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  Theatre in Review: Bees & Honey (MCC Theater/The Sol Project)
Bees & Honey begins charmingly and ends in well-earned sorrow; in the middle, however, this collection of scenes from a Dominican-American marriage dawdles rather noticeably. Playwright Guadalís Del Carmen has a fine ...
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Theatre in Review: Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre Company/Laura Pels Theatre)
Is there anything sadder than William Jackson Harper's smile in Primary Trust? To be sure, its wattage is considerable; every time it appears, the stage becomes a brighter place. But it is a piece of defensive armor, a ...
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Theatre in Review: King James (Manhattan Theatre Club/City Center Stage I)
Sports fandom as a vehicle for friendship -- or, maybe, a substitute for it -- is the subject of Rajiv Joseph's new comedy; it's an especially pressing question when the characters hail from Cleveland, a town where the fans' hopes ...
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Theatre in Review: Bernarda's Daughters (The New Group/National Black Theatre)
For whatever reason, The House of Bernarda Alba has become attractive to contemporary playwrights. What do they see in Federico García Lorca's 1936 drama about an all-female household oppressed by rural traditions and Roman ...
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Theatre in Review: Monsoon Wedding (St. Ann's Warehouse)
Near the end of its first act, Monsoon Wedding -- which has been working hard for nearly an hour and a half to establish a raison d'être -- starts to find its musical theatre footing. As it happens, there are two weddings in ...
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Theatre in Review: Evelyn Brown (A Diary) (La MaMa)
Is it possible to be bored and gripped at the same time? The question came to mind when seeing Evelyn Brown (A Diary), a strange footnote to the career of María Irene Fornés. Produced exactly once, in 1980, and not ...
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Theatre in Review: The Fears (Pershing Square Signature Center)
As it happens, Buddhism is easy to spoof; maybe too easy. That's the takeaway from The Fears, which assembles a support group of adults, all of them traumatized in childhood, for weekly sessions at an Eastern religion center ...
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Theatre in Review: shadow/land (Public Theater)
Erika Dickerson-Despenza is, to my mind, the most interesting new playwright to come out of the Public Theater since Suzan-Lori Parks. An artist of real ambition, she has a kind of double vision, placing intimate stories inside ...
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Theatre in Review: Romeo and Juliet (NAATCO)
This new take on Romeo and Juliet immediately draws a line between Elizabethan and contemporary language, but it is a muddled and constantly shifting one. The Chorus enters and offers Shakespeare's opening speech about "star ...
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Theatre in Review: The Comedy of Errors (Public Theater Mobile Unit)
This unique company, a good deed in a naughty world, hits a new high with its musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's knockabout farce. The Mobile Unit travels the five boroughs, presenting tab versions of the Bard's canon to ...
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Theatre in Review: Robin and Me: My Little Spark of Madness (Abingdon Theatre Company)
Lots of kids have imaginary friends...but Robin Williams? That, apparently, was the case with Dave Droxler, author and star of this coming-of-age solo piece. Having lost his beloved grandpop -- a kooky, but endearing, character who ...
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Theatre in Review: The Habit of Art (Original Theatre/59E59)
Perhaps the most fruitful way of thinking about The Habit of Art is to characterize it as a series of interruptions. The poet W. H. Auden, ensconced in a cottage at Christ Church, Oxford, can't manage to complete his ...
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Theatre in Review: New York, New York (St. James Theatre)
From its opening moment, when a dazzling electric sign fires up, announcing the show's title, New York, New York unrolls one sensational staging moment after another. A gang of construction workers taps out a routine on the ...
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Theatre in Review: Summer, 1976 (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
If you've ever wondered why Broadway needs the presence of companies like Manhattan Theatre Club, look no further than Summer, 1976. Even the savviest commercial producer would be challenged to put on this quiet, yet ...
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Theatre in Review: Prima Facie (Golden Theatre)
Prima Facie is an impassioned closing argument disguised as a play. It directly addresses the festering social issue of violence against women in a way that is guaranteed to bring spectators to their feet. And it features a ...
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Theatre in Review: Good Night, Oscar (Belasco Theatre)
Oscar Levant may have been one of show business' greatest schlubs -- at the Belasco, his own wife calls him "Eeyore in a cheap suit" -- but Goodnight, Oscar is as sleekly tailored a vehicle as any actor could wish. That would ...
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Theatre in Review: God of Carnage (Theatre Breaking Through Barriers/Theatre Row)
"It's just bile! It's nothing!" So says one of the characters in God of Carnage, having thrown up all over an expensive sofa and coffee table. She should talk: Yasmina Reza's bleak comedy is all bile, all the time. ...
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Theatre in Review: The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Red Bull Theater/Fiasco Theater)
In the most delightful moment of the new production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre -- indeed, on any stage in New York just now -- the cast assembles, complete with guitar and ukelele, for an effervescent rendition of Cole Porter's "Let's ...
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Theatre in Review: The Thanksgiving Play (Second Stage/The Hayes Theater)
Satire often has a short shelf life, especially when the subject is topical. In 2018, The Thanksgiving Play was a merry and thoroughly up-to-the-minute spoof of wokeness as it was beginning to enter the cultural conversation. ...
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Theatre in Review: Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Ethel Barrymore Theatre)
Attention, fans of The Play That Goes Wrong: Peter Pan Goes Wrong has opened at the Barrymore, where it is scheduled to run through July. There; my work is done.
For the uninitiated: The Play That Goes Wrong, ...
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