New York

ASPHYXIATING Neither the excellent quartet playing quality pieces that are at times rousing, nor Karl Ruckdeschel’s lovely period costumes, are enough to make Solitary Light, with music and lyrics by Randy Sharp and Paul Carbonara, a tolerable experience. With an artless libretto that is sentimental and always on-the-nose, the lack of a meaningful, or even…

A BIO-DRAMA THAT WORKS “Of course I care (what she thinks), I hate her,” says a character in Lauren Gunderson’s Bauer, a San Francisco Playhouse production about the German artist Rudolf Bauer, who painted during the first half of the 20th century. It is one of many lines that pop in a play which, though…

SMOKIN’ The premise of Kim Davies’ new play Smoke, that two strangers, a young man and woman, who independently come to the kitchen to have a cigarette while a friendly S&M sex party is taking place in the rest of the apartment, and who wind up having a meaningful interaction, is like a minefield with…

MISS JULIE’S OFFSPRING In 2012 the Scandinavian American Theater Company commissioned four playwrights to each write a sort of riff on Strindberg’s Miss Julie. The result is the four short plays that make up Bastards of Strindberg, a show so full of vitality and charisma that it often  overcomes its failings. Strindberg’s Miss Julie begins on…

A SWORD THAT’S HARD TO SWALLOW The best thing I can say about Kari Floren’s new play Voices of Swords is that it seems to be well-intentioned (it’s odd that the poster proclaims “new” when the play was produced and reviewed in 2008). Unfortunately, sitting through it feels like Ms. Floren and director Eve Brandstein…

A TASTY PUNCH NEEDS TO BE SPIKED Flowing dialogue, skillful performances, and Audrey Alford’s solid direction make Micheline Auger’s banal and predictable Donkey Punch, a play which attempts to explore the romantic relationships of two yupster couples in an ultra-contemporary setting, watchable and occasionally entertaining. Sexually carnivorous attorney Kareena (a wound up Cleo Gray) sets…

A DROP-DEAD DELIGHT Delightful in an over-the-top yet grounded and sympathetic portrayal of Idris Seabright, a well-off spinster obsessed with memories of her long-gone Latin lover, Everett Quinton is the jewel in Joe Brancato’s sharp and whimsical staging of Erasmus Fenn’s hilarious melodrama Drop Dead Perfect. The entire four-person cast is a joy to watch,…

THEATER AS A TEMPLE The Flea Theater commissioned 48 different playwrights to contribute short dramatic pieces to this tremendous production, which basically recounts all the narratives in the Bible from before the beginning of the universe to after its end.   The cycle’s list of authors contains newbies to some unexpectedly major names, from David Henry…

RAISING THE CLOWN BAR Did the TV series It give you nightmares for decades?   Does the art of John Wayne Gacy make you tremble?   Does dear old Bozo make you break out in hives?   If you suffer from coulrophobia – a fear of clowns – then Clown Bar, a site-specific production full of energy and…

STORMY ROMANCE It is sometimes the case that the plays that seem the simplest – three characters, a few dusty flats, a tiny, shoe-box set in a miniscule theater somewhere on the 12th floor of a building off of Times Square – is the work that has the most depth.   The Taste of It, John…

WHEN THE SAINTS COME DANCING IN Here’s a charming revue that sets to song and dance the words of the great poet Gertrude Stein, mistress of new language and one of the tremendous free spirits of the 20th century. If I were a critic of the heft and depth of, say, Stage and Cinema’s own…

PRO AND (EX-)CON In telling his true-life tale about being convicted of attempted murder and released following a hefty prison term, Joe Assadourian is proof that you can be a crook and still be a tremendously talented actor.   And, really, I don’t suppose anyone should be surprised at this idea.   Acting is merely the art…

RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AS SURREAL BURLESQUE Delightful wouldn’t be a word I’d expect to use when describing a Robert Wilson show. But The Old Woman, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from an absurdist story by Daniil Kharms, and performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, is just that. Whimsical, darkly funny, and disquieting throughout, Wilson’s striking spectacle…

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SEE If one were only to see Shakespeare as produced by The Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that all of the Bard’s plays take place in bucolic settings. This is due to the brilliantly inventive way that The…

HALF AND HALF Kim Wall delivers a brilliant performance as Barry, an aging municipal employee, in Alan Ayckbourn’s Arrivals and Departures, part of the Brits Off-Broadway Festival at 59E59 Theaters. Mr. Wall carries the show, and although surrounded by a fine cast, without him there’s not much to see here. Still, the first act of…

A SHOW THAT DESERVES AN EXCLAMATION POINT! Broadway’s recent bumper crop of musicals has provided spoof-meister Gerard Alessandrini a mother load to mine in the latest installment of his well-established, venomous valentines to the Great White Way, Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging! Performed by a four member cast of actor-chameleons (Carter Calvert, Mia Gentile, Marcus…

BORED TO DEATH In Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s ill-conceived two-hander musical comedy Murder for Two, lively performances and Scott Schwartz’s energetic direction are not enough to overcome a book that goes out of its way to avoid suspense and is so full of corn that I found myself squirming between yawns: After a novelist…

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DANCED Move over Evita, there’s another Queen of Hearts in town. And she likes diamonds too. I’m talking about Imelda Marcos’”she of the thousand pairs of shoes’”who is the centerpiece of a dazzling new pop operetta by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. It’s called Here Lies Love, which is what Imelda…

NOW THIS IS HOW YOU ADAPT A PLAY In 1859 Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon opened in New York City to much acclaim. The plot of this suspenseful melodrama centers on George, a young man of Southern birth but liberal education and outlook, who returns from Paris to his uncle’s plantation upon learning of the old…