New York

STET OFFENSIVE After watching Kim Davies’ inspired S&M play  Smoke, about two young people connecting in the kitchen of a house in which a sex party is in progress, I became an instant fan. Full of lovely subtleties and ambiguities, Smoke is something to see, and if you get a chance to catch a production I…

RADIANT THEATER In Philip Ridley’s brilliant black satire Radiant Vermin, a seemingly nice, average twenty-something couple with an infant, tells us of the horrible things they did to get their dream home, confident that once we’ve heard the whole story we’ll “understand,” as everything they did, they did “for baby.” Jill (Scarlett Alice Johnson) and…

A BRILLIANT TRIFLE Watching members of the Stephen Joseph Theatre perform Alan Ayckbourn’s Confusions under the playwright’s helmsmanship, I found myself mentally comparing the troupe to a team of Navy SEALs executing a mission with impeccable timing and precision. Performances are deft and subtle, with all five players demonstrating impressive range as each portrays a…

MINDING THE BODY When the lights come up on Body: Anatomies of Being, the nine cast members walk out and stand at the foot of the stage facing the audience, all of them naked save one, who is dressed in a business suit. They do nothing. The house lights come up, and cast and audience…

WILLIAMS ASCENDING Irene Glezos delivers a lovely, stirring performance as Lady in Austin Pendleton’s staging of Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece Orpheus Descending. A force of nature, Lady says and does things almost in spite of herself. A prisoner of her childlike sincerity, she is at once witty, ironic, funny, melodramatic, all almost without intending to be,…

THE EFFECT OF GREAT THEATER In Lucy Prebble’s captivating two-act, The Effect, crisply directed by David Cromer, 20-somethings Connie (Susannah Flood) and Tristan (Carter Hudson) meet as test subjects in a clinical study of a new anti-depressant. On the surface it seems they would make an unlikely couple ’” he’s an unemployed free spirit with…

ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam’s remarkable new play The Humans begins with Erik Blake (the excellent Reed Birney) standing on the upper level of a shabby, half-dark basement/ground-floor tenement duplex, holding two bags of groceries, his expression suggesting a man weighed down by existential anxiety. The stillness is broken by the sound of something massive…

LET’S GET PHYSICS ALL For parents who recall Professor Julius Sumner Miller’s television programs with nostalgia, who wish the Science Channel had more science shows, and for whom quality time with their kids includes watching YouTube videos in which the laws of physics are demonstrated using everyday objects, Dave Maiullo’s That Physics Show, produced and…

PHONY  PONY TALE There exists a type of small theater production in which a lack of resources’”material ones and, sometimes, those less tangible’”is made up for by the show’s intimacy and inclusivity, and by the performers’ enthusiasm and youth (they are always young). These endeavors are usually self-conscious, often interactive, and have an unfinished, homemade feel’”as…

BURIED BETWEEN THE LINES In Scott Elliott’s surefooted staging of Sam Shepard’s imperfect Buried Child, watching Ed Harris sitting on a raggedy couch under an old blanket in front of a little TV while audience members shuffle into the house and settle in their seats is worth the price of admission. Mr. Harris melts into…

I AND THEM The performers’ abundant charm can’t overcome the script’s shortcomings in I and You, Lauren Gunderson’s tedious comedic drama about two high schoolers attempting a class project in which they analyze Walt Whitman’s use of pronouns in Leaves of Grass. The premise of this Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award winner is ripe for failure:…

A  MAIL-ORDER BRIDE I guess it’s my own fault, but when I read about The Golden Bride, a Yiddish operetta from 1923 that was lost in the 40s, found in the 80s, and is now enjoying its first off-Broadway run at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I envisioned something covered with the thick patina of history…

NO ONE ELSE IS  THAT GIRL Marlo Thomas may not have the iconic stature of one of those luminous performers like, say, Meryl Streep or Cher or Judy Garland, but akin to  these illustrious ladies of culture, you can do a pretty good job of placing your generation chronologically by which version of Ms. Thomas  you know best….

HARD TO CARE First of all, I think it’s important to state that I adore The Flea, the fiercely creative performance and theater collective down in Soho. More often than not, they do amazing, compelling work. For instance, their two-night, epic presentation of The Mysteries  last year, in which the Biblical story of creation through Armageddon…

OUR CHRISTMAS TOWN Under Dan Wackerman’s superb direction, Peccadillo Theater Company’s A Wilder Christmas, comprised of two Thornton Wilder one-acts’”The Long Christmas Dinner and Pullman Car Hiawatha’”is a gem. Mr. Wackerman’s unobtrusive style compliments the material; with unsentimental precision and a light touch he illuminates all the subtle little details of Wilder’s works until they…

OUR ANIMAL FELLOWS The always energized and entertaining Bedlam theater company opens their current season with New York Animals, Steven Sater’s musical play about New York City life in the 1990s. Excellent lead vocalist Jo Lampert fills the room with lovely songs by Mr. Slater and Burt Bacharach, the musical interludes separating comic vignettes designed…