All stories by Alexander C. Kafka on BroadwayStars

Monday, December 21, 2020

Review: “Intimo” – Moody, Masterful Flamenco From GALA Hispanic Theatre by Alexander C. Kafka

An old-fashioned black-draped dressing mirror is the only prop in the moody, elemental, but by no means elementary “Fuego Flamenco XVI: Intimo,” presented by GALA Hispanic Theatre. The m…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:03PM
Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Dance Review: Alvin Ailey’s old and new revelations by Alexander C. Kafka

Technically, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s evening at the Kennedy Center Opera House Tuesday was a performance. But following a pre-concert gala, with an audience in sparkling gowns…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:03PM
Thursday, January 30, 2020

Dance review: The National Ballet of Canada Offers a Contemporary Choreographic Bouquet by Alexander C. Kafka

The National Ballet of Canada presented an exotic bouquet of contemporary choreography Tuesday by William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, and Alexei Ratmansky. The works, all but one performed to mus…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:36AM
Thursday, January 23, 2020

Review: Bourne’s New Adventures: ‘Swan Lake’ still shocks with its transgressive beauty by Alexander C. Kafka

It seems like just yesterday that Matthew Bourne’s groundbreaking reinterpretation of a classic triggered gents to walk out at the sight of two men partnered and young girls to cry when co…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:33PM
Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Review of Cats movie. When it comes to magic, starry cast can’t compete with ballerina Francesca Hayward by Alexander C. Kafka

A brilliant musical can only be cheapened by a surfeit of screen effects and novelty casting. But Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats is a mediocre musical, brilliantly packaged, and it benefits ni…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:24PM
Friday, December 13, 2019

Review: Come From Away at the Kennedy Center. Much needed catharsis by Alexander C. Kafka

The husband and wife team Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s sole theater credit a decade ago was a Toronto Fringe Festival breakout called My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding. Before …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:54PM
Thursday, December 5, 2019

Review: The Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays. An uneven but fun night at The National by Alexander C. Kafka

Alakazam! See a middle-aged man regress to a bug-eyed, slack-jawed 10-year-old while watching eight magicians! So it was Tuesday night as the Illusionists brought their latest production to …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:06AM
Friday, November 15, 2019

Dance review: Mark Morris’s Beatles tribute ‘Pepperland’ lacks an emotional core by Alexander C. Kafka

The deconstruction of a cultural touchstone by an acclaimed choreographer is an appealing notion, all the more so to live music. But although it was superbly performed Wednesday night, Mark …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:33AM
Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Review: Amadeus soars at Folger Theatre by Alexander C. Kafka

There were, at various points, half a dozen versions of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus floating around. The playwright was trying to square the circle and make his metaphorical work about the tra…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:03PM
Thursday, November 7, 2019

Review: Dhana and the Rosebuds, an intriguing but unsuccessful drama on the plight of Syrian refugees by Alexander C. Kafka

In theory, Dhana and the Rosebuds, a theater-dance hybrid about a Syrian emigree seeking her refugee grandmother, should be compelling. It is topical. Its wedding of abstract and ritualized …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:03PM
Thursday, October 10, 2019

Review: Escape to Margaritaville, a predictable buffet of Buffett, amiable and ambling by Alexander C. Kafka

How shocked must Jimmy Buffett have been when “Margaritaville,” his ode to heartbreak and mid-grade alcoholism, became not just a breakout 1977 hit but a potent lifestyle brand? It’s a…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:24PM
Friday, October 4, 2019

Review: Merce Cunningham at 100. The choreographer’s pioneering spirit lives on by Alexander C. Kafka

Eleven dancers in white unitards with horizontal black strips at the top extending to gloved hands. In a dawn of pastel light, they hold a marvelous stillness. Four musicians play a minimali…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:12PM
Saturday, September 21, 2019

Review: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, the Cronut of musicals, still works its spell by Alexander C. Kafka

Recent research has shown that humans’ domestication of dogs has altered canines’ brains. I have a theory — it has not yet been borne out by science, but I am confident that it will be…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:12AM
Friday, June 21, 2019

Review: Superb ‘Prufrock’ is among Chamber Dance Project premieres by Alexander C. Kafka

The irresistible paradox of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is its gritty transcendence. It is grounded but out of body, a free-floating passage through a quotidian …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:48PM
Thursday, June 20, 2019

Review: Ripcord, a disappointing odd couple comedy by David Lindsay-Abaire by Alexander C. Kafka

In David Lindsay-Abaire’s Ripcord, there are two odd couples. The first are roommates Abby and Marilyn at the Bristol Place Senior Living Facility. The second are the farce and melodrama c…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:24PM
Friday, June 14, 2019

