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  Theatre in Review: Hamlet (Gate Theatre/St. Ann's Warehouse)
It's the details that count in Yaël Farber's staging of Hamlet, a series of gestures big and small that add up to an extraordinarily comprehensive vision of Shakespeare's masterpiece: The clinical image of the dead king's ...
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Theatre in Review: House Plant (Next Door at NYTW)
If House Plant is any indication, it appears that the more our young playwrights strive to strike contemporary stances, the more they end up reverting to the retro. The situations and characters in Sarah Einspanier's play are ...
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Theatre in Review: Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (The New Group/Pershing Square Signature Center)
The late Mary Rodgers coined the term "why musical" to denote a show adapted from a play, book, or film that doesn't add anything fresh or new to its source material. This season, first with Sing Street and now with Bob and Carol ...
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Theatre in Review: Grand Horizons (Second Stage/Helen Hayes Theatre)
The prolific and gifted Bess Wohl is at it again. This season alone, she has given us Continuity, a knowing (and disturbing) comedy about moviemaking and climate change, and Make Believe, a creepy and occasionally ...
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Theatre in Review: Sister Calling My Name (Blackfriars Repertory Theatre/Storm Theatre Company)
Sister Calling My Name wants to tell an uplifting tale of the power of faith, but it is so overtaken by evasions and cosmetic touch-ups that the effect is spoiled. Buzz McLaughlin's script focuses on the redemptive power of ...
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Theatre in Review: Border People (Working Theater/ART NY Theatres)
If you're feeling depressed by the endless, cankerous debate about immigration that has gripped the nation in the last few years, Border People may very well be the tonic you need, a balm of sweet reason and powerful, nuanced ...
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Theatre in Review: Doctors Jane and Alexander/Brecht: Call and Respond
Two new productions grapple with the past in very different ways. There are few pieces more personal than Doctors Jane and Alexander, staged at HERE, in which the author and director, Edward Einhorn, probes his ...
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Theatre in Review: Stew (Page 73 Productions/Walkerspace)
Storm might be an equally apt title for Zora Howard's new play, a brash domestic comedy until -- at the very last moment -- it isn't. The emotional squalls blowing through the kitchen belonging to the character known only ...
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Theatre in Review: A Soldier's Play (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre)
Some plays, especially acclaimed works from the recent past, require extra love and care to succeed, which is why Kenny Leon was such a fine choice to direct Roundabout's revival of A Soldier's Play. The 1982 winner ...
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Theatre in Review: The Confession of Lily Dare (Primary Stages/Cherry Lane Theatre)
Seeing The Confession of Lily Dare is rather like attending one of the pre-Code retrospectives held at the Film Forum: It's a kind of film festival for the stage -- a gloriously cockeyed one, to be sure -- and it provides ...
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Theatre in Review: Paradise Lost (Fellowship for Performing Arts/Theatre Row)
Fellowship for Performing Arts' mission involves "telling imaginative stories from a Christian worldview," according to artistic director Max McLean's program notes, which makes this astonishingly literal-minded production at Theatre Row ...
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Theatre in Review: Thunder Rock (Metropolitan Playhouse)
The folks at Metropolitan Playhouse specialize in dramatic rarities -- they really know how to dig them up -- and, this time out, they have a fascinating find in Thunder Rock. A product of the Group Theatre in its sunset ...
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Theatre in Review: Romeo and Bernadette (Amas Musical Theatre/ART New York Theatres)
Romeo and Bernadette is the rarest of birds -- a tuneful, good-for-laughs musical that, despite a premise that doesn't bear scrutiny, offers a showcase for some pretty sensational young people. Musical theatre fans, ...
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Theatre in Review: Emojiland: The Musical (The Duke on 42nd Street)
No surprises here: Emojiland is exactly what its title announces, a musical about those perky little emoticons that clutter up one's text messages. It's a premise that comes with built-in challenges: With a cast consisting ...
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Theatre in Review: 17 Minutes (The Barrow Group)
The period of time referenced in the title of Scott Organ's play represents a brief cul-de-sac in the life of Andy, a sheriff's deputy -- which is, nevertheless, enough to derail his life. The action tracks the aftermath of a ...
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Theatre in Review: Timon of Athens (Theatre for a New Audience/Shakespeare Theatre Company)
The world of Timon of Athens is one of false glitter -- illusory wealth, faithless friends, and social status that evaporates overnight -- but, at TFANA, the play has a solid-gold centerpiece named Kathryn Hunter. ...
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Theatre in Review: How to Load a Musket (Less Than Rent/59E59)
"To fire a musket, there are thirteen separate actions that you do first." This is only one of dozens of fascinating factoids to be found in Talene Monahon's documentary investigation of the world of reenactors, who spend their ...
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Theatre in Review: My Name is Lucy Barton (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
If you want to see what a great stage actress at her peak looks like, I can do no better than suggest a visit to the Samuel J. Friedman. As the title character of My Name is Lucy Barton -- a woman who spends much of her ...
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Theatre in Review: Boom (59E59)
Inside Boom -- subtitled "The Music, Culture, and Events That Shaped a Generation" -- is an intriguing tale of three people that does much to illuminate the texture of life in the Baby Boom era. Too bad that it is held ...
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Theatre in Review: The Truth Has Changed/Grey Rock (Under the Radar/Public Theater)
One of the benefits of the Under the Radar Festival is the light it shines on the many ways of attacking political material. For example, Josh Fox understands better than most the consequences of living in post-truth America. A ...
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