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  Theatre in Review: Assassins (Classic Stage Company)
The good news for the theatre is the bad news for us: Assassins is back, as bilious and brilliant as ever, offering its uncanny funhouse-mirror reflection of America at its most cankerous and paranoid. A musical dismissed by ...
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Theatre in Review: A Turtle on a Fence Post (Theatre 555)
You will have heard that Andrew Cuomo has had a difficult year, what with being booted from the governor's office thanks to credible accusations of sexual harassment and suppressing COVID death counts in nursing homes while prepping his ...
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Theatre in Review: The Antelope Party (Dutch Kills Theater Company)
The things one learns in this line of work: Thanks to The Antelope Party, I am now aware of the existence of "bronies," adult male fans of the TV series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and their female companions, who ...
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Theatre in Review: Nollywood Dreams (MCC Theater)
What does it mean when the funniest part of a stage comedy is a film? Near the end of Nollywood Dreams, a broad farce set in Nigeria's movie industry in the 1990s, a screen drops in and we see the trailer for a romantic ...
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Theatre in Review: Gnit (Theatre for a New Audience)
Some playwrights make mountains out of molehills, straining to create important plays out of minor premises. In this case, Will Eno takes the opposite route, adapting a monument of nineteenth century drama -- you can call it a folly ...
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Theatre in Review: Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord (New York Theatre Workshop)
I've been living in dread of an onslaught of COVID plays, imagining all sorts of dreary two-handers featuring locked-down couples laboriously working out their relationship issues. (It could happen yet.) Therefore, it is a special delight ...
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Theatre in Review: The Visitor (Public Theater)
The Visitor is a highly unusual case, a musical that seems to be constantly questioning its right to exist. Everyone involved seems to be wondering if a format that lends itself to big moments and grand gestures can ...
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Theatre in Review: Caroline, Or Change (Roundabout Theatre Company/Studio 54)
It has taken seemingly forever for Sharon D. Clarke to reach our stages, but it was worth the wait. A mainstay of the West End and a winner of multiple Olivier Awards (including one for this production), she is every inch the ...
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Theatre in Review: Radium Girls (Metropolitan Playhouse)
In Radium Girls, playwright D. W. Gregory unearths a remarkably ugly slice of American history, a tale of worker exploitation that continues to resonate strongly today. The title characters were watch factory workers ...
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Theatre in Review: Twilight: Los Angles, 1992 (Signature Theatre)
Anna Deavere Smith practices a highly specific kind of theatre as journalism that leaves one wondering: Will the impact of her plays, rooted in recent events, fade over time? And can they exist without her unique gifts as an actress ...
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Theatre in Review: Fairycakes (Greenwich House Theatre)
Can actors sue their playwright for non-support? Legal minds might say no, but Fairycakes would make an excellent test case. Douglas Carter Beane, the playwright and director of this distinctly odd enterprise, has ...
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Theatre in Review: Brecht on Brecht (Theatre Breaking Through Barriers)
There are so many needle-sharp revelations in Brecht on Brecht, now at ART New York Theatres, that you will choose your own favorites; at least three stick in my memory. The first is the disconcertingly titled presentation, " ...
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Theatre in Review: Mrs. Warren's Profession (Gingold Theatrical Group/Theatre Row)
David Staller's new production of George Bernard Shaw's dramatic provocation quite properly pairs a beloved pro with an impressive new face, and both make for excellent company. The pro is Karen Ziemba as the title ...
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Theatre in Review: The Mother (The Wooster Group/Performing Garage)
In The Mother, the artists at The Wooster Group have not only embraced Bertolt Brecht's alienation effect; they've doubled down on it. One of Brecht's Lehrstücke, or "learning plays," The Mother was performed ...
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Theatre in Review: The Lehman Trilogy (Nederlander Theatre)
If, like me, you are starved for epic theatre, cheer up: The Lehman Trilogy has returned.
It's not surprising that most new productions right now feature small casts, spare designs, and intimate subject matter; it's a miracle that ...
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Theatre in Review: Autumn Royal (Irish Repertory Theatre)
One look at Charlie Corcoran's set at the Irish Rep and I said to myself, "My God, it looks like a tomb." As it happens, I wasn't far off. The walls are gray, water-stained concrete. A ceiling panel seems to enclose the space, ...
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Theatre in Review: Lackawanna Blues (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
Ruben Santiago-Hudson is a fine actor (and an even better director) but, at the beginning of Lackawanna Blues, he displays shapeshifting skills the likes of which I've never seen before. (Others, no doubt, are more ...
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Theatre in Review: Letters of Suresh (Second Stage Theater/Tony Kiser Theater)
I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that Rajiv Joseph is the only American writer to twice build plays around the practice of origami. The first was the lovely early work Animals Out of Paper; he returns to the ...
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Theatre in Review: Chicken and Biscuits (Circle in the Square Theatre)
Chicken and Biscuits is both a throwback and a sign of the times. It's part of the trend of new plays by Black writers (and with Black creative teams) that is a big feature of this Broadway season, a possible herald of ...
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Theatre in Review: Six (Brooks Atkinson Theatre)
"Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived." Odd words to kick off a musical, no? Or maybe not, as the irresistible opening number ("Ex-Wives") works its way into one's brain. An idea that could have gone wildly wrong, Six
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