New York

NEW DANCE-THEATER MAKES A BIG (ILLI)NOISE   For countless millennial hipsters, Illinois  (2005) is THE album of their coming of age, as well it should be. Now, New York City Ballet’s wunderkind Justin Peck (Spielberg’s  West Side Story) and playwright  Jackie Sibblies Drury  (We Are Proud…) translate Sufjan Stevens‘ 2005 concept album into a wordless, glorious dance musical. (front) Byron…

A MEAL THAT’S HARD TO DIGEST Staff Meal at  Playwrights Horizons is a light, surreal play with many points and no resolutions, intentionally unclear, written by  Abe Koogler  and directed by Morgan Green. Mina (Susannah Flood) and Ben (Greg Keller) are customers of the same coffee shop. They exchange head nods, a ‘hi’ or at most an awkward…

IT WON’T WIN A PULITZER, BUT IT WILL REMIND YOU TO “BELIEVE IN LOVE” It is the fashion nowadays to present musicals with legitimate claims to sophisticated art, with elegant musical settings, deep emotional explorations, and sophisticated social and political analysis. None of this is bad, but what happened to good old clap your hands…

SOMETHING WONDERFUL IS COOKING IN HELL’S KITCHEN What else can be said about Alicia Keys‘  new Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen, that its recent thirteen Tony Award nominations, including one for Best Musical, haven’t already said (or implied)? Currently running at the Shubert Theatre and presented by multiple producing entities including The Public Theatre – the show…

REIGNITING TAMARA DE LEMPICKA [Editor’s Note: Even with tonal problems, I enjoyed Lempicka, but a crowded season won out, and the new musical officially closes on May 19, 2024. Therefore, we are republishing our review today, so you can catch it soon. Actor George Abud is remarkable; his performance is one of the biggest snubs…

HOW GOOD YOU GOT IT There’s an old saying that goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But is “fixing” always a bad thing? What if that fix is not about correcting what’s wrong but more about deepening, exploring, and re-emphasizing what’s right? The creative team behind the current Broadway revival of the ’70s…

A PLAY FOR THE PEOPLE Written by Ibsen in 1882,  An Enemy of the People  is a powerful drama that reminds us, as a discouraging premonition, how people would go against truth and honesty in order to protect their personal interests. This version, adapted by playwright  Amy Herzog and directed by her husband Sam Gold  at  Circle in the Square…

IT MAY BE ABOUT A MOVEMENT MORE THAN ITS PEOPLE, BUT A POWERHOUSE SCORE AND WINNING PERFORMANCES EMPOWER SUFFS There are several major conflicts in Suffs, the new Broadway musical directed by Leigh Silverman, with book, music and lyrics by Shaina Taub. Suffragists are battling the male hierarchy, which is not inclined to cede power…

The excellent Michael Stuhlbarg is continuously entertaining in Peter Morgan’s bio-play Patriots, leading the cast as Boris Berezovsky, a Russian-Jewish mathematician and businessman who became one of the original’”and most powerful’”oligarchs in Boris Yeltsin’s Russia of the 1990s, but who fell out of favor with Vladimir Putin, fled to Europe, and ended his life a…

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP Lia Romeo‘s  Still  at the DR2 Theatre, is a moving, intimate  play starring two confident actors, Jayne Atkinson  as Helen and  Tim Daly as Mark, who inhabit their roles with naturalism and nuance. Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt had only them in mind when she staged it because they almost never move, it’s all about their dialogue, and…

REIGNITING TAMARA DE LEMPICKA An epic story of entangled triangles is taking place at the Longacre Theatre,  where a happily married young woman falls in love with another young woman, a sex worker. If that isn’t scandalous enough for 1920, let’s add that our heroine’s commitment is to her husband, her passion to her new lover,…

A STEREOPHONIC SHOW WITH A MONOPHONIC SCRIPT Stereophonic was so evenly cherished by critics in its Off-Broadway run at Playwrights Horizons that it transferred to Broadway, where it opened tonight at The Golden Theatre. Why? The jury is still out. Andrew R. Butler and Eli Gelb It takes place in a Californian recording music studio…

A COLOSSAL LEN CARIOU MAKES ANY DAY A GOOD DAY FOR TUESDAYS I have seen many a famous performer hit the stage in their senior years with a cabaret or theater performance, something I usually regret as my memories of the youthful vigorous actor is now replaced with a sad remembrance of a once-cherished star…