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  Theatre in Review: Straight (Theatre Row)
Straight, the play, is rather like Ben, its protagonist -- all talk and no action. Well, there is a fair amount of action in Straight, if you know what I mean; the costume designer, Michael McDonald, must have ...
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Theatre in Review: Mabel Madness (Urban Stages)
About halfway through the new show at Urban Stages, the actress Trezana Beverley connects with the role of Mabel Mercer, and it is a beautiful thing to see and hear. She sings Cole Porter's "Love for Sale," an account ...
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Theatre in Review: Women Without Men (Mint Theater Company/City Center Stage II)
How does the Mint do it? Only a couple of years after it resurrected the work of the forgotten Irish playwright Teresa Deevy, the company presents Women Without Men, by Hazel Ellis, a contemporary of Deevy's, also ...
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Theatre in Review: Insignificance (Defibrillator/Langham Place)
In Insignificance, the playwright Terry Johnson has put Albert Einstein, Senator Joe McCarthy, Marilyn Monroe, and Joe DiMaggio in a hotel room. In the production by the London-based theatre ...
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Theatre in Review: Smokefall (MCC Theater/Lucille Lortel Theatre)
Smokefall is a poignant family saga, an ontological vaudeville show, and a time-bending, reality-twisting discussion of predestination versus free will, not to mention a meditation on the meaning of life. Before you click off ...
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Theatre in Review: The Body of an American (Primary Stages/Cherry Lane Theatre)
The Body of an American is about a reporter who gets his story and a playwright who doesn't -- and neither of them is very happy about it. Paul Watson is a real-life Canadian photojournalist who has spent the vast ...
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Theatre in Review: Nice Fish (St. Ann's Warehouse)
The love affair between Mark Rylance and the New York theatre has been an ardent one, for good reason, but, with Nice Fish, the relationship may be entering a period of strain. Rylance has given us so many magnificent ...
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Theatre in Review: Tennessee Williams 1982 (The Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company/Walkerspace)
Tennessee Williams 1982 consists of two one-act plays. In one, the protagonist is a homeless woman, covered in filthy, stinking horse skins, who speaks several animal languages; the second features a crippled young man who ...
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Theatre in Review: Prodigal Son (Manhattan Theatre Club/City Center Stage I)
If you're going to write a memory play, the memories have to be sharper and more detailed that those that John Patrick Shanley has summoned up for Prodigal Son. The playwright says in a program note that he has drawn ...
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Theatre in Review: Buried Child (The New Group/Pershing Square Signature Center)
At first glance, it looks like Scott Elliott's production of Sam Shepard's family evisceration is going to be a memorable one. When we enter the theatre, the lights are already up on Derek McLane's set, as vivid an ...
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Theatre in Review: Smart People (Second Stage)
Does anyone in America escape the net of race? Not in Smart People: The characters in Lydia R. Diamond's new play, all of them members of the Harvard University community, keep coming up against the many ways -- both ...
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Theatre in Review: Please Continue (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
Scientists often use the word "elegant" to praise a theory or an experiment, but it's the last word one can apply to Please Continue, a science-minded drama hampered by an awkward construction concept. Taking hold of two ...
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Theatre in Review: Mike Birbiglia: Thank God for Jokes (Lynn Redgrave Theater)
The title of Mike Birbiglia's latest piece perplexes: Whoever thinks of him telling jokes? Shaggy dog stories? Sure. Tales within tales within tales, like so many Russian dolls? Certainly. Bizarrely wandering narratives that ...
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Theatre in Review: The Grand Paradise (Third Rail Projects)
So there I was in Bushwick the other night, lying on a table with cucumber slices on my eyes, being spoken to soothingly by a handsome young man who had previously massaged my hands with moisturizer. This was, I assure you, a professional ...
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Theatre in Review: Broadway and the Bard (Theatre Row)
The other night at Theatre Row -- quite unexpectedly -- I fell into a time warp. It happened when Len Cariou began to sing "There's Always One You Can't Forget." He had introduced the number -- music by Charles Strouse and ...
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Theatre in Review: The Wedge Horse (Fault Line Theatre/IATI Theater)
Three young people are caught in the blowback of 9/11 in The Wedge Horse, a production that serves as a calling card for any number of up-and-coming talents. Maddy, Carlos, and Bobby are high school students from Baldwin, ...
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Theatre in Review: Washer/Dryer (Ma-Yi Theater Company/Theatre Row)
Are they teaching Norman Krasna in the playwriting programs these days? That's one explanation for Washer/Dryer, a play that, except for its multicultural cast of characters, is a dead ringer for such old-fashioned mid ...
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Theatre in Review: O, Earth (Foundry Theatre/HERE)
"A lot of things have happened since Thornton Wilder wrote Our Town," notes one of the characters in O, Earth. I'll say. For one thing, Emily Webb and George Gibbs, the young couple at the heart of Wilder's masterpiece ...
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Theatre in Review: Sojourners (The Playwrights Realm/Peter Jay Sharp Theater)
It's always a pleasure to come across a playwright with a fresh set of characters and a compelling tale to tell; Mfoniso Udofia pulls together four people -- three of them Nigerian immigrants -- in Houston circa 1978 for a funny-sad ...
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Theatre in Review: Creditors (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble/The Wild Project)
Some people call Creditors a play; I see it as a series of boxing matches in which all three contestants sooner or later are dealt an emotional knockout. Nobody knows the strategies of intimate infighting like August ...
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