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  Theatre in Review: Hangmen (Golden Theatre)
Martin McDonagh has been specializing in his own brand of bloodstained comedy for a quarter of a century now, so it's probably inevitable that the blood might get a little tired. That's the main trouble with Hangmen, a ...
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Theatre in Review: The Minutes (Studio 54)
In plays like Man from Nebraska, Superior Donuts, and especially August: Osage County, Tracy Letts has established himself as a specialist in Midwestern malaise. He's also something of a national diagnostician, ...
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Theatre in Review: How I Learned to Drive (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
Many plays make a strong impact when first seen, but the world moves on and they fade with time. Twenty-five years after its debut, How I Learned to Drive has only gained in power. It takes an extremely nervy playwright to ...
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Theatre in Review: Cyrano de Bergerac (The Jamie Lloyd Company/BAM Harvey Theater)
Director Jamie Lloyd can't get Cyrano de Bergerac out of his system. Ten years ago, he staged a generally straightforward, workmanlike production of Edmond Rostand's classic drama at Roundabout Theatre Company, ...
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Theatre in Review: Songs About Trains (Working Theater/Radical Evolution/New Ohio Theatre)
You won't find a more descriptive title than the one above; this musical revue combines, yes, songs about trains with fictional accounts of workers, mostly immigrants, whose lives were shaped by the building and maintenance of the US ...
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Theatre in Review: The Little Prince (Broadway Theatre)
Why are people so hell-bent on adapting The Little Prince? Yes, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella is beloved, having sold millions of copies, and if you took French in high school, you probably read it. But is it stage or ...
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Theatre in Review: Birthday Candles (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre)
The folks at the Roundabout are in a Thornton Wilder mood these days, thanks to Birthday Candles, which covers ninety years of its heroine's life in ninety minutes. Her name is Ernestine, and, at 17, she announces, "I am a ...
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Theatre in Review: Take Me Out (Second Stage/The Hayes Theatre)
Take Me Out begins with a baseball superstar coming out of the closet. It features several scenes with half a dozen naked men. And it's not about sex. Go figure.
To be sure, once the big announcement gets made, things do ...
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Theatre in Review: Harmony (National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene)
Harmony is a notably double-edged title for a show that celebrates a once-famous singing group yet which, given the time and place, can't help skidding into tragedy. The Comedian Harmonists were a real-life German troupe ...
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Theatre in Review: To My Girls (Second Stage/Tony Kiser Theater)
Ever since Mart Crowley threw that bash for the boys in the band, playwrights have been using social gatherings for status reports on a certain slice of the gay community. I privately file them all under the omnibus title of "six-guys-in-a ...
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Theatre in Review: Penelope (York Theatre Company/Theatre at St. Jeans)
What is it with musical theatre writers and Greek culture? From The Boys from Syracuse to The Frogs, writers and composers love to break out the sandals and togas, often tossing in a god or two. Even The Iliad and Th ...
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Theatre in Review: Suffs (The Public Theater)
Shaina Taub has one of the most distinctive musical theatre voices we have right now. Her New Orleans-style score for Twelfth Night, seen at the Delacorte Theatre a few summers ago, was a slinky, strutting delight, melding ...
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Theatre in Review: Honduras (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble/Paradise Theatre II)
Honduras is a brief, yet brutal, immersion in the chaotic and pitiless treatment of immigrants coming illegally to the US from the country of the title. Sara Farrington's script, based on real events, focuses on ...
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Theatre in Review: Plaza Suite (Hudson Theatre)
In Plaza Suite, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker make a lively pair of playmates and their enjoyment is contagious. They're presiding over the unlikeliest of good times, showcasing the humor of Neil ...
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Theatre in Review: Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova/Greenwich House)
Heather Christian's new music-theatre piece is dedicated to Carl Sagan, Carl Orff, and Carlo Rovelli; a better title might be I Tre Carlos . You may be wondering what the late astronomer, the composer of Carmina Burana ...
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Theatre in Review: Heartland (Geva Theatre Center/59E59)
Thanks to Selling Kabul and English, we have already been gifted with two gripping dramas about Afghanistan this season; now comes Heartland, a kind of dramatic jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces fit altogether ...
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Theatre in Review: 7 Minutes (Waterwell/Working Theatre/HERE)
Stefano Massini's 2014 drama finds considerable suspense in the workings of democracy, in this case a single, crucial vote among the members of a union executive committee. All are employed at an American textile factory that has ...
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Theatre in Review: Confederates (Signature Theatre Company)
Maybe it's the pandemic; having pulled through last two tumultuous years, Dominique Morisseau understandably has plenty to get off her chest. This time, however, the gifted playwright may have more on her mind than one play can ...
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Theatre in Review: Help (The Shed)
The title of Claudia Rankine's play feels a tad ironic since few leading ladies have the self-possession of April Matthis. Comfortably ensconced at center stage, exuding authority, she addresses us in a voice that works as a ...
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Theatre in Review: Alex Edelman: Just for Us (Soho Playhouse)
So, a Jewish guy walks into a white supremacist meeting and...
This is not the setup for a joke. Or, rather, it is, but isn't. In any case, in Alex Edelman's telling, it's an occasion for hilarity underlined with peril. As Edelman ...
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