New York

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…

A PLAYWRIGHT REBORN Sometimes you walk into a theater and, for some uncanny reason, begin to anticipate that something very fine is about to happen. And when those expectations are met, it’s like falling in love for the first time — and indeed, you remember why you fell in love with live theatre in the…

KOREAN BROADWAY (SORT OF) Hero: The Musical starts off with a bang.   Literally. Several loud gunshots tear holes into the front curtain, which cinematically transforms into a stellar Big Dipper that emblazons a rich blue sky. The constellation rises and the astonishingly exquisite beauty of a forest in 1909 appears. A soaring, powerful male ensemble…

THE BITTERER, THE BETTER There are two brands of Charles Busch plays: the ones he stars in, which are filled with campy homoeroticism and often performed in downtown theatre dives, and the ones he does not star in, which are safe, commercial and mainstream, and usually performed uptown.   As a performer, Mr. Busch is a…

THEATER OF GOOD INTENTIONS No matter how worthy Civilian is, with its interviews of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, one cannot call this play effective theatre. There have been several moving documentaries of real soldiers being interviewed on HBO and fine war plays written by imaginative writers, but this “documentary drama” by playwright and…

A CLASH OF THE MINDS Mark St. Germain based his play Freud’s Last Session on a book by Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. entitled The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and The Meaning of Life. All of the weighty issues in the book’s title are skillfully investigated and cleverly…

SPIDER-MAN 2.NO By now, you’ve probably read at least a portion if not all of the hoopla that surrounds Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark, originally helmed by book writer and director Julie Taymor.   Its reputation for being rife with technical and structural problems and being one of the most ambitious productions ever to take place…

A MACBETH WITH VERY MUCH TO RECOMMEND The interesting thing about seeing multiple productions by the same theater company and the same director is that a pattern begins to emerge. Theatre for a New Audience’s production of Macbeth, starring John Douglas Thompson, contains the same strengths and weaknesses as director Arin Arbus’s previous work with…