New York

THE ACTING’S THE THING You may go to see Relatively Speaking in the hope of seeing three bright comedies by some of our funniest comic writers – Ethan Coen, Elaine May, Woody Allen – but what you will remember, after you’ve left the theater, is the actors: Danny Hoch in the Coen play, Marlo Thomas…

CONSTANT CATFIGHTS Race is a subject loaded with potential drama.   This season alone, there has been a cornucopia of plays staged in New York featuring storylines involving race.   They include The Submission, Burning, Any Given Monday, and Sons of the Prophet, to name a few. Adding to this ever growing list is Puberty Rites, a…

LOST IN THE LABYRINTH In Outrageous Fortune, Todd London’s seminal work on the current state of new plays in America, he writes that the challenge is finding a way to remain relevant to the American cultural conversation.   With the high quantity of work currently being launched, streamed, and broadcast on electronic media, and the average…

AUTUMN THEATER IN NEW YORK:   OFF BROADWAY, THE ACTING’S THE THING Acting is the main artery through which most of New York Theater travels. When a new season is announced, one looks forward, of course, to the plays. A new play by Nicky Silver? That sounds exciting. Silver, after all, has been putting out the…

TENNESSEE’S LESSER KNOWN CATS La MaMa presents the New York premiere of a short Tennessee Williams play, Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws.   That’s the good news, an opportunity to see a “new” work by Williams.   Here we get glimpses of Tennessee’s signature wit and forbidden, deviant sexuality.   The bad news is that the ingredients…

ASUNCION DESCENDING Conventional wisdom in Hollywood says that after you get an Oscar nomination, for the next five years everyone will return your phone calls.   It seems Jesse Eisenberg has decided to parlay his Oscar clout into a production of Asuncion, a play he wrote and stars in at the Cherry Lane Theatre produced by…

WAITING FOR PINTER National Asian American Theater Company (NAATCO) takes a steampunk spin on The Dumb Waiter, Harold Pinter’s classic absurdist thriller.   Director Andrew Pang makes great use of the ambient details of a run-down building and masterfully guides two very fine actors, Louis Ozawa Changchien and Steven Park, in a suspenseful study of two…

LOVE, FONTANA, COMPASSION One of the joys of seeing theatre in New York City Off-Broadway is that, every so often, you get to see a special star-of-the-future appear in the firmament and watch his wattage increase with each role. Santino Fontana’s performance as Joseph in the Roundabout Theatre’s production of Stephen Karam’s lovely new play…

GAYER TUNA In “Bait” – the first of the two interconnected one-acts in Bait n’ Swish – we meet Charlie and Justin, best friends looking for Mr. Right at Gay Bait, a gay speed-dating event in a Manhattan Howard Johnson’s. In their 3-minute rotating gay dates, they meet a horde of men looking for an…

INTERN(AL) AFFAIRS We all know that having sexual relations with an intern will get you in a heap of trouble, be it in the Oval Office or at a fictitious regional theatre company. Blame It On Beckett is playwright John Morogiello’s take on such indiscretions, and the theme takes center stage under the competent direction…

IN OVERPRAISE OF YOUNGER PLAYWRIGHTS One approaches Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s Lidless with high expectations.   The play has won the prestigious David C. Horn Yale Drama Prize as well as UT Austin’s Keene Prize where Cowhig received an MFA.   Blackburn finalist, commissions, fringe prizes, and residencies confirm Cowhig as a writer the American Theatre has anointed…

WHO’S AFRAID OF ADAPTING VIRGINIA WOOLF? Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway beautifully intertwines the inner and outer worlds of her characters, seamlessly sweeping from description to dialogue, from one character’s consciousness to another’s, from the past to the present. Ripe Time physicalizes not only the narrative of Woolf’s post-WWI classic, but her evocative style in the…

SHINES BRIGHT BUT GOES DIM In Michael West’s Dublin by Lamplight, a community theater’s idealistic mission to establish an “Irish National Theatre of Ireland” crosses commedia style with the grim poverty of the nation in 1904, making for a decidedly mixed evening’s entertainment. Philadelphia-based Inis Nua Theatre brings spectacular life to the stock characters of…

THE ETERNALLY UNMISSABLE SHOW An alluring voice reverberates across the intimate, pitch black theater. This sultry sound is the product of a mysterious Z chromosome, the audience is informed, rather than the usual Xs and Ys that define a body as male or female. This voice belongs to none other than legendary drag diva Joey…

ARCANE CRANE Jen Silverman’s Crane Story borrows storytelling stage conventions from both east and west.   A raised empty platform acts as the main acting area surrounded by wooden paneling.   There are drums, puppets, small musical instruments, and an ensemble of seven performers who act as characters, puppeteers, musicians, and stage crew.   Such eastern stage traditions…

THE WEIGHT OF HIS ELOQUENCE Theatrical gimmicks are often a lot of fun.   The 39 Steps delivered them with panache, and Story Theater taught us never to underestimate the range of the audience’s imagination.   Currently, The New York Neo-Futurists are serving up a new theatrical gimmick in their production of The Complete & Condensed Stage…