Monday, May 25, 2015
The always genre-defying Laurie Anderson's new music-theater piece is as full of craft as of magic, resulting in an enchanting journey to the limits of the imagination.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMGregory S. Moss' carefully crafted new play is, like its hard-hearted heroine, a little too lacking in warmth.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMThough too tame and uneven to rank among the late Pina Bausch's best work, the American premiere of "Vollmond (Full Moon)" honors the memory of a dance legend.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMIn his curious form of journalism theater, Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright can't quite hold the stage himself, but his story demands to be heard.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMSITI's double bill is a creepy tour-de-force, but "War of the Worlds" is the real gem of this revival.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMIt's a strange time to see a funny play about homophobic bullying, but "MilkMilkLemonade" is smart enough to earn its sometimes vulgar comedy.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMJudith Malina retells the story of Moses' wanderings in the desert from the dissidents' point of view, with compelling, if typically utopian, results.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMTaylor Mac and the Talking Band's new play about failure feels as if it gives up way too easily.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMPlaywright Chuck Mee and the companies Witness Relocation and Ildi ! Eldi combine to offer a refreshing anecdote to apocalypticism: So what if the world's over? Let's dance.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMTarget Margin's newest devised play captures the frustrations of learning a new language in a new culture, but it feels more like a series of exercises than a theatrical event.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMThe Rude Mechanicals theater company turns ensemble theater into a metaphor for life in this intelligent, funny, and moving new work about an acting guru and her students.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMFriday, May 1, 2015
The Visit feels like a Grimm fairy tale conspicuously missing a moral.
The post Review: <em>The Visit</em> appeared first on Slant Magazine.
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 01:39PMWednesday, November 19, 2014
Where Side Show shines most brightly is in Emily Padgett and Erin Davie’s performances.
The post Review: <em>Side Show</em> at the St. James Theatre appeared first on Slant Mag…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 10:23AMTuesday, November 18, 2014
South Korean-born playwright Young Jean Lee both does and doesn’t traffic in subtlety.
The post Review: <em>Straight White Men</em> at the Public Theater appeared first on Slan…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 06:25PMWednesday, October 15, 2014
One way to recognize first-rate playwrights is to seek moments of surprising inspiration in their more unambitious plays.
The post Review: <em>It’s Only a Play</em> at the Gera…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 08:32AMTuesday, October 14, 2014
generations offers a richer experience than its half–hour runtime would suggest.
The post Review: <em>generations</em> at Soho Rep appeared first on Slant Magazine.
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 09:53AMFriday, June 6, 2014
The Killer is an everyman play written to resemble a political parable.
The post Review: <em>The Killer</em> at Polonsky Shakespeare Center appeared first on Slant Magazine.
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 08:22PMThursday, June 5, 2014
The production makes the experience of entering and exiting the theater more exciting than watching the play itself.
The post Review: <em>Macbeth</em> at the Park Avenue Armory a…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 06:34PMSunday, April 6, 2014
If/Then has all the emotional subtlety of a Nicholas Sparks novel.
The post Review: <em>If/Then</em> at the Richard Rodgers Theatre appeared first on Slant Magazine.
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 12:38PMWednesday, February 19, 2014
Caryl Churchill makes lyrical irony out of our inability to make sense of our universe, even as we haplessly and relentlessly keep trying.
The post Review: Caryl Churchill’s <em>Love…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 04:10PMMonday, December 16, 2013
Robert Wilson’s aesthetic is at home in the colossal Park Avenue Armory.
The post Review: <em>The Life and Death of Marina Abramović</em> appeared first on Slant Magazine.
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 01:10PMThursday, October 17, 2013
Zachary Quinto brings a sulking but simmering aggression to Tom, played as a man who knows who he isn’t, but not who he is.
The post Review: <em>The Glass Menagerie</em> at the…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 09:51AMTuesday, October 8, 2013
Much like the character of Edward Bloom, Big Fish tries too hard to convince us that it’s special.
The post A Charming Imperfection: <em>Big Fish</em> at the Neil Simon Theatre…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 09:56AMMonday, September 9, 2013
The Machine, in short, is an anti-capitalist tragedy that spends half its time looking like a sci-fi melodrama and the other half like a biopic.
The post Anti-Capitalist Tragedy: Matt Charma…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 04:40PMMonday, May 20, 2013
This Shadows is exhilarating and deeply playful, a lively dance between art and reality.
The post Storybook Characters: John Cassavetes’s <em>Shadows</em> at Jack appeared firs…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 01:43PMFriday, May 10, 2013
Lucas Hnath’s indictment of Disney is both clever and total.
The post Melodrama for the Anti-Capitalist Crowd: <em>A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Wal…
SOURCE: Slant Magazine at 11:51AMMonday, July 9, 2012
Lincoln Center Festival's "DruidMurphy," a collection of three plays by Irish literary legend Tom Murphy, directed by Garry Hynes, marks his American debut.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:12AMSaturday, June 16, 2012
Despite a wealth of downtown talent, “The Etiquette of Death” is a disorganized and lackluster attempt to find joy and artfulness in the experience of dying.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMThursday, June 14, 2012
"Space//Space," the latest mind-bender from Banana Bag & Bodice, at the Collapsable Hole, sends gender politics over the moon.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMSunday, June 10, 2012
"Symphony of Shadows," the newest work from Rachel Klein's macabre imagination, at Dixon Place, is sumptuously presented and precisely executed but thin.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:55AMSaturday, June 9, 2012
"Cowboy Mouth," Sam Shepard and Patti Smith's 1971 rock-'n'-roll breakup drama, gets a smartly directed and meticulously designed site-specific production.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:17AM 
