Saturday, 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 03:17AMThursday, May 31, 2012
Scott Wittman's bio-musical of Andy Warhol star Jackie Curtis, starring Mx. Justin Vivian Bond at La MaMa, errs by sanitizing Curtis' provocative style.
SOURCