Gaye Taylor Upchurch

Toros

Toros

The Second Stage production of Toros deserves a prominent spot in New York theater annals thanks to Frank Wood’s tenderly compelling portrayal of Tica, a golden retriever on her last legs. Danny Tejera’s sometimes comedic drama is a largely slice-of-life depiction of three privileged, emotionally stunted millennials living in Spain after the election of President Donald J. Trump and just before the onslaught of COVID-19. Tica—loyal, empathetic, and loving—is a foil to the humans rather than the play’s focus. Wood’s impeccable performance is calibrated to avoid upstaging the other actors, yet his Tica is the most memorable aspect of this arresting, if sometimes unsatisfying, play.

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The Half-Life of Marie Curie

The Half-Life of Marie Curie

The sad history of radioactive relationships must, by definition, begin with Marie Curie, the woman who coined the term “radioactivity.” In 1911 the widowed madame had an affair with the physicist Paul Langevin, a married former student of her late husband. The ensuing scandal, which was uncovered concurrently with the awarding of her second Nobel Prize, nearly cost her her reputation. And while this heated dalliance drives the story in Lauren Gunderson’s instructive new work, The Half-Life of Marie Curie, it is framed by another of Curie’s relationships, the platonic friendship she shared with the electrical engineer and suffragette Hertha Ayrton.

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