Review: Southern stereotypes get tested in Byhalia, Mississippi by Alexander C. Kafka

For the South of Evan Linder’s play Byhalia, Mississippi, both the American flag and the Confederate one should be replaced by one reading “Bless This Mess.” It’s racist, classist, m…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:32PM
Monday, June 10, 2019

Review: A rousing silver anniversary for Step Afrika! by Alexander C. Kafka

A quarter-century ago, C. Brian Williams, who’d honed his step-dancing skills as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha at Howard University, was visiting South Africa at the dawn of the Nelson Mande…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:18PM
Thursday, March 28, 2019

Review: ‘A Bronx Tale’ Well Told at the National by Alexander C. Kafka

“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent,” Lorenzo the bus driver tells his son, Calogero, in A Bronx Tale. There’s no wasted talent in the rock-solid touring production of the musi…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:47AM
Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Review: Vanity Fair. Thackeray’s novel gets a giddy, superficial stage adaptation by Alexander C. Kafka

“Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place,” writes the Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, “full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.” The ti…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:02PM
Saturday, February 23, 2019

Testosterone-fueled Dein Perry’s Tap Dogs Bring Steel-tipped Beats from Down Under by Alexander C. Kafka

The 1990s were a percussive decade. New York brought in ’da Noise and ’da Funk and Stomped even as the Blue Men thrumbed their melodic PVC tubes. Meanwhile, in Australia, steel fitter tu…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:48PM
Friday, February 1, 2019

Ain’t Misbehavin’ review, a high-wattage Fats Waller power surge at Signature Theatre by Alexander C. Kafka

If you’ve got a case of the polar-vortex blues, Signature Theatre has the prescription for you: a two-hour extended-release burst of high-wattage, endorphin-pumping rhythm, courtesy of one…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:54PM
Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Review: The Screwtape Letters. a handsome harangue by Alexander C. Kafka

The Screwtape Letters, in a touring revival at the Lansburgh Theatre, is a polished, imaginative rendering of a tedious, self-righteous play. The acting and production values in this polishe…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:32PM
Thursday, January 17, 2019

Matthew Bourne’s ‘Cinderella’: A masterful reimagining by Alexander C. Kafka

Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella, at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House through Sunday, is brilliantly imagined and executed. Forget your Disney conceptions, or even the Rostislav Zakharov or F…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:06PM
Monday, December 17, 2018

Review: Miss Saigon. A haunting production at the Kennedy Center by Alexander C. Kafka

The Vietnam War ended 45 years ago, and Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s Miss Saigon debuted almost 30 years ago, but the musical, in a riveting touring production at the Kenned…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:24PM
Thursday, December 6, 2018

Review: Ballet West’s ‘Nutcracker’ is sweet, sly, and sumptuous by Alexander C. Kafka

What’s more seasonally entertaining than the country’s oldest continuing production of The Nutcracker? Sprucing it up with new finery that enhances the company’s fabulous performances.…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:42PM
Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Review: Billy Elliot at Signature Theatre by Alexander C. Kafka

A country divided, tensions running high. That was Tuesday evening in America on midterm election night. It was also mid-1980s England in Signature Theatre’s production of Billy Elliot. Wo…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:42PM
Friday, November 2, 2018

Anastasia: highly entertaining historical hooey by Alexander C. Kafka

Pour Disney princess movies, Nicholas and Alexandra, Dr. Zhivago, Annie, My Fair Lady, and An American in Paris in a mixer, hit blend, and you’ll end up with Anastasia, a historically and …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:12PM
Thursday, October 25, 2018

Bracing new works from San Francisco Ballet’s Unbound Festival by Alexander C. Kafka

A meditation on the arc of a lifetime. A message piece about soul-eroding communication technology. A frenetic exploration of Jung’s notion of male and female psychic elements. Such was th…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:24PM
Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Review: Viva V.E.R.D.I – an otherworldly convergence of Verdi and Shakespeare by Alexander C. Kafka

Giuseppe Verdi revered Shakespeare and wrote a Macbeth, an Otello, and a Falstaff. He longed to write a King Lear as well and even worked with two librettists toward that goal. But although …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:32PM
Monday, September 10, 2018

Review: South Pacific, enchanting and relevant by Alexander C. Kafka

Was ever a message musical wrapped in such a luxurious bounty of romance? Those love songs! Seventy years later, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific still floors us with its lyricism.�…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:24PM
Friday, August 24, 2018

Review: Shakespeare Theatre’s Romeo & Juliet boldly conceived, superbly performed by Alexander C. Kafka

“These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder / Which, as they kiss, consume.” Friar Lawrence’s words ring pulse-quickeningly true in Shake…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:48AM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards