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  Theatre in Review: Bliss (Black Moon Theatre Company/The Flea Theater)
This one separates the men from the boys, or maybe the Buddhists from everyone else. Bliss is so devoted to its own particular notion of the sublime, is so in love with its distinctly mandarin style, that entertainment is ...
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Theatre in Review: Dead Shot Mary (Bridge Theatre at Shetler Studios)
Robert K. Benson unearths a fascinating slice of New York City history in Dead Shot Mary, and it's a pity that he doesn't do something more interesting with it. The protagonist of this solo show is Mary Shanley, ...
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Theatre in Review: Maestro (59E59)
One of the twentieth century's most fascinating, and polarizing, personalities comes to life in all his maddening contradictions in Maestro. That would be Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer, and all-around celebrity -- ...
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Theatre in Review: Aubergine (Playwrights Horizons)
For a play about the salubrious effects of good food, Aubergine could use a little spicing up. Julia Cho has cooked up a comic drama about the members of a fractured family taking part in a death watch -- subject ...
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Theatre in Review: Bears in Space (Collapsing Horse/59E59)
Bears in Space starts out with a solid laugh as the show's narrator, known as the Story Keeper -- and a bit of a Jane Austen freak -- introduces his three sons, Bertram, Darcy, and Lady Susan Vernon. For a brief, flickering ...
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Theatre in Review: The Trojan Women (The Flea Theater)
Ellen McLaughlin treats Euripides' tragedy, about the aftermath of the siege of Troy, with a very free hand in her adaptation, but she never loses contact with the original text's stark portrait of women in wartime, subject ...
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Theatre in Review: The Wolves (The Playwrights Realm/The Duke on 42nd Street)
The Wolves is the name of a girls' high school soccer team, and Sarah DeLappe has assigned herself quite a test in portraying its members: The action of the play unfolds entirely during a series of warmup sessions on ...
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Theatre in Review: Spamilton (The Triad)
Has Gerard Alessandrini, Broadway's court jester since (seemingly) the dawn of time, changed his ways? In every edition of Forbidden Broadway since 1982, our reigning stage satirist has laid waste to an entire season's worth ...
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Theatre in Review: Toruk -- The First Flight (Cirque du Soleil/Barclays Center)
Toruk, one of two Cirque du Soleil productions to pass through New York this fall -- the other is Kurios, which opens on Randall's Island later this month -- is undeniably spectacular. When it comes to deploying ...
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Theatre in Review: Crackskull Row (The Cell/Workshop Theatre)
One look at Daniel Geggatt's set for Crackskull Row and you know that you are in for an evening of unrelieved squalor. The script for Honor Molloy's drama calls for "a shitheap" somewhere in Dublin, and the ...
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Theatre in Review: Caught (The Play Company/La MaMa)
This is one of the more confounding reviews I've ever had to write, because there's practically nothing I can tell you about the series of schemes, fakeouts, and reversals that is Christopher Chen's Caught: Really, the ...
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Theatre in Review: The Good Earth (Motherlode/The Flea Theater)
A Welsh town's struggle for survival is filtered through the lives of five characters in The Good Earth, a play/performance piece devised by the members of the Wales-based theatre company Motherlode. Bewildered Americans ...
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Theatre in Review: The Layover (Second Stage)
After seeing Leslye Headland's twisty -- and clammy -- romantic thriller, you may want to trade in your frequent-flier miles; at the least, you'll be sure the next time you get on an airplane to have an enormous book with which to ...
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Theatre in Review: A Day by the Sea (Mint Theater Company)
"It's not a clever world we live in...not a first-rate world at all," says a silken-mannered diplomat lounging on a Dorset beach, delivering bad news to a younger colleague. Humphrey Campbell is his name and he could be speaking for anyone ...
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Theatre in Review: In the Event of My Death (Stable Cable Lab Co./IRT Theater)
In Lindsay Joy's new drama, a group of twentysomethings gathers for the funeral of a beloved high school classmate. If, in your mind's ear, you're hearing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," aka the theme song from The Big Chill
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Theatre in Review: Summer Shorts: Series B (59E59)
Prayers have been answered: After a dispiriting Series A, the annual Summer Shorts series of one-acts, now in its tenth year, presents a Series B packed with acting, directing, and writing talent. The opener, Black Flag ...
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Theatre in Review: Men on Boats (Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizons)
The title of Jaclyn Backhaus' new play isn't especially accurate: Men on Boats features no men and only the barest representations of boats. Yes, this historical comedy focuses on the explorer John Wesley Powell's 1869 ...
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Theatre in Review: Troilus and Cressida (The Public Theater/Delacorte Theater)
Time and again this summer I have been reminded that age cannot wither nor custom stale William Shakespeare's infinite variety. At his astonishing best, his plays feel as if they were written yesterday, so piercing and timeless are ...
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Theatre in Review: Engagements (Second Stage Theatre Uptown)
How you feel about Lucy Teitler's barbed sex comedy will probably depend on what you think of Lauren, the play's beleaguered, self-destructive heroine. Lauren is at yet another engagement party among her social set, along with her ...
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Theatre in Review: Cats (Neil Simon Theatre)
If you read this column even only occasionally, you're probably aware that I've been around more than a year or two. Although there's no truth to the rumor that I cheered on Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman at the opening night of Du Barry ...
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