, ,

Soft

, ,
Soft

At its core, Donja R. Love’s powerful drama Soft has a certain familiarity. It is a variation on The Blackboard Jungle or Up the Down Staircase—but with a more ruthless, 21st-century demeanor. Its teenage characters have moved beyond the troubled inner city to incarceration, and their mentor has a darker past than either Glenn Ford or Sandy Dennis’s characters, respectively, in those films. In this facility, students wear prison jump suits and are part of a correctional program designed to save them from a criminal career—or is it?

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Mr. Parker

,
Mr. Parker

In the 1950s Paddy Chayefsky wrote a successful drama, Middle of the Night, in which nobody could understand what a young Gena Rowlands could see in an old Edward G. Robinson. Or, in the movie version, what Kim Novak could see in Fredric March. That quandary is back, after a fashion, with Mr. Parker, Michael McKeever’s sort-of-new drama (it premiered in Florida in 2018). Only this time it’s hard to see what Davi Santos sees in Derek Smith.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Fat Ham

,
Fat Ham

James Ijames has borrowed rudiments of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to jump-start his roistering new comedy Fat Ham. A coproduction of the Public Theater and the National Black Theatre, Fat Ham is a dramaturgical ragbag, blending bits of the greatest tragedy in the English language with Southern Gothic caricature and sitcom tropes from Tyler Perry and the chitlin circuit. Saheem Ali has directed the show’s endearing cast with verve and velocity comparable to his lightning-paced Merry Wives in Central Park last summer.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, , , , , ,

Jews, God, and History (Not Necessarily in That Order)

, , , , , ,
Jews, God, and History (Not Necessarily in That Order)

Can an atheist serve as a guide to the history, customs, and longevity of the Jewish religion and its adherents? Moreover, how can an atheist recognize that a man who has just died is with God? At first glance, this seems quite absurd. Yet neither for Michael Takiff nor for his audience does it appear to be a problem. Jews, God, and History (Not Necessarily in That Order), Takiff’s one-man show, is a roller-coaster ride through Jewish belief, identity, and practice.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Three Sisters

,
Three Sisters

It seems to never be a bad time to stage Chekhov’s Three Sisters: timeless and timely, funny and devastating, remarkably in tune with the currents of real life, and providing material for great actors to explore memorable and fully rounded characters.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Belfast Girls

,
Belfast Girls

In the 1840s, famine devastated Ireland, and approximately 1 million people died during the period known as the Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór in Irish). Another 2 million emigrated from the comparatively small island nation, and as a result, by 1852, the country had lost approximately 25 percent of its total population. Jaki McCarrick’s Belfast Girls, currently running at Irish Repertory Theatre, examines the effect the famine had on women in particular and explores its devastating impact on the poorest of the poor in Ireland.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, ,

New Golden Age

, ,
New Golden Age

Time and again, stories about what the future holds for technology and humanity have enthralled audiences—think of the rabid followings for The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, produced 50 years apart. Playwright Karen Hartman puts forth her contribution to the genre with New Golden Age. But whereas those TV shows grabbed viewers with suspense, plot twists and amusing allegory, New Golden Age mainly offers talking. More than three-quarters of its run time is occupied by one long scene, and it consists mostly of people standing around talking. That tedium outweighs any emotional reaction that Hartman’s Facebook-run-amok scenario may elicit.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, ,

André & Dorine

, ,
André & Dorine

André & Dorine, a masked drama and physical theater show from the Spanish company Kulunka Teatro, presents the life of a family as they confront a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s for the matriarch, Dorine. This heartfelt play captures the frustration and roller-coaster of emotions that families undergo when caring for a family member with the disease.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, , ,

¡Americano!

, , ,
¡Americano!

If Antonio (Tony) Valdivinos, the hero of the new musical ¡Americano!, had been born before the millennium, and especially before World War II, the chances his true story would reaching a wide audience would have been slim to none—and even less likely echoed in an Off-Broadway musical with the momentum of a Broadway hit. But ¡Americano! is a vehicle that delivers the messages behind Tony’s story and those of other “dreamers” and serves as a catalyst for activism. Under the direction of Michael Barnard, the production reflects the uncertainty and frustrations facing dreamers, particularly those desiring to serve their new homeland as true Americans.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Which Way to the Stage

,
Which Way to the Stage

Anyone who has walked by a Broadway theater’s stage door after a show will immediately recognize the central characters of Ana Nogueira’s Which Way to the Stage. They are the ones clutching a copy of Playbill (usually protected in plastic) in one hand and waving a Sharpie in the other. As they wait for autographs, they fervently debate the most pressing issues of the day, such as who should play Mame in the next Broadway revival; which Glinda in Wicked even comes close to Kristin Chenoweth’s performance; and, for heaven’s sake, will Rob Marshall ever make Follies into a movie?

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Our Brother’s Son

,
Our Brother’s Son

Despite family secrets being revealed, two brushes with death, a constantly rotating set and repeated storming out of the house, not all that much happens in Our Brother’s Son, a passable but toothless drama by career gastroenterologist turned first-time playwright Charles Gluck.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, , , , ,

H*tler’s Tasters

, , , , ,
H*tler’s Tasters

Much about Adolf Hitler was incongruous. Infatuated with his own greatness and that of the “Fatherland,” he pontificated about Aryan superiority, order, and sacrifice, yet his life was chaotic, fueled by anger and drug-induced delusions; he was obsessive and paranoid. In H*tler’s Tasters, playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks has brilliantly adapted the true story of 15 women who were employed to taste the paranoid leader’s food. It’s a timely drama with dark humor and music.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

A Case for the Existence of God

,
A Case for the Existence of God

Despite the lofty title, Samuel D. Hunter’s A Case for the Existence of God is a play that at first might seem small, its subject matter as constrained as the little box of an office in which all the action takes place, dwarfed by the expanse of the Irene Diamond stage at Signature Theatre (scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado). But as this sad and tender piece unfolds, it’s able to touch on universal questions by looking closely at the intersection of two ordinary lives during moments of particular vulnerability.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Colorblind

,
Colorblind

Wallace Demarriá’s play Colorblind, about the leader of a Black empowerment movement, debuted in Los Angeles in 2013 and is just now having its New York premiere. During the time between the two productions, George Floyd’s murder and Donald Trump’s embrace of white nationalists have altered the conversation around racial issues in the United States. The only apparent tweak to the play, though, is a prologue in which Clinton Muhammad, a supposedly controversial activist, makes a speech claiming that Trump was elected because Americans freaked out over having a Black president.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, , , ,

How the Hell Did I Get Here?

, , , ,
How the Hell Did I Get Here?

For Downtown Abbey aficionados, it is an unlikely stretch to imagine Lesley Nicol as anyone other than the series’ jovial, wise cook, Mrs. Patmore. The leap of imagination that transforms Patmore into a painfully shy, insecure, aspiring and often overlooked actress is a dilemma with which the audience for How the Hell Did I Get Here? must grapple. Ironically, Mrs. Patmore and Ms. Nicol may share a Northern British accent, but that’s where any comparison ends. The former’s “extreme makeover” as fashionable Lesley Nicol is not a makeover at all, but an internal and external transformation from her early childhood. Isn’t that what good acting is all about?

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, ,

Cyrano de Bergerac

, ,
Cyrano de Bergerac

When Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac opened in 1897, it was hailed not only for its poetry but for its elaborate sets—one for each of the five acts, from bakery to battlefield—and for its poetry and grandiose passions. Martin Crimp’s version of the story of unrequited love, produced and directed by Jamie Lloyd at BAM, has only the faintest glimmers of any exaltation. More often it’s simply disappointing.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Bloom

,
Bloom

Alfred Hitchcock famously described the basis of suspense as a situation in which there is a ticking time bomb under a table. The audience knows it is only a matter of minutes in which the bomb will explode, and they sit on the edge of their seats in anticipation of the outcome. Applying this principle, Marco Antonio Rodriguez initially establishes a veritable minefield in his new play Bloom, currently running at the IATI Theater. In the totalitarian world in which the play is set, a mother has been ordered to kill her son, and if she does not do so within precisely one hour, unimaginable horrors will follow.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Citizen Wong

,
Citizen Wong

Richard Chang mixes history and fiction in Citizen Wong to tell the story of Wong Chin Foo, the nineteenth-century Chinese-American journalist, activist, performer, and lecturer who fought for equal rights for Chinese-Americans and to dispel pernicious, racist stereotypes about Chinese people and culture. Presented by Pan Asian Repertory, Citizen Wong is co-directed by Ernest Abuba and Chongren Fan and features a cast of six, with the actors playing multiple characters, including historical personages or those inspired by such. The work is ambitious and timely, explicitly drawing connections to the present-day rise in anti-Asian bigotry.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, ,

SuperHero

, ,
SuperHero

SuperHero began performances the day after a gunman opened fire aboard a rush-hour Brooklyn subway train, giving added resonance to its protagonist’s decision to eschew violence as a response to personal turmoil. The playwriting debut of actor Ian Eaton, SuperHero is an autobiographical coming-of-age story about an awkward, overweight boy growing up in the Harlem projects in the 1980s.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Harmony

,
Harmony

It is a quirk of American theater that some of its most beloved musicals involve the specter of tyranny overseas. Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret and The Sound of Music each serve up friendship and love in the face of vanishing personal freedoms. There are echoes of all three shows in Harmony, a musical by Barry Manilow, with book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman, receiving a beautifully staged New York premiere by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, after some 25 years of revision, delays and productions in La Jolla, Calif., Los Angeles and Atlanta.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post