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  Theatre in Review: Smokey Joe's Cafe (Stage 42)
There's a kind of unspoken battle of the sexes unfolding at Stage 42 these nights, and the game is handicapped in favor of the guys. The songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, whose extensive pop catalogue provides Smo ...
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Theatre in Review: My Life on a Diet (Theatre at St. Clement's)
If you're wondering whether you might enjoy Renee Taylor's at-home evening at Theatre at St. Clement's, let me give you a couple of acid-test examples.
Taylor discusses many weight-loss protocols -- a lifelong subject of ...
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Theatre in Review: The Originalist (Arena Stage/59E59)
Theatre companies can be tripped up by the exigencies of scheduling, especially when topical works are involved: Some months ago, the idea of presenting a cuddly comedy about the rabidly conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin ...
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Theatre in Review: The Possibilities/The After-Dinner Joke (PTP/NYC)
The people behind PTP/NYC, also known as the Potomac Theatre Project, are not afraid to rush in where other theatre companies fear to tread. Now in its thirty-second season, the troupe is known for its brave -- almost foolhardy -- hot ...
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Theatre in Review: The Damned (Comedie-Francaise/Park Avenue Armory)
One auteur trumps another in Ivan van Hove's adaptation of Luchino Visconti's notorious 1969 film. Although best known in this country for his inventive -- and, to my eyes, frequently willful -- interpretations of classic ...
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Theatre in Review: The Peculiar Patriot (National Black Theatre/Hi-Arts)
If you need a reason to see The Peculiar Patriot -- and I can give you several -- it is a golden opportunity to experience the work of actress/playwright/activist Liza Jessie Peterson. You may not recognize the name, ...
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Theatre in Review: Fire in Dreamland (The Public Theater)
About halfway through Rinne Groff's new play, the heroine, Kate, who has recently become besotted with filmmaking, describes her version of a cinematic sequence depicting the Dreamland fire at Coney Island. Dreamland, you should ...
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Theatre in Review: Antigone (Classical Theatre of Harlem)
For its summertime offering in Marcus Garvey Park, The Classical Theatre of Harlem presents a vividly contemporary twist on a Sophoclean tragedy. The stunning set design by Christopher Swader and Justin Swader depicts the ...
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Theatre in Review: Fiddler on the Roof (National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene)
It is fascinating how much the context of a production can affect its impact. Joel Grey's revival of Fiddler on the Roof has its ups and downs -- more of the former than the latter, I hasten to add -- but experiencing ...
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Theatre in Review: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Irish Repertory Theatre)
Ever since On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, a musical about ESP and past-life regression, opened on Broadway in 1965, it has undergone more reincarnations than Shirley MacLaine. Time and again, creative teams have been ...
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Theatre in Review: Mary Page Marlowe (Second Stage Theater/Tony Kiser Theater)
Even as an addition to Tracy Letts' resume -- which, besides August: Osage County and Man from Nebraska, includes the paranoid arachnid freak-out, Bug, and the trailer-trash melodrama, Killer Joe -- ...
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Theatre in Review: Sugar in Our Wounds (Manhattan Theatre Club/City Center Stage II)
Donja R. Love, a self-described Afro-Queer playwright, may be something of a new face on the New York theatre scene, but he has big ambitions. His Love Trilogy is intended to examine queer black life at different historical moments, ...
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Theatre in Review: Skintight (Roundabout Theatre Company)
The revelations one sometimes has at the theatre: Watching Skintight, I was suddenly grateful never to have had the opportunity to sit on the couch with my mother, running through the available men on Grindr. In the words of ...
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Theatre in Review: Fairview (Soho Rep)
In Fairview, the playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury empties her bag of tricks so thoroughly you have to wonder if she will have anything left for the future. Her new work consists of a barrage of devices -- some of which ...
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Theatre in Review: Girls and Boys (Minetta Lane Theatre)
Carey Mulligan's performance in Girls and Boys is so assured, so thoroughly gripping, that it generates considerable suspense: Can she possibly sustain such intensity, her effortless command over the audience, for the ...
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Theatre in Review: Carmen Jones (Classic Stage Company)
There are, I think, two ways of looking at this thoroughly unexpected revival of Carmen Jones. On the one hand, it is likely to go down as one of the season's most fascinating curios, a revival of a show that for many years ...
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Theatre in Review: Log Cabin (Playwrights Horizons)
In Log Cabin, Jordan Harrison has the entirely laudable idea of lampooning entitled, wealthy gays and lesbians who, in the second half of the Obama Administration, are so caught up in the tiny dramas associated with ...
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Theatre in Review: Cyprus Avenue (The Public Theater)
It's a strange experience to see a fine actor giving a tour-de-force performance in a play that goes irreparably off the rails, but such is the singular experience of Cyprus Avenue. Stephen Rea spares himself nothing ...
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Theatre in Review: Lonesome Blues (York Theatre Company)
Blind Lemon Jefferson isn't a household name, but he is a foundational figure in the history of the blues. Apparently, his country blues sound, which made him a star in the late 1920s, wasn't picked up by the artists who came ...
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Theatre in Review: Conflict (Mint Theater Company/Theatre Row)
"Why do people belong to the Labour Party?" This question -- not facetious in context -- hangs over Miles Malleson's 1925 drawing room intrigue. Clearly, Malleson was a man of many parts -- actor, screenwriter, director, producer, ...
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