Paola Bellu

THE IDES HAVE IT It’s 44 BCE, March 15, and Julius Caesar walks toward his death, changing the course of Western history. Exactly 2,067 years later, at the West End Theater in New York, a commendable, ambitious experiment, adapted and directed by Bedlam Artistic Director  Eric Tucker, tackles the scorching subject, and leaves us with mixed…

FOR THOSE WHO THINK “RESCUE ME” AT JUKEBOX MUSICALS, “I KNOW A PLACE” WHERE A NEW 60s MUSICAL WILL CHANGE THAT “When you’re alone, and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown,” or to be exact you can always go to New World Stages, where the delightful, timely musical A Sign of…

WARRIOR THEATER It’s the beginning of  the Year  of  the Dragon, and one  of  the best ways to celebrate it is seeing a classic Chinese epic. The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre is presenting Warrior  Sisters  of  Wu, directed by  Jeff Liu, a delightful romantic comedy at A.R.T/New York Theatres. Nancy Ma, Kim Wuan The play takes place during the tumultuous end-years  of  China’s Han Dynasty; Lord…

THIS TOO TOO SOLID HAMLET RESOLVES ITSELF INTO A HIT It must be the Season of different takes on the Bard in New York; Greg Mullavey is appearing in a shortened King Lear, and Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here is an unforgettable solo voyage into Shakespeare’s abyss, and Suzie Eddie Izzard, at Greenwich…

A mysterious coming-of-age story that focuses on women’s sexuality, written and directed by two talented artists like Rachel Bonds  and  Danya Taymor, was unquestionably the reason I wanted to see Jonah, presented by Roundabout Theater. Sexuality is an important bio-psycho-social development that starts during adolescence and this story appropriately begins with young, bright Ana (Gabby Beans) attending…

ALIVE AND KICKING: MADDOW AND ZIMET AT PAC/NYC New York City, 1947: Julian Beck and Judith Molina found The Living Theatre, the oldest experimental group in the United States, giving life, with other artists, to Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theater. 16 years later, director Joseph Chaikin leaves the group to co-found The Open Theater, where Ellen…

IRELAND’S GENTRY IS DISINTEGRATING IN FRIEL’S ARISTOCRATS, BUT SO IS THE DRAMA The mid-19th century, with its changing class dynamics, marked the decline of the power of aristocracy in Europe and Russia. Rural landowners, who owned large estates, saw their wealth, power, and mansions disintegrate generation after generation. Brian Friel’s  Aristocrats, playing at the Irish Repertory…

LET’S RAISE OUR GLASSES AND CHEER DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES There is an old Irish proverb that goes “A man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, the drink takes the man.” Based on a JP Miller’s 1958 play, and the brilliant 1962 film adaptation directed by Blake Edwards, Days of Wine and…

THIS SHOW ISN’T A CRIME, BUT IT SOMETIMES FEELS LIKE PUNISHMENT Following his return from a decade in exile in Siberia as a dissenter against the Romanov order, Fyodor Dostoevsky intended his second novel, written as much to pay off gambling debts as to share a story, to be called  The Drunkards. It would depict how…

“ARE WE SAFE?” In a world that foolishly brought back authoritarian regimes and fascist rhetoric, as if they didn’t do enough damage to humanity in the past, it is always wise to keep history in mind and “never forget” the atrocities we have committed. With Prayer for the French Republic, on Broadway at the Samuel…

Written, directed and choreographed by Luke Murphy from Ireland, Volcano — at St. Anne’s Warehouse as part of Under the Radar Festival — is a dance/theatre production you will not forget. Not only because it is presented as four episodes, each 45 minutes long, a very unusual format, but for the fluidity of its movements,…

THE CONSEQUENCES OF GREED: MANAHATTA IN MANHATTAN Before getting into the play, it is important to know that Manahatta is written by playwright, activist and attorney Mary Kathryn Nagle, who chose to follow the Native American tradition of storytelling, a very specific approach to dramaturgy. This oral tradition connects the past with the present becoming…

TERRIFIC TURTURRO, MARVELOUS MARVEL, CUNNING KRAVITS AND RIOTOUS ROTH: DON’T MISS SABBATH’S THEATER The New Group‘s production of Sabbath’s Theater is a perfect adaptation of Philip Roth’s eponymous 1995 novel. This picaresque, transgressive tale of love and loss, life and death, takes place on Arnulfo Maldonado‘s black almost-bare stage with Jeff Croiter‘s very subtle lighting…