Editor’s Corner: Austin McCormick’s Company XIV presents an erotic twist on a holiday classic. “A mix of Wizard of Oz meets Marie Antoinette meets Cirque du Soleil, Nutcracker Rouge is a provocative, avant-garde piece of theater that will thrill and delight,” according to OffOffOnline.com writer Jessica Taghap. Read her review: http://offoffonline.com/?p=11862. Nutcracker Rouge is playing at the Minetta Lane Theatre (18 Minetta Lane) until Jan. 5, 2013.
Entering the Minetta Lane Theatre last Saturday night for Nutcracker Rouge, I was not quite sure what to expect. I first heard of Company XIV just two years ago and soon became familiar with their growing reputation for borrowing from multiple performative traditions and taking them to another level. The company, brainchild of art director/choreographer/founder … Read more
John Pollono’s résumé indicates he has had some notable acting appearances, but his new play, Small Engine Repair, provides evidence that he also has a fine sense of dramaturgy. Director Jo Bonney’s swift 90-minute production gives four actors an opportunity to showcase some ethnic characters with swagger and distinctive accents. Needing only one set, Small … Read more
At the curtain call of Sidney Kingsley’s medical-crisis drama Men in White, a member of the Off-Off Broadway troupe The Seeing Place brandishes a clear-glass vase containing a little bit of folding money and assures the house that any contributions, however modest, will be appreciated. That polite solicitation is a reminder that it takes more … Read more
The correspondence of director Alan Schneider and his friend Samuel Beckett indicates that the Irish playwright never wanted his radio play All That Fall adapted for theatrical presentation. His response to an overture by Schneider, entrusted with numerous Beckett plays during the author’s lifetime, including Waiting for Godot, indicates Beckett’s final decision was essentially “Let … Read more
Two consummately talented singer-actors shine bright in Murder for Two, a musical mystery from Second Stage that has moved to New World Stages in midtown after a summer run on the Upper West Side. While it’s ideal brainless summer fun, it’s a bit riskier to put on amid autumn’s weightier offerings, but director Scott Schwartz’s … Read more
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is the longest of William Shakespeare’s 36 plays and probably the most complex. In the four centuries since the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (the band of players to which the Bard belonged) first presented Hamlet, critics have expended countless gallons of ink debating the play’s strengths and flaws. … Read more
