is some kind of multiple personality. It's almost inconceivable that the woman who gave us the poignant Intimate Apparel and the scalding Ruined has come up with By the ...
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Theatre in Review: Little Black Dress (The Exchange/Theatre at St. Clement's)
If you're sentimental about small-town America, steel yourself for Little Black Dress. The author, Ronan Noone, takes a look at one of those heartland towns that are supposed to be the backbone of this country, and ...
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Theatre in Review: The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide... (The Public Theatre)
There's been a fascinating theme to the season at the Public, in which several plays have dealt with families whose histories are irretrievably intertwined with the politics of their time. They include the Bush-era liberals of In the ...
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Theatre in Review: The People in the Picture (Roundabout Theatre Company/Studio 54)
I have concluded that Donna Murphy isn't an actress; she's a shape-shifter. There's no other way to explain the transformations she achieves in The People in the Picture. Cast as Reisel, a star of the Warsaw Yiddish ...
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Theatre in Review: Jerusalem (Music Box Theatre)
How many tours de force does Mark Rylance have in him? In the past couple of seasons, he has given us some memorably conceived losers and louts, but nothing can quite prepare you for his appearance as Johnny "Rooster" Byron ...
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Theatre in Review: Be a Good Little Widow (Ars Nova)
If you haven't gotten to know Bekah Brunstetter, it's time you did. I missed OORAH!, her New York debut, but from now on, I'll be keeping an eye out for her. Be a Good Little Widow is by no means a perfect ...
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Theatre in Review: The Shaugraun (Irish Repertory Theatre)
"The truth is locked in my soul, and heaven keeps the key." "Who are you who dare to lay hands on me? Do you know who I am?" "What! Has an infernal fate played such a trick on me?" Welcome to the world of The Shaugraun, ...
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Theatre in Review: The School for Lies (Classic Stage Company)
Molière, the most irreverent of playwrights, gets a taste of his own medicine in The School for Lies. David Ives has gotten his hands on The Misanthrope, one of the great dark comedies in all dramatic literature, and, ...
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Theatre in Review: Sister Act (Broadway Theatre)
Mormons have all the luck; these rude guys from South Park set out to lampoon them in a musical, and they end up with a show affirming the need for religious faith. Catholics, on the other hand, get Sister Act, which ...
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Theatre in Review: Catch Me If You Can (Neil Simon Theatre)
At a very early stage of his career, Aaron Tveit is becoming the king of the psychological musical. He first came to our attention a couple of seasons ago in Next to Normal, as a member of a family dominated by a bipolar ...
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Theatre in Review: The House of Blue Leaves (Walter Kerr Theatre)
One of the greatest plays of the 1970s, John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves is a magnificently manic-depressive comedy, an edifice of laughter built on a foundation of grief and terror. It's also a notoriously tricky ...
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Theatre in Review: Picked (Vineyard Theatre)
Is it possible to be a playwright and yet be afraid of drama? I've asked myself this question more than once when attending plays by Christopher Shinn. A writer with a distinct point of view, he has, in plays such as Where Do ...
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Theatre in Review: Reading Under the Influence (DR2 Theatre)
In Reading Under the Influence, the playwright Tony Glazer spoofs the "Real Housewives" franchise that has seemingly taken over the Bravo cable network. If this isn't the definition of shooting fish in a barrel, I ...
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Theatre in Review: Being Harold Pinter (Belarus Free Theatre/Ellen Stewart Theatre at La Mama)
It's one thing to feel the bone-penetrating chill of Harold Pinter's later political plays in any normal production; it's another thing altogether when you know that the cast members have experienced firsthand the terrors depicted ...
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Theatre in Review: The Motherf--ker With the Hat (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)
Forget David Mamet and his many imitators; Stephen Adly Guirgis is our new reigning poet of the obscene. Consider what he can do with the popular four-letter word that begins with "F." In his hands, it functions as a noun, verb ( ...
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Theatre in Review: Anything Goes (Roundabout Theatre Company/Stephen Sondheim Theatre)
There are exactly two moments in Anything Goes when pure, untrammeled musical comedy exuberance takes over, shaking the Stephen Sondheim Theater to its foundations -- and both of them are led by Sutton Foster. The ...
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Theatre in Review: Wonderland (Marquis Theatre)
The two people most responsible for putting the wonder in Wonderland are Neil Patel and Sven Ortel. Assigned the task of taking Broadway audiences through the looking glass into Lewis Carroll's famous, and ...
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Theatre in Review: Love Song (59E59)
Love Song is billed as a romantic comedy, but that's a misnomer. John Kolvenbach's new play touches on married love, sibling love, and illusory love, but at its heart it's about a certain very specific and ...
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Theatre in Review: Go Back to Where You Are (Playwrights Horizons)
Is there a new play shortage I haven't heard about? Are companies so strapped for new material that they're putting on first drafts? That's the only explanation I can think of for Go Back to Where You Are. David Greenspan's ...
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Theatre in Review: Epona's Labyrinth (HERE)
You'll find plenty of alluring, disorienting, or just plain disturbing imagery in Epona's Labyrinth, all of it the product of the video designer Keisuke Takahashi. Working with a four-sided set piece, designed by S ...
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