Clik here to view.
Shakespeare Birthday Celebration 2015
Dear Will,A friend once admonished my grumpiness on my birthday (when I passed a certain decade figure, not to be mentioned) by saying she was glad I’d been born. Well, I’m glad you were born, Will....
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.
Hamilton Blew Me Away
I like old musicals. Old songs. The soaring melodies of Richard Rodgers, cleverness of Noel Coward, the wit and anguish of Cole Porter. I thoroughly enjoyed the outlandish humor of A Gentleman’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2 Shakespeares and an Upstart Crow
Although Something Rotten is not a Shakespeare play, it contains snippets of his verse and a potential personality type of the Bard. I consider Something Rotten and recall it with a smile. And then I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Varied Tempest
A thickly hot night at the Delacorte Theater vaguely threatened to storm all evening, with the occasional stiff breeze suddenly ceasing as thunder rumbled. Or was it thunder? A tumble of instruments...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Day and Night at the Theatre
Many years ago, I was enraptured by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby on its second visit to Broadway — while I did not see the late great Roger...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cymbeline, or, Imogen and the False Reports: Summer in Central Park
Cymbeline is a late play by William Shakespeare, meaning he’d done with the histories, the straight comedies and romances, and was ready for riskier works to be produced indoors in more intimate venues...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On the Birth of the Bard
Last year I wrote a reasonably well-prepared post about William Shakespeare and his plays in celebration of his birthday on this very blog. Alas, this year, well, I’ve been a bit lax in gathering data...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Many Faces of Lear
That King Lear is a great play is evidenced in how many ways it can be played and still work to bring out its audience’s fears, fury, loathings, loves, sorrows, and laughs.Laurence Olivier brought a...
View ArticleClik 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.
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.
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 Article