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  Theatre in Review: The Patsy/Jonas (Transport Group)
You won't find an odder, more quixotic -- and, at times, more charming -- entertainment than The Patsy. David Greenspan, Jack Cummings III, and Kristina Corcoran Williams have dug up a hit domestic comedy from the ...
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Theatre in Review: Hair (St. James Theatre)
The tribe is back, and the be-in is on again for another summer of love. This time, the venue is the St. James, rather than the Martin Beck (now home to a very different sort of '60s-era musical, How to Succeed in ...
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Theatre in Review: Silence! The Musical (Theatre 80)
Sometimes, a star is hidden in plain sight, just waiting to be discovered. Consider the case of Jenn Harris. She's turned up in a number of well-received Off Broadway productions, and, I assume, has gotten her fair share of praise ...
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Theatre in Review: Master Class (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
Will the real Maria Callas please stand up? It's a fair question; after all, we've had so many to choose from. Repeated viewings of Master Class over the years have revealed the remarkable way in which the role of Maria ...
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Theatre in Review: Tryst (Irish Repertory Theatre)
If you're in the mood for a summer stock experience but don't want to brave the wilds of Connecticut or New Jersey, you could drop in on Tryst. Rather mysteriously, the Irish Rep has chosen to revive this two-hander ...
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Theatre in Review: Measure for Measure (Shakespeare in the Park)
Funny thing about Measure for Measure; for decades -- centuries, even-- nobody wanted to deal with it, regarding its plot as both preposterous and distasteful. In the last couple of decades, however, it has acquired a ...
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Theatre in Review: The Eyes of Babylon (59E59)
Jeff Key has led such a dramatic life, I only wish some of it had made its way into The Eyes of Babylon. An Alabama native, a theatre professional, and a gay man, he made the counterintuitive decision to join the U.S ...
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Theatre in Review: Side Effects (MCC/Lucille Lortel Theatre)
Marital meltdowns are a dime a dozen in the modern drama, which is one reason I approached Side Effects with something less than enthusiasm. Another reason is that Michael Weller's last effort for MCC, Fifty Words< ...
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Theatre in Review: All's Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare in the Park)
So many times, when writing about productions of Shakespeare, we fault the director, saying, in effect, that he or she isn't worthy of our greatest playwright. In the case of the current revival of All's Well That Ends Well ...
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Theatre in Review: Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company)
In 2002, Amit Paley, a student reporter at Harvard, discovered in the university's archive a set of suppressed documents that proved to be a treasure trove of scandal; they related to the history of a "secret court" convened in 1920 to ...
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Theatre in Review: Lysistrata Jones (Transport Group/The Gym at Judson)
Every once in a while, a show comes along that reminds us there are no new ideas in the world - no good ones, anyway. A good example is Lysistrata Jones. On the surface, it's a fast, funny, fizzy entertainment, populated by ...
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Theatre in Review: The Illusion (Signature Theatre)
A great deal of effort has been expended -- successfully so -- to create an aura of magic around The Illusion, Tony Kushner's adaptation of a Pierre Corneille comic fantasy. Christine Jones' set is a box ...
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Theatre in Review: One Arm (The New Group/Theatre Row)
So far, the Tennessee Williams centennial year has yielded little more than a series of curios and oddities -- among them a very low-budget version of the early-'70s barroom confessional Small Craft Warnings and The Wooster ...
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Theatre in Review: The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World (Playwrights Horizons)
A parent bent on show business glory at any price. Talentless young girls who are made to perform against their wills. And, when fame arrives, it does so in a wholly unexpected, not entirely welcome form. What -- another revival of Gyp ...
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Theatre in Review: A Little Journey (Mint Theatre)
Whenever the Mint Theatre has a success, we congratulate the company's artistic director, Jonathan Bank, for discovering another lost gem from some remote corner of the theatrical bookshelf. But maybe it's time to start ...
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Theatre in Review: Cradle and All (Manhattan Theatre Club/New York City Center Stage I)
Kids -- can't live with them, can't live without them. That's the message of Cradle and All, which examines the contrasting discontents of childlessness and parenthood, with mixed success. The playwright, Daniel Goldfarb< ...
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Theatre in Review: I Married Wyatt Earp< (Prospect Theatre Company and New York Theatre Barn/59E59)
Walter Kerr once described a certain misbegotten musical as "a bad idea gone wrong." It's the perfect description for I Married Wyatt Earp, in which some talented people have made some very strange decisions, resulting in ...
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Theatre in Review: How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store (The Forty Hour Club/La MaMa E.T.C.)
How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store is the title of Mike Gorman's new play, but it's also the title of a play in Mike Gorman's new play. The first 15 minutes or so introduces us to the artistic director ...
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Theatre in Review: The Best is Yet to Come: The Music of Cy Coleman (59E59)
Cy Coleman was Broadway's jazzman. Yes, he wrote all sorts of music for his dozen or so Broadway shows -- country ballads, torch songs, even a mock operetta -- but what he is most likely to be remembered for is how, working of ...
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Theatre in Review: Knickerbocker (The Public Theater)
"Are you ready?" These are the first words spoken in Knickerbocker, and not for the last time. They are spoken by Jerry, the protagonist, who, in six months or so, will become a father. "Well, if you don't feel ready, how ...
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