Clik here to view.
For Richer or Poorer, In Shades of Gray
The third production of the Theatre for a New Audience’s (“TFANA”) first season in its new Brooklyn home, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, is the rarely produced The Killer by Eugène Ionesco as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sound Only Signifying Nothing, or, Theatre for the 1 Percent
As far back as high school, I learned that a good director sits in every section of the house to see what the audience can see and hear. She or he may then re-stage bits, scenes that are blocked from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Conjuring the World's End
I saw two movies in August, one for which I’d had a smidge of hope and one for which I had high hopes. The one for which I’d had only a smidge of hope in the first place, The Conjuring, was quite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Much Ado About Summer Shakespeare
At the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park last Friday, Jack O’Brien’s production of Much Ado About Nothing tripped the light fantastic. Nature cooperated with clear skies and a balmy evening. Only the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Words and Pictures Fail Us
The under-advertised film Words and Pictures boasts two fine actors on its poster: Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche. It looked vaguely like a love story between two not-young people, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Repertory: Twelfe Night and the Winter of Our Discontent
Shakespeare’s Globe is in town, and instead of performing one play at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University downtown as they usually do, they brought two to perform in repertory...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Evening in the Life…: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill
There’s not much time left for you to spend the evening with Billie Holiday as personified by the remarkable Audra McDonald in the tightly written play, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, by Lanie...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Cripple Is No Lieutenant
The problem with writing a remarkably and inappropriately funny play like The Lieutenant of Inishmore is the high expectations left for any Martin McDonagh play making its way west to New York City....
View ArticleClik here to view.
King Lear is a Meme This Year
So far in 2014 I have seen three live productions of King Lear: one in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan, and one broadcast live from London to Queens. My friend Horvendile has seen those plus one more. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Philip Seymour Hoffman's Last Great Film Role
A Most Wanted Man is an old-fashioned spy story with all too current stakes. Based on the John le Carré novel of the same title, the characters are weary but dogged — if we like them. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
NTLive Medea: Phase I
The National Theatre Live rebroadcast (the original live broadcast was at 2 pm NY time, and I caught the re-broadcast of the recorded live broadcast at 7 pm NY time) of MEDEA was a bit disappointing....
View ArticleClik here to view.
"It's Only a Play" Is Not
It’s Only a Play is funny. Extremely funny. And it ought to be. Some of the funniest actors in the American firmament get together and do comedy routines one after another, get a lot of laughs, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Curtain — if any — Up on A Busy Fall Theatre Season
I have been lax. I’ve seen several things, some plays, some dance programs (of a sort), some….well, here they are. You decide how to label them.Valley of Astonishment at Theatre for a New Audience...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Autumn Leads to Winter Leads Downtown.....
Last week I went downtown again. In the ‘90s and early ‘00s, come winter my colleagues and I would sojourn to South Street Seaport, meet up with some husbands and some kids and shiver as the Big Apple...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fall into Winter Performances
Brooklyn Academy of MusicThe last week of November, my friends and I traveled underground to BAM Opera House (rain, rain, rain, but that evening the MTA did its job) for a program by Philip Glass: The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Surprising TFANA Tamburlaine — Still Running Red!
Theatre for a New Audiencecontinues to use its new space at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center well. This time they’ve provided the opportunity to see Marlowe’s Tamburlaine for the first — and presumably...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Curtain — if any — Up on A Busy Fall Theatre Season
I have been lax. I’ve seen several things, some plays, some dance programs (of a sort), some….well, here they are. You decide how to label them.Valley of Astonishment at Theatre for a New Audience...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nineteenth Century American theatre on a Twenty-First Century Stage
The cast of An Octoroon is fabulous — funny, sharp, imaginative, courageous. This company is tight, it transforms its delightful costumes into normal apparel, and much of the play is very funny except...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Manhattan Project and Oppy
The other night we went down to the 14th Street Y to see a "science" play by Jack Karp called Irreversible, produced by the Red Fern Theatre Company. We left with conflicting feelings -- what a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
He Walks Again
The most exciting and discouraging aspect of a good production of a 134-year-old play is its timeliness.The Almeida Theatre and Sonia Friedman Productions company has brought HenrikIbsen’s Ghoststo...
View Article