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Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Review: In the Hotel in 'Zürich,' Room Service Comes With a Bang by Ben Brantley

Amelia Roper's portrait of disparate " and desperate " lives in a Swiss hotel becomes an indictment of moral blight in the 21st century.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:06PM[SHARE]

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Review: An Elephant's Ghost Stalks the World in 'Mlima's Tale' by Ben Brantley

Lynn Nottage's beautiful, reverberating portrait of a murder and its consequences follows the global path of illicitly obtained ivory.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Review: A 'Carousel' That Spins on a Romantically Charged Axis by Ben Brantley

Jack O'Brien and Justin Peck's heartfelt, half-terrific revival of an American classic stars a wonderfully ambivalent Joshua Henry and Jessie Mueller.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Monday, April 9, 2018

Review: 'This Flat Earth' Traces Childhood Fears No Parent Can Allay by Ben Brantley

Lindsey Ferrentino's ambitious but ungainly drama, at Playwrights Horizons, assesses the effect of a school shooting on one uncomprehending survivor.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:15PM[SHARE]

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Review: 'Mean Girls' Sets the Perils of Being Popular to Song by Ben Brantley

Tina Fey's adaptation of her 2004 screenplay about high school cliques comes to Broadway with wit, fetch and a surplus of songs.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Review: Head Tripping the Light Fantastic in 'Symphonie Fantastique' by Ben Brantley

The puppeteer Basil Twist's singular riff on a Berlioz symphony returns with enhanced production values and undiminished hallucinatory magic.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Monday, April 2, 2018

Review: Reliving Those Arabian Nights in 'Pay No Attention to the Girl' by Ben Brantley

Target Margin Theater's tantalizing reconception of "The Thousand and One Nights" reminds us that there have always been unreliable narrators.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 08:40PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Review: A Blistering Billie Piper Unravels Brilliantly in 'Yerma' by Ben Brantley

Simon Stone's latter-day riff on Lorca's poetic tragedy dares to go to extremes, in this portrait of a journalist trying to conceive a child.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:00PM[SHARE]

Monday, March 26, 2018

Review: Chris Evans and Michael Cera Tell Lies to Live by in 'Lobby Hero' by Ben Brantley

This astutely acted revival of Kenneth Lonergan's play presents conversation as an ongoing act of deception and betrayal.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Review: An 'Angels in America' That Soars on the Breath of Life by Ben Brantley

Marianne Elliott's London-born production of Tony Kushner's masterwork is blazingly reimagined with a cast including Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:30PM[SHARE]

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Review: Divine Decadence Revisited in 'Grand Hotel' by Ben Brantley

This sumptuous if uninvolving Encores! production invites you to wallow with the beautiful and damned in old Berlin.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:43PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Review: They Meet Again in 'Later Life.' Will Fireworks Follow? by Ben Brantley

The Keen Company's limpid revival of A.R. Gurney's 1993 play makes a case for this eloquent portrait of a man who can't change.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Monday, March 12, 2018

Review: 'The Fall' Delivers Stirring Protest in South Africa by Ben Brantley

This ensemble piece from the Baxter Theater Center of Cape Town traces the exhilaration and ache of group activism.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:07PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Review: A Boisterous 'Low Road' Finds the Potholes in Capitalism by Ben Brantley

Bruce Norris's latest play, an Colonial picaresque, reminds us that in cynical times, a swig of misanthropy can raise the spirits.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Review: Three Degrees of Loneliness in 'Amy and the Orphans' by Ben Brantley

Lindsey Ferrentino's insightful but uneven new play sends three adult siblings on a road trip to their late parents' house.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

5 Shows to See if You're in New York: 'Angels in America,' 'The Fall' and More by Ben Brantley

A grand return for Tony Kushner's "Angels," a raw reworking of "Yerma" and a South African docudrama about bringing down a statue " all this and Glenda Jackson, too!

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:00AM[SHARE]

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Review: An Afrofuturist Mr. Rogers Rules 'The Brobot Johnson Experience' by Ben Brantley

Darian Dauchan's one-android performance piece uses rap, dance and colored lights to find "the connection between species."

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:23PM[SHARE]

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Review: In 'Relevance,' a Titan of Feminism Confronts a New Generation by Ben Brantley

JC Lee's undercooked play casts the formidable Jayne Houdyshell as an eminent professor swimming in the shark pool of academia.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Review: 'Jerry Springer,' Sacred and Profane, Triumphantly Sings Again by Ben Brantley

This divinely wrought, beautifully sung New Group production finds compassion within a very relevant satire.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:23PM[SHARE]

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Glenda Jackson on Quitting Parliament, Playing Lear and Returning to Broadway by Ben Brantley

After winning two Oscars, she stopped acting for decades to fight Thatcherism. Now, at 81, she's tackling an Edward Albee classic. But she insists, "I lead a very dull life."

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:00AM[SHARE]

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Review: 'Is God Is' Reinvents the Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Ben Brantley

Aleshea Harris's sensational new play, at Soho Rep, sends twin sisters into a wild, wild West on a bloody mission of vengeance.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Friday, February 16, 2018

Review: 'Riot' and the Art of Kitsch as Protest by Ben Brantley

A rowdy Irish revue from the Dubin-based troupe Thisispopbaby asks the world to make love, not war, and dance, dance, dance.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:56AM[SHARE]

Monday, February 12, 2018

An Appraisal: Jan Maxwell Was a Star Made for the Stage by Ben Brantley

Ms. Maxwell, who has died at 61, transmitted an uncommon intelligence and love of craft found only in great theater performers.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:28PM[SHARE]

Critic's Notebook: Tennessee Williams, Restless and Revising by Ben Brantley

A Morgan Library & Museum exhibition of the playwright's letters and manuscripts showcases the hungers that drove and derailed him.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:32AM[SHARE]

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Review: 'Returning to Reims' and Those European Working-Class Blues by Ben Brantley

In this play directed by Thomas Ostermeier and starring Nina Hoss, a French philosopher ponders the move to the right in blue-collar France.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Monday, February 5, 2018

Review: A Criminally Enjoyable 'Hangmen' from Martin McDonagh by Ben Brantley

This London import shows the director and writer of "Three Billboards" still utterly at home in the (dark) shadows of the stage.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:45PM[SHARE]

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Review: 'He Brought Her Heart Back,' Adrienne Kennedy's Beautiful Nightmare by Ben Brantley

With her first play in nearly a decade, the 86-year-old playwright reminds audiences of her singular vision.

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Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Review: Michael Urie Puts the Madcap in Hamlet's Madness by Ben Brantley

Michael Kahn's production for the Shakespeare Theater Company provides Elsinore with a new arsenal that includes smartphones and surveillance cameras.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:24PM[SHARE]

Monday, January 22, 2018