Paola Bellu

ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS THE REDEEMER André De Shields should be a landmark; for over six decades, he has towered over the worlds of theatre, film, and television with the kind of presence that cannot be imitated. So it is only fitting that he brings Molière’s Tartuffe to another historical New York institution: the House of…

RECONCILING WITH SHANLEY’S PAST In Italian American Reconciliation, playwright John Patrick Shanley, best known for Moonstruck and Doubt, returns to the Bronx of his youth where conversations required full hand choreography, and no emotion was considered too loud or hazardous. This love story is set in Little Italy in 1986, the year of the play’s…

SWEET LIES, STICKY MEMORIES, BITTER GUILT; THE HONEY TRAP STINGS AT IRISH REP In Northern Ireland, The Troubles only ended some 25-30 years ago, though their tensions and legacies reach far deeper into time. Today, Leo McGann‘s play The Honey Trap, now at the Irish Repertory Theatre, reminds us that it was never a tidy…

Justice without mercy becomes punishment, and mercy without justice becomes apathy. But how do we strike the balance when the system and the society behind it seem to have forgotten both? In And Then We Were No More, playwright Tim Blake Nelson invites us into a future so plausible it stings, in an unnamed state…

THE WILD DUCK TAKES FLIGHT: TRUTH, LIES AND QUACKING DELUSIONS While Shakespeare agonized over “to be or not to be,” Henrik Ibsen was more concerned with “why is everyone being so fake?” It’s existential dread versus emotional fraud, and I thought of these two drama kings because The Wild Duck, Ibsen’s play on delusion and…

THE FINE ART OF A THREE-MAN MASTERPIECE Yasmina Reza’s Art returned to Broadway last night starring Neil Patrick Harris, Bobby Cannavale, and James Corden, and it is a tight, acidic joyride through ego and insecurity, wickedly funny. If you have ever done the silent math of friendship: who listens, who cares, who gives more, who…

When I hear the name Pericles, I naturally think of the great Athenian statesman who helped shape democracy in the 5th century BC, a true hero of history. It is amusing that Shakespeare and George Wilkins borrowed the name for a completely different hero, reworking in 1609 the soapy medieval legend of Apollonius of Tyre…

YOU WILL ABSOLUTELY WHAT YOU WILL While we are still grappling with questions of gender, identity, and societal roles like troglodytes, we need to remember that Shakespeare was exploring these human complexities with intelligence, nuance, and humor over 400 years ago. In Twelfth Night, written around 1601, he crafted a brilliant pastiche of mistaken identities,…

JOIN THIS TOP BANANA FOR THE RIDE OF THE SUMMER If you’re heading to the Nederlander Theatre expecting Jeff Ross to come out swinging with savage roasts about Charlie Sheen’s liver or Elon Musk’s social skills, that ain’t Take a Banana for the Ride. Written and performed by the actor, this is not your typical…