All stories by Ben Brantley on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

An Evening of Song, Dance and the Devil in a Barroom by Ben Brantley

“The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart,” at the McKittrick Hotel, is a rambunctious yarn imported from Scotland.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:36PM
Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Review: ‘Rancho Viejo,’ Where Banality and Trouble Cohabitate by Ben Brantley

Dan LeFranc’s sweet and scary, lackadaisical and hypnotic play centers on a pending divorce and baby-boomer couples with a lot of time on their hands.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:42PM

The Best Theater of 2016 by Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood

Selections by Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:54AM
Monday, December 5, 2016

Review: For ‘The Wolves,’ the Goal Is to Win and to Be Heard by Ben Brantley

In this play, ideas and emotions jostle for position as a soccer team of teenage girls chatter and loosen up before playing.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:36PM

Review: Waiting to Connect in Levittown in ‘The Babylon Line’ by Ben Brantley

Writers-in-training swap tales in Richard Greenberg’s unresolved new comedy.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:36PM
Thursday, December 1, 2016

5 Must-See Shows if You’re in New York This Month by Ben Brantley

A dark comedy about a girls’ soccer team, a trilogy of plays in the year in the life of a family, a crash course on Manhattan and a bit of hedonism is on tap.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:02PM
Thursday, November 24, 2016

Gifts for the Discerning Theater Fan by Ben Brantley and Scott Heller

Simon McBurney’s hypnotic one-man show or Cate Blanchett’s daredevil acting? There are also cast albums like “Bright Star” and “A New Brain.”

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:02PM
Monday, November 21, 2016

Review: ‘This Day Forward,’ a Weird Wedding Night and What Comes After by Ben Brantley

At the Vineyard Theater, Nicky Silver shows a pair of newlyweds, their damaged gay son almost a half-century later and growing empathy for mothers.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:18PM
Sunday, November 20, 2016

Review: A Thoroughly Modern ‘Sweet Charity’ Who Abandons Hope by Ben Brantley

Sutton Foster’s Charity is vaguely aware that becoming a doormat for men was a bad career choice in this revival at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:24PM

Critic’s Notebook: ‘Hamilton’ Duel: Addressing the President-Elect on His Own Blunt Terms by Ben Brantley

In delivering his plea to Mike Pence after the show, the Broadway actor Brandon Victor Dixon was also speaking to Donald J. Trump, meeting directness with directness.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:18PM
Thursday, November 17, 2016

Review: ‘Dead Poets Society,’ Starring Jason Sudeikis as the Idealistic Teacher by Ben Brantley

Stripped of its cinematic distractions, this Off Broadway adaptation directed by John Doyle comes across as blunt and bland.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:32PM
Sunday, November 13, 2016

Review: Daniel Kitson’s ‘Mouse’ Tells Its Tales Over a Speakerphone by Ben Brantley

This one-man show revolves around a man who has apparently simply dialed a wrong number and then stays on the line to talk. And talk.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:18PM

Review: ‘The Death of the Last Black Man,’ a Nightmare Hypnotically Retold by Ben Brantley

Suzan-Lori Parks’s phantasmagorical theater piece is a sepulchral parade of images that have distorted and swallowed up the history of African-Americans.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:18PM
Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Suzan-Lori Parks, Defying Genres by Ben Brantley

An early work by Ms. Parks, “The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, a.k.a. The Negro Book of the Dead,” opens Signature’s season.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:36PM

Review: Election Night With the Gabriels, a Play in Real Time by Ben Brantley

Richard Nelson’s “Women of a Certain Age,” Part 3 of a cycle, at the Public Theater, focuses on a family gathering on the night of voting, and what comes next.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:36PM
Sunday, November 6, 2016

Review: ‘Finian’s Rainbow’ and the Perils of a Pot of Gold by Ben Brantley

Melissa Errico stars in an adaptation of this midcentury musical that includes elements of thievery, racism and whimsy.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:06PM
Friday, November 4, 2016

Review: Shakespeare’s Take on the Game of Thrones by Ben Brantley

In “Kings of War,” the director Ivo van Hove adapts five history plays into a conflagration of corruption, factionalism and political viciousness.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:02PM
Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Review: Anna Deavere Smith’s ‘Notes From the Field’ Delivers Voices of Despair and Hope by Ben Brantley

Anna Deavere Smith’s new performance piece explores the cursed intersection of two American institutions, the school and the prison, in a racially divided nation.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:42PM
Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Review: ‘Attorney Street,’ a Gothic Elegy for a Fleeing Here and Now by Ben Brantley

Edgar Oliver’s performance piece delves into life’s evanescence, from the father he never knew to a cracked curb on the Lower East Side.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 08:18PM
Sunday, October 30, 2016

Review: ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ Uses Love as a Weapon by Ben Brantley

Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber star in this adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s 1782 novel full of duplicity and score settling.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:48PM
Friday, October 28, 2016

Review: What Would Sophocles Do? Pucker Up, Perhaps by Ben Brantley

Both plays in “Two Class Acts” by A.R. Gurney look at how Hellenic-studies students and instructors explore the effect of changing times on tradition.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:18PM
Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Review: In ‘Duat,’ the Here and Now and the Hereafter by Ben Brantley

Eternity is downright cozy in Daniel Alexander Jones’s hearts-and-flowers-themed exploration of life and what lies beyond in this Soho Rep production.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:30PM

Review: Jake Gyllenhaal Shines in a Joyous ‘Sunday in the Park With George’ by Ben Brantley

In this gala performance, Mr. Gyllenhaal plays the French painter Georges Seurat at work. It’s another musical night to remember at City Center.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:25PM
Monday, October 24, 2016

Review: In David Hare’s ‘Plenty,’ Time Takes the Edge Off a Femme Fatale by Ben Brantley

Rachel Weisz plays Susan Traherne, the radioactively unhappy center of this play, revived by David Leveaux at the Public Theater 34 years after opening there.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:25AM
Friday, October 21, 2016

Review: ‘The Front Page’ Is Diverting, but Don’t Stop the Presses by Ben Brantley

Nathan Lane and a deep cast star in this revival of a 1928 stage classic about journalism, now at the Broadhurst Theater.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:50AM
Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Review: In ‘Love, Love, Love,’ All You Need Is Selfishness. by Ben Brantley

A pair of soul mates obliviously advance from the ages of 19 to 64 in Mike Bartlett’s play, set in London.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:32PM
Sunday, October 16, 2016

Review: All’s Not Well in This ‘Cherry Orchard’ by Ben Brantley

Diane Lane stars in this terminally confused production of Chekhov’s play, about a woman who faces a changing reality when she returns to her childhood home.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:46PM
Thursday, October 13, 2016

Review: ‘Heisenberg’ Features an Explosive Pairing of Actors by Ben Brantley

The play, making its transfer to Broadway with Mary-Louise Parker and Denis Arndt, finds a potentially psychotic American woman meeting a British butcher.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:42PM
Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Mikhail Baryshnikov Prepares to Portray, What Else, a Dancer by Ben Brantley

“Letters to a Man” looks at Vaslav Nijinsky in a performance piece from Robert Wilson.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:27PM
Monday, October 10, 2016

Review: ‘Oh, Hello on Broadway’ Stars an Even Odder Couple by Ben Brantley

This stupendously entertaining play centers on the comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, who have created geriatric alter egos as roommates.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:55PM
Sunday, October 9, 2016

Review: ‘Miles for Mary,’ a Sendup of the Interminable Meeting From Hell by Ben Brantley

This play from the Mad Ones company would send you bolting for the exit, screaming, if it weren’t so funny and unexpectedly touching.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:39PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic