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  Theatre in Review: The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World...(Signature Theatre)
You can't say they don't plan their seasons thoughtfully at Signature Theatre. Six months ago, I sat in Signature's Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre, feeling ravaged by Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro -- a plotless, ...
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Theatre in Review: Notes from the Field (Second Stage)
Anna Deavere Smith is the greatest vanishing act in show business. The way she disappears, in full audience view, into each character, capturing their affects, mannerisms, vocal tics -- anything that distinguishes them as ...
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Theatre in Review: My Name is Gideon: I'm Probably Going to Die, Eventually (Rattlestick Theatre)
Reviewers covering My Name is Gideon: I'm Probably Going to Die, Eventually are given an envelope to open at the conclusion of the performance. It contains a note asking us not to give away any of the show's surprises. ...
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Theatre in Review: This Day Forward (Vineyard Theatre)
When Nicky Silver's plays, like The Lyons or Raised in Captivity, really work, they function as perfectly layered servings of hilarity and sadness. If the balance isn't precisely maintained, however, the whole thing is ...
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Theatre in Review: Don't You F**king Say a Word (59E59)
The best thing about Andy Bragen's new play is that it lets us spend some time with Jennifer Lim and Jeanine Serralles. They play Kate (Lim) and Leslie (Serralles), old college acquaintances who run into each other and ...
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Theatre in Review: Kingdom Come (Roundabout Underground)
Kingdom Come begins with the sight of the actress Carmen M. Herlihy, in an enormous fat suit, lying in bed; one look and it's impossible not to think of Samuel D. Hunter's The Whale, which, at Playwrights ...
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Theatre in Review: The Servant of Two Masters (Theatre for a New Audience)
For pure magic, you can't do much better than the opening few minutes of Christopher Bayes' staging of Carlo Goldoni's commedia dell'arte classic. We begin in darkness; there is just enough light to show that scenic designer < ...
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Theatre in Review: Terms of Endearment (59E59)/Dead Poets Society (CSC)
I don't often combine two productions in a single review, but when stage adaptations of popular films open one after the other, they provide the perfect raison d'être for a critical double feature -- especially because both make the same ...
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Theatre in Review: Party People (The Public Theater/Anspacher Theater)
As the Trump Administration recruits staffers and Republican members of Congress salivate at the opportunity to undo any number of President Obama's achievements, the Public Theater is celebrating America's radical past. The title of ...
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Theatre in Review: Women of a Certain Age (The Public Theater/LuEsther Hall)
If Women of a Certain Age is the most powerful entry yet in Richard Nelson's trilogy, titled The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family, it's for reasons that I'm sure the playwright regrets. The ...
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Theatre in Review: Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Imperial Theatre)
Having made a long and arduous journey from the tiny Ars Nova Theater -- there was a stopover at a circus tent in the Meatpacking District -- Dave Malloy's Tolstoyan musical has landed on Broadway with a flourish and a confident ...
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Theatre in Review: "Master Harold"...and the Boys (Signature Theatre/Irene Diamond Stage)
Try as I might, I cannot think of a more unsparing self-portrait than the one offered by Athol Fugard in "Master Harold"...and the Boys, and it is rendered in harrowing detail by Noah Robbins. The actor, who is ...
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Theatre in Review: Sweet (National Black Theatre)
Sweet takes place in the summers of 1968 and '69, when the world was, in many ways, being turned upside down. All of that remains offstage, however. A war is raging, students are taking over deans' offices, and cities are ...
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Theatre in Review: Vietgone (Manhattan Theatre Club/City Center Stage I)
Near the end of Vietgone, the playwright Qui Nguyen -- well, really, the actor Paco Tolson, playing him -- finds himself frustrated in his attempts at getting his father to tell his life story. The older man, ...
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Theatre in Review: Coriolanus (Red Bull Theater at Barrow Street Theatre)
Michael Sexton's modern-dress staging of Coriolanus features at least one moment that, seen before last week's election, froze the blood; if you plan on attending, hold on tight. As you probably know, the title ...
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Theatre in Review: Falsettos (Lincoln Center Theater Company at Walter Kerr Theatre)
What was I thinking? When it was first announced that Lincoln Center Theater was producing a revival of Falsettos, I thought, Surely it won't have the same impact it had in 1992. This tale of a man, his male lover, and their ...
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Theatre in Review: Finian's Rainbow (Irish Repertory Theatre)
There are two excellent reasons to check out Charlotte Moore's second revival of Finian's Rainbow. First and foremost is that heavenly score. Burton Lane's music mixes a touch of Irish balladry with Southern ...
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Theatre in Review: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble at the Wild Project)
There are many striking -- and, usually, disturbing -- images in Kevin Confoy's production of Bertolt Brecht's political epic. Craig Smith, as the title character, a Hitlerian figure bent on taking over the cauliflower ...
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Theatre in Review: The Collector (59E59)
If, a few years ago, you had told me that in 2016 I would be seeing a stage adaptation of John Fowles' The Collector, I would have stared in disbelief. The novel was a bestseller in 1962 -- it put Fowles on the ...
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Theatre in Review: Sweat (The Public Theater)
This fall, The Public Theater provides you with all the election coverage you really need. I don't mean the day-to-day reporting of who is up or down in the polls, nor the steady drip-drip-drip of scandal, real or imagined. But, in certain ...
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