New York

MINT ACTING IN RUTHERFORD & SON The Mint Theater Company’s mission is to “excavate buried theatrical treasures” and bring “new vitality to neglected plays.” No small task as plays usually go out of fashion for a reason; theatrical styles change, the zeitgeist renders them irrelevant, and the avant garde becomes the norm until it becomes…

ALL IN ZI FAMILY In Russian Transport, comedienne Janeane Garofalo expands her range by playing a wisecracking Russian-Jewish matriarch whose domineering attitude toward her daughter conceals a family secret.   The able cast is solidly directed by Scott Elliott in this slice-of-life coming-of-age story, but ultimately, by failing to convey the external pressures and dangers that…

THE NATURALIST THING TO DO In the late 19th century, Naturalism emerged as a viable theatrical style in response to the artifice that had earlier been in vogue.   It was almost inevitable that overly manipulated plots and histrionic acting styles would give way to something more genuine like Naturalism.   Seeing 3-D sets with actual running…

THE SOUND OF TWO BRITS KISSING Stationary sales executive Eddie and sexy casino worker Crystal fumble through their first weekend trip together in Robert Farquhar’s Kissing Sid James. This playful Brits Off Broadway production at 59E59 offers an endearingly awkward portrait of lonely longing and misfit romance. In an uncomfortable phone conversation that opens the…

OUR APOLOGIES FOR TELLING YOU TOO LATE Something is happening in New York theater. With their latest “ugly opera” Apologies (And Other Grey Areas), The Paper Industry explores the uncertainty of beginnings and the possibilities of the present through a compelling combination of design, music, and movement: a thrilling theatrical excavation of Schrödinger and Heisenberg’s…

ONE OF MANY GENESIS STORIES TO COME Creating a fresh twist on the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve is no small feat. Unfortunately, Larry Kunofsky’s The Myths We Need – or – How to Begin   stumbles about with 1920s flare, but with little original insight into what makes us human. Kunofsky casts Adam and…

UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS AT THE FLEA The Flea Theater is currently providing New York theater audiences an interesting illustration of the cultural gap between Asian-Americans and Asians from Asia. Not that I usually am so divisive — I generally feel that everyone has a lot more in common than they have differences — but this month, the…

BURNING BRADSHAW Post-modern theater has yet to live up to the hype.   Whether deconstructing established forms or employing historical eclecticism, American playwrights writing within a post-modern sensibility struggle to justify their dogged pursuits.   Coincidentally, they have yet to produce a single great American play.   Thomas Bradshaw, one of the shining stars in the post-modern constellation,…

THE FEEL GAY HIT OF THE SEASON If you’re pro gay marriage, come see this show.   If you’re ambivalent on the topic, come see this show.   And if you’re against gay marriage, come see this show and gain insight from an evening full of laughs and lessons for all. Collectively, this compilation of original one-act…

HORSEDREAMS AND NIGHTMARES A few years ago, Dael Orlandersmith made a splash with Beauty’s Daughter and Yellowman, winning an Obie Award and being a Pulitzer Finalist.   Her work was largely autobiographical and involved highly poetic language, direct address, and fearless, compassionate explorations into complicated aspects of race, gender, and class.   Basically, she was writing theater…

WAR, BUT NO PEACE John Andert so captivates the audience in Sinan Ünel’s play A Mad Person’s Chronicle of a Miserable Marriage that you don’t want the play to end.   Whether he is the deliciously mad chronicler or Sonya Tolstoy, tortured wife of Leo, or the great Tolstoy himself, he suffuses each character with the…

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…