|
  Theatre in Review: The Crucible (Walter Kerr Theatre)
A great deal has been written over the years about The Crucible, about whether it works as both historical drama and political statement, and if the implied parallel between Puritan Massachusetts and McCarthy-era Washington ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: House Rules (Ma-Yi Theater Company/HERE)
One man's health crisis sets off shock waves among two interconnected Filipino-American families in A. Rey Pamatmat's comedy-drama. Ernie suffers what appears to be a stroke -- the script is never clear about what it is -- while in ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Stupid F---ing Bird (Pearl Theatre Company)
"Black is slimming," says Mash, dismissively, at the beginning of Aaron Posner's new play, which is "sort of" adapted from The Seagull. Mash is the equivalent of Chekhov's Masha, and yes, she does get around to admitting that ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Wrestling Jerusalem (59E59)
"It's complicated." Aaron Davidman's opening line gets a substantial, knowing laugh from audience members who have come to see his piece about the ever-confounding issue of Israel and the Arabs. Making a point that hardly needs ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: The Effect (Barrow Street Theatre)
A new antidepressant is subjected to human trials in The Effect, a play that suffers from a few mood swings of its own. The playwright, Lucy Prebble, zooms in on two people who have agreed to spend several weeks in an ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Locusts Have No King (INTAR)
Locusts Have No King begins with Marcus quoting a passage from the Book of Mark, the one about how it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. There is a blackout, and the ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Head of Passes (The Public Theater)
The more we get to know Tarell Alvin McCraney, the more elusive this young playwright (and sometime director) seems to be. He displayed a certain talent for poetry and theatricality in Wig Out!, about drag queens in Harlem, ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Bright Star (Cort Theatre)
If you're going to hang an entire show on a single major plot twist, you had better tend to it carefully; otherwise you're going to give away the whole game. That's the main problem with Bright Star; the new musical, which ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Ironbound (Women's Project/Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
Marin Ireland is the iron woman at the center of Ironbound: As Darja, a Polish immigrant who spends most of her life in America at or below the poverty line, she displays a flinty independence and wicked wit that are ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: She Loves Me (Roundabout Theatre Company/Studio 54)
Actors with a gift for high-style sophisticated comedy are worth their weight in gold and, in its revival of She Loves Me, Roundabout has struck the mother lode with Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi. Cast as ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Wolf in the River (The Flea Theater)
I think I can say without fear of contradiction that Wolf in the River is the dirtiest show in town. Not the most pornographic -- although a case could be made -- but the most covered in the soil of the earth. The interior of ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: YOUARENOWHERE (3-Legged Dog/The Tank)
This may be the shortest review I've ever written: Between what I comprehended of YOUARENOWHERE and what the producer has asked us not to reveal, there isn't much left. Andrew Schneider's jittery existentialist freak ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Blackbird (Belasco Theatre)
In a way, it's remarkable that Jeff Daniels chose to revisit the role of Ray, the beleaguered middle manager whose past comes calling, in Blackbird. (He performed it in 2007 at Manhattan Theatre Club.) The role is so ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Hold On To Me Darling (Atlantic Theater)
Like most country singers, Strings McCrane, the protagonist of Kenneth Lonergan's play, specializes in songs of heartbreak and hard times. Lonergan has experienced plenty of both in the past few years, what with mixed-to-negative ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Dry Powder (Public Theater)
Sarah Burgess wants you to know that those who toil in private equity are remorseless, soulless sharks, devoted solely to the pursuit of money and possessed of a belief in the efficacy of free markets that borders on religious faith ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Ideation (San Francisco Playhouse/59E59)
The idea of a thriller about management consultants may seem oxymoronic, but Aaron Loeb, a playwright with an original mind and a barbed appreciation of the human capacity for deception and betrayal, turns a meeting of professional ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Disaster! (Nederlander Theatre)
When the new musical at the Nederlander was first announced, one might have legitimately wondered if everyone involved might not be courting theatrical disaster. A spoof of the Irwin Allen films of the 1970s, with a playlist of the ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: The Way West (Labyrinth Theater/Bank Street Theater)
Those of us who think of Deirdre O'Connell as a hardy pioneer woman of the downtown theatre scene will not be surprised in the least to see her in Mona Mansour's new play, regaling her adult daughters with stories that ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: The Royale (Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)
The Royale, a drama about boxing, is almost entirely populated by men, but when the time comes to deliver the knockout punch, it takes a lady to do it. She is Montego Glover, best known for her roof-raising vocals in Memphis ...
|
|
|
|
|
Theatre in Review: Boy (The Keen Company/Theatre Row)
Anna Ziegler's new play begins at a Halloween party in 1989. A young man named Adam stumbles into an empty room with Jenny, who is tipsy and on the make. Despite her many little ways of signaling that all systems are go, he is oddly ...
|
