THE EFFECT OF GREAT THEATER In Lucy Prebble’s captivating two-act, The Effect, crisply directed by David Cromer, 20-somethings Connie (Susannah Flood) and Tristan (Carter Hudson) meet as t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:36PMALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam’s remarkable new play The Humans begins with Erik Blake (the excellent Reed Birney) standing on the upper level of a shabby, half-dark basement/ground-floor ten…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:33PMLET’S GET PHYSICS ALL For parents who recall Professor Julius Sumner Miller’s television programs with nostalgia, who wish the Science Channel had more science shows, and for whom qu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:07PMPHONY PONY TALE There exists a type of small theater production in which a lack of resources—material ones and, sometimes, those less tangible—is made up for by the show’s intimacy an…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:07PMBURIED BETWEEN THE LINES In Scott Elliott’s surefooted staging of Sam Shepard’s imperfect Buried Child, watching Ed Harris sitting on a raggedy couch under an old blanket in front of a l…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:36AMHE AND SHE AND ME The performers’ abundant charm can’t overcome the script’s shortcoming in I and You, Lauren Gunderson’s tedious comedic drama about two high schoolers attempting a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:10PMA MAIL-ORDER BRIDE I guess it’s my own fault, but when I read about The Golden Bride, a Yiddish operetta from 1923 that was lost in the 40s, found in the 80s, and is now enjoying its firs…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:58PMOUR CHRISTMAS TOWN Under Dan Wackerman’s superb direction, Peccadillo Theater Company’s A Wilder Christmas, comprised of two Thornton Wilder one-acts—The Long Christmas Dinner and Pull…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:05AMOUR ANIMAL FELLOWS The always energized and entertaining Bedlam theater company opens their current season with New York Animals, Steven Sater’s musical play about New York City life in th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:26PMNEITHER NORA Nora, Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, centers on its titular character, a beautiful young wife and mother, whose cozy life at her husband’s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:37PMLOVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA Daphne Rubin-Vega delivers a riveting performance in Empanada Loca, a sinewy one-woman show written and directed by Aaron Mark. Inspired by the legend of Sweeney To…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:14PMA CERTAIN FUTURITY César Alvarez’s fascinating musical Futurity begins with Mr. Alvarez and Sammy Tunis taking the stage as themselves, greeting the audience, engaging in improvised ban…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:10PMANTIGONE AND JULIETTE In Anne Carson’s crisp new translation of Sophkles’ Antigone, the great Juliette Binoche embodies the title character, a young woman who breaks the law under penalt…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PMHAM IN BED At the beginning of Hamlet in Bed, when its author and co-star Michael Laurence comes up to the standup microphone at the front of the stage, I can’t help wanting him to succee…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PMON GOLDEN PONDLING In her perfect little one-woman show Pondling, Genevieve Hulme-Beaman is captivating as Madeleine, a little girl who lives with her older brother on her grandfather’s fa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PMTHROWN BY A LOOP I’m not partial to dramas set in prisons; these tend to be ugly, depressing, violent and hopeless, or worse—sentimental, and I find myself reluctant to be transported t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:01AMALTRUISM OR ARTISTRY? Margaret’s Safe Place, “a boarding facility that houses the most vulnerable students of The Kibera School for Girls” in Kenya, sheltering girls from domestic sexu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:38PMMÉNAGE À TWADDLE At the conclusion of Yussef El Guindi’s new play Threesome it isn’t unreasonable to ask oneself the following question: What does the semi-comic attempt of three young…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:16AMTOOTHLESS RUTHLESS Though useful as a showcase for the capable performers and boasting some excellent singing, Joel Paley’s revival of his gray farce Ruthless!, a self-referential spoof o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:32PMSHADOW (OF A) PLAY Visually striking and radiating love and sincerity, Manual Cinema’s shadow-puppet show Ada/Ava, which attempts to explore septuagenarian Ada’s inner turmoil after th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:01PMTHEIR PERFECT MINDS Written by director Kathryn Hunter and performers Paul Hunter and Edward Petherbridge, My Perfect Mind begins with Dr. Witznagel (Mr. Hunter) coming out onto Michel Vale�…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:50PMGREAT DEPICTION OF WAR, BUT WHAT FOR? Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait, written and directed by Daniel Talbott, begins in near darkness with a Serbian Woman (Jelena Stupljanin) in a de…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:10PMHOW SWEET THIS SOUND The standout theater company Elevator Repair Service (ERS), much acclaimed for their six-hour-plus show Gatz, among others, brings the first part of William Faulkner’s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:20PMEVERYTHING OLD COUNTRY FEELS NEW AGAIN In Mark Roberts’ delightful and moving play New Country, skillfully directed by David Harwell, 25-year-old country music star Justin is up to his usu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:34AMTHE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING In Lucia Cox’s play One Hand Clapping, which she adapts from the 1961 Anthony Burgess novel and brings as director to 59E59 Theaters as part of their Brits O…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:55PMALBANIAN/AMERICAN STORYTELLING As my Albanian friend put it: “The legend of Doruntine is the very core around which the Albanians’ national code of morals is organized (say those who bel…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:24PMFIRST CLASS Directed by Cosmin Chivu, the staged reading of Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s play Our Class at the Skirball Center is everything one would expect from such an enterprise when put to…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:34AMPUTA TO THE TEST Inspired by the Ancient Greek drama surrounding Hippolytus, and set in a present-day South Bronx bodega, Desi Moreno-Penson’s new play Comida De Puta attempts to combine N…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:51AMOK KILLS In Tom Diriwachter’s Great Kills, Tim, an overeducated 40-year-old loser who still lives in his father’s house on State Island, invites his successful childhood friend Robert ov…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:40AMLIVING ROOM THEATER Not long ago a frequent theater companion commented to me about a production we had just seen: “So many of these shows, if (the performers) had put them on at home for …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:31AMJUDGMENT ON A GRAY BEACH PROCESS Elia K. Schneider stages an engaging spectacle with her Judgment on a Gray Beach, Your Process Has Begun, a dialogue-free experimental piece that imagines th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:37AM
