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  Theatre in Review: Kid Victory (Vineyard Theatre)
In Kid Victory, Greg Pierce and John Kander have done a very daring thing, building a musical around a character who can't express himself in song. As it begins, Luke, who is 17, has recently been returned to his home in Kansas ...
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Theatre in Review: Fish Men (INTAR)
Fish Men takes place in the southwestern corner of New York's Washington Square Park, where on any given day, a match with a professional chess player can be had, for a price. At it happens, the playwright, Cándido Tirado
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Theatre in Review: Beardo (Pipeline Theatre Company) / Jonah and Otto (Theatre Row)
It may be time to book safe passage out of Russia for Dave Malloy. The composer, currently enjoying Broadway success with Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, now offers us Beardo, a fictionalized ...
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Theatre in Review: Sunset Boulevard (Palace Theatre)
"I didn't know you were planning a comeback," says Joe Gillis, a young screenwriter, speaking to the aging, reclusive ex-movie queen Norma Desmond. "I hate that word," snarls Norma. "It's a return!" Glenn Close, a lady ...
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Theatre in Review: Evening at the Talk House (The New Group at Pershing Square Signature Center)
Evening at the Talk House could be the title for almost any Wallace Shawn play; time and again his characters unburden themselves at length in monologues, pursuing dubious conclusions with faulty logic and exuding ...
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Theatre in Review: Man from Nebraska (Second Stage)
When did Reed Birney become the New York theatre's indispensable character man? He's been doing fine work for four decades -- beginning with Albert Innaurato's blockbuster comedy, Gemini -- but for much of that time he has ...
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Theatre in Review: The Dressmaker's Secret (59E59)
The "secret" in the title of this new play is something of a misnomer, since the characters spend most of the running time discussing it to death. The dressmaker is the fortyish Maria, who plies her trade in Kolozsvár, a Romanian city, in ...
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Theatre in Review: Life According to Saki (Atticist/4th Street Theatre)
Saki, as you may know, is the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, the Edwardian satirist, who found enduring fame with short stories that quietly chopped away at the manners and mores of stately England in its late afternoon of empire. ...
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Theatre in Review: Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose (The Loft at the Davenport Theatre)
If, as many people say, friendship is a gift, Ed Dixon's closeness to the actor George Rose was a distinctly mixed blessing -- one with long-lasting repercussions. He met Rose nearly half a century ago, and Rose died in 1988 ...
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Theatre in Review: Ring Twice for Miranda (City Center Stage II)
Or, better yet, don't. Alan Hruska's sort of comedy, sort of drama isn't really much of anything; ostensibly a tale of masters and servants in a vaguely rendered post-apocalypse world, it is filled with hints and portents that don't ...
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Theatre in Review: The Mother of Invention (Abingdon Theatre Company at June Havoc Theatre)
The mother in James Lecesne's latest dramatic invention is Dottie, a widow, formerly of New Jersey, and, more recently, of Florida. When we meet her, she is sitting on the couch with her daughter, Leanne, talking a blue streak as ...
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Theatre in Review: The Object Lesson (New York Theatre Workshop)
It's not uncommon for reviewers, speaking figuratively, to praise a performer for making something out of nothing; Geoff Sobelle literally makes it happen. About two-thirds of the way through the unclassifiable entertainment known ...
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Theatre in Review: Fade (Primary Stages at Cherry Lane Theatre)
In Fade, two Mexican-Americans find themselves lost in the television production jungle. Lucia is a budding novelist from Chicago; unable to deliver that second book to her publisher, and running low on funds, she signs on as ...
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Theatre in Review: Tell Hector I Miss Him (Atlantic Theater Company Stage Two)
Paola Lázaro's new play zeroes in on a fraught, ad hoc community in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There's Mostro, who is middle-aged and runs a bodega; he is hoping to have a baby with his wife, Samira. Little does he know, Samira is ...
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Theatre in Review: Yen (MCC Theater at Lucille Lortel Theatre)
In Yen, director Trip Cullman and his gifted, intensely committed cast so persuasively stake out a landscape of poverty and neglect that one might not notice at first the contrivances and underlying sentimentality of
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Theatre in Review: Orange Julius (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
Julius, an ailing Vietnam vet, may be the title character of Basil Kreimendahl's new play, but I'm betting that the character you'll be talking about as you leave the theatre is Nut; once Julius' daughter and now his son, Nut is ...
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Theatre in Review: The Liar (Classic Stage Company)
Dishonesty is the best policy in The Liar, at least when it comes to delighting the audience. The title character, Dorante, a handsome, adventure-seeking young fellow, is new in town -- the town being Paris, 1643 -- and is ...
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Theatre in Review: The Oregon Trail / The Great American Drama
Two new Off Broadway productions are exercises in games and gamesmanship. Bekah Brunstetter's The Oregon Trail (Fault Line Theatre Company) is based on the computer game that was a middle school standby for a couple of ...
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Theatre in Review: Incident at Hidden Temple (Pan-Asian Repertory/Theatre Row)
The incident referred to in the title of Damon Chua's play takes place at train station in Southwestern China in 1943; during a rest stop, young Ava Chao, egged on by a local blind man, wanders off to see the nearby Hidden Temple -- ...
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Theatre in Review: Peer Gynt and the Norwegian Hapa Band (Ma-Yi Theater Company/ART New York Theatre)
For years, New York City operated as a Peer Gynt-free zone; now we've gotten Ibsen's epic work twice in one season. This may be happening, I suspect, because, at one point in this notoriously rambling work, the title character, an ...
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