Dmitry Zvonkov

A SWORD THAT’S HARD TO SWALLOW The best thing I can say about Kari Floren’s new play Voices of Swords is that it seems to be well-intentioned (it’s odd that the poster proclaims “new” when the play was produced and reviewed in 2008). Unfortunately, sitting through it feels like Ms. Floren and director Eve Brandstein…

A TASTY PUNCH NEEDS TO BE SPIKED Flowing dialogue, skillful performances, and Audrey Alford’s solid direction make Micheline Auger’s banal and predictable Donkey Punch, a play which attempts to explore the romantic relationships of two yupster couples in an ultra-contemporary setting, watchable and occasionally entertaining. Sexually carnivorous attorney Kareena (a wound up Cleo Gray) sets…

A DROP-DEAD DELIGHT Delightful in an over-the-top yet grounded and sympathetic portrayal of Idris Seabright, a well-off spinster obsessed with memories of her long-gone Latin lover, Everett Quinton is the jewel in Joe Brancato’s sharp and whimsical staging of Erasmus Fenn’s hilarious melodrama Drop Dead Perfect. The entire four-person cast is a joy to watch,…

RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AS SURREAL BURLESQUE Delightful wouldn’t be a word I’d expect to use when describing a Robert Wilson show. But The Old Woman, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from an absurdist story by Daniil Kharms, and performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, is just that. Whimsical, darkly funny, and disquieting throughout, Wilson’s striking spectacle…

HALF AND HALF Kim Wall delivers a brilliant performance as Barry, an aging municipal employee, in Alan Ayckbourn’s Arrivals and Departures, part of the Brits Off-Broadway Festival at 59E59 Theaters. Mr. Wall carries the show, and although surrounded by a fine cast, without him there’s not much to see here. Still, the first act of…

BORED TO DEATH In Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s ill-conceived two-hander musical comedy Murder for Two, lively performances and Scott Schwartz’s energetic direction are not enough to overcome a book that goes out of its way to avoid suspense and is so full of corn that I found myself squirming between yawns: After a novelist…

NOW THIS IS HOW YOU ADAPT A PLAY In 1859 Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon opened in New York City to much acclaim. The plot of this suspenseful melodrama centers on George, a young man of Southern birth but liberal education and outlook, who returns from Paris to his uncle’s plantation upon learning of the old…

NOW SHOW ME HOW TO CHEW IT As a critic I have a confession to make: when reading a play for fun I usually skim over the stage directions. I generally don’t care how many chairs are in a room or what color the rug is or whether what’s in the corner is a dresser…

STRINDBERG ON PROZAC Throughout my tenure with Stage and Cinema I have criticized a number of productions for staging foreign plays too literally, insisting that it is misguided for directors who don’t have sufficient understanding of the world the playwright is working with to try and recreate it – better to reinvent it as something…

SOME ARE TKO’S, SOME SHOULD BE BRIEFER The first play featured in this annual showcase of ten-minute plays by emerging writers,  An Eclectic Evening of Shorts VII: Boxers and Briefs, is Margo Hammond’s humorous Mistress Marlene, directed by Alex Dmitriev. Bill, an electrician (a disarming Tim Barker), arrives at his elderly client Sandra’s (a naturalistic Susanne…

BOOZE AND BARD In ShakesBEER, NYC’s Original Shakespearean Pub Crawl, New York Shakespeare Exchange members perform ten-minute scenes from four Shakespeare plays in as many bars over the course of three hours. The locations change with every incarnation of the show; the most recent one was hosted by The Liberty, Peter Dillon’s Pub, Galway Pub,…

BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED In a way shows that are pure spectacle – acrobat, dance, magic – must achieve a higher level of virtuosity to be successful than, say, theatrical plays. Even a flawed play can be satisfying. An abundance of drama, for instance, can help take our attention away from the superficiality of the…