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  Theatre in Review: The Qualms (Playwrights Horizons)
"Are you one of these talkers or would you be interested in a little action?" This classic line from Born Yesterday rattled around in my head while watching The Qualms, and for good reason. In his new play, Bruce ...
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Theatre in Review: My Perfect Mind (Brits Off Broadway/59E59)
A few years ago, Edward Petherbridge, in New Zealand to play King Lear, suffered a stroke that severely impaired his ability to move. As a visit to 59E59 will show, he made a full recovery, and is uncommonly spry for 78. My ...
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Theatre in Review: The 35th Marathon of One-Act Plays: Series C (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
Series C is a fine example of why EST's Marathon is such a necessary part of the New York theatre scene. While the five plays presented are of varying quality, talent is everywhere, and not just among the playwrights. ...
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Theatre in Review: The Tempest (Shakespeare in the Park/Delacorte Theater)
Michael Greif's production of The Tempest begins with an imaginatively staged shipwreck. Choreographed movement, thundering sound effects, banners, and a toy ship -- hoisted, hanging precariously in the balance -- all ...
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Theatre in Review: Consent (Black Box Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre)
Gay men, here's a tip: That cute kid half your age on the subway platform, staring at you, rubbing his crotch, might be all right for a one-night stand, but he's going to be trouble in the long run. This will be news only to the most naïve ...
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Theatre in Review: The Old Masters (The Flea Theater)
Sam Marks finds a fresh slant on the well-worn topic of middle-class malaise in The Old Masters, a slightly ragged but nevertheless interesting new play. Ben, his protagonist, is a youngish painter whose career appears ...
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Theatre in Review: The Twentieth Century Way (Theatre @ Boston Court/Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
One of the more squalid episodes in American law-enforcement history is aired in The Twentieth Century Way. Playwright Tom Jacobson, perusing the book Gay L.A., by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons
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Theatre in Review: Most Dangerous Man in America (W.E.B. Du Bois)(New Federal Theatre/Castillo Theatre)
Most Dangerous Man in America is the second play in two seasons that New Federal Theatre has produced about the scholar and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois; perhaps on the third try the results will be a little less ...
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Theatre in Review: 10 out of 12 (Soho Rep)
10 out of 12, a funny, imaginative, and thoroughly original comedy about the travails of theatre people, comes roaring to life near the end of the first act, when Thomas Jay Ryan takes the stage as Paul, the most ...
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Theatre in Review: In My Father's Words (Brits Off Broadway/59E59)
In My Father's Words is both the story of a fractured family and a dramatic Tower of Babel; nearly everybody in it needs a translator to be understood. It's a striking metaphor for the problems of loving, of getting past the ...
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Theatre in Review: Cuddles (Brits Off Broadway/59E59)
The things one learns at the theatre: Having seen Cuddles, I now realize that, if you are getting serious about your boyfriend, don't bring him to the home where your vampire sister is locked in the attic. She'll only make ...
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Theatre in Review: Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
Daniel Talbott's new play, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait, begins in darkness, with a Serbian woman describing, in both English and Serbian, how she was raped by a group of soldiers -- and, after that, it really ...
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Theatre in Review: The 35th Marathon of One-Act Plays: Series B (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
After getting off to a fast start with Series A, this year's EST one-act marathon gets stuck in neutral with Series B. Only two of the quartet of plays on offer prove engaging, and each of them could use a second look. ...
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Theatre in Review: An Act of God (Studio 54)
Jean Kerr, possibly reacting to Archibald MacLeish's J.B., once noted -- I'm paraphrasing slightly -- that, no offense intended, but for all practical purposes, in the theatre, God is a lousy part. Having seen An Act of God, I'm not ...
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Theatre in Review: Ever After (Paper Mill Playhouse)
In a world filled with reimaginings, reboots, and revisals, is there really room for yet another take on the Cinderella story? Ever After has been in development for years, so its creators cannot be entirely happy to ...
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Theatre in Review: Composition...Master-Pieces...Identity (Target Margin Theatre/Connelly Theatre)
As part of its celebration of Gertrude Stein, Target Margin is presenting David Greenspan in an evening of the author's lesser-known writings. The bill includes "Composition as Explanation," a lecture given at the Cambridge ...
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Theatre in Review: The Spoils (The New Group/Pershing Square Signature Center)
Will there ever come a time when Jesse Eisenberg doesn't cast himself as a basket case? Maybe so, but right now there's The Spoils, which adds the most etched-in-acid portrait yet to his gallery of hapless, hopeless ...
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Theatre in Review: Permission (MCC Theater/Lucille Lortel Theatre)
Robert Askins continues his one-man comic crusade against the excesses of evangelical Christian culture in Permission. This time, the author of Hand to God takes on CDD, or Christian Domestic Discipline, a ...
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Theatre in Review: A Queen for a Day (Theatre at St. Clement's)
Playwright Michael Ricigliano, Jr., really knows how to write a crackling confrontation, and, before it trails off into potboiler territory, A Queen for a Day is a sadistic psychological battle that will keep you in a ...
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Theatre in Review: Cagney (York Theatre Company)
These days, you don't have to be a star to have a vehicle -- at least, if you're willing to create it yourself. The actor Robert Creighton, having noticed his resemblance to James Cagney, was the driving force behind this ...
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