Samuel Garza Bernstein

THE TRAGIC COMEDY OF LOVE Antaeus Theatre closes its season with a terrific production of Three Days in the Country, Patrick Marber’s adaptation of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. Turgenev was said to be Chekov’s inspiration to become a playwright, yet my affection for the latter has never extended to the former. Chekov feels…

MOTHER COURAGE IN MOTOR CITY The marvel of scenic designer Rachel Meyers’ work greets you when you enter the theater at the Geffen Playhouse, and draws the audience into Skeleton Crew, the third and final installment in playwright Dominique Morisseau’s award-winning three-play cycle, The Detroit Project. Then Meyers’ set does an extraordinary thing: During onstage…

ONE ARMENIAN, ONE TURK, ONE ROOM – WHAT ARE THE ODDS? “Your blondness has not served you the way we had hoped,” says a woman to her daughter, as a husband and father is dying of heart failure in a hospital bed. The line perfectly captures the old world and the new in a loaded…

A WALL WILL NEVER STOP A BUTTERFLY When I was a kid, the word “wetback” had negative connotations, but I don’t remember it being considered particularly hateful. My mother even used it to describe herself. I think its relative mildness was directly connected to the widespread, pragmatic acceptance of a necessary system of employment. People…

“I’M NOT ALONE ANYMORE, I HAVE ME!” Charles Busch once said he thought of himself as the Loretta Young of drag, specializing in creatures of artifice, vanity, and soulful, often unrequited longing. Even as far back as playing the ingénue haunted by a terrible secret in Psycho Beach Party, you could see the leading lady…

BLINDING SON I’m half Latino, half Eastern-European Jew, and I’m gay. But I know nothing of what it means to be African-American in a country founded on hating the color of your skin’”a country still defined, possessed even, by that hatred. I want to say that up front. No false equivalencies. That said, I will…

TOGETHER ALONE Keilly McQuail and Will Von Vogt are absolutely riveting in Significant Other, Joshua Harmon’s mostly funny, sometimes sad take on the pitfalls of being the GBF (gay best friend). Both actors fearlessly explore their characters’ self-obsessions so fully and so believably, that behavior and dialogue which might grow irritating, instead stays fresh and…

SEX WORK/#METOO/FUTURE TENSE Sarah Jones is a prescient writer and an actor of rare gifts and remarkable range. It’s no wonder that an early patron and supporter was Meryl Streep, for like Streep, Jones goes in and out of accents and physical characterizations with precision in a way that appears effortless. In her engrossing new…

THE JOY OF SURVIVAL Marin Ireland is mesmerizing and deeply moving in Ironbound. She plays Daria, a Polish immigrant. To my ear, her accent is impeccable — and most importantly, entirely consistent. We believe she is searching for the best English words to express herself, and often her syntax has an authenticity of its own….

A TRAGI-COMEDY OF VIOLENCE Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse is exactly the kind of play I hope to see at the Antaeus Theatre Company. It is a classic to some but not to others, and there’s a lot of leeway in the text for bold choices, its themes are relevant ’” some might say eerily so…

LOVE AND “COMPASSIONATE SILENCE” We are living through an era that seems to value greed, hypocrisy, narcissism and blatant dishonesty over truth and meaning. This makes the journey into the world of Aaron Posner and Chaim Potok’s The Chosen that much more satisfying. It feels as impactful as a dear friend’s determined embrace, the kind…

WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY In Mike Bartlett’s play about the imagined aftermath of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, men hold inherited titles, but women, both living and dead, hold the keys to power. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, the ghost of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, and a fictional female Tory Leader of the Opposition orchestrate the events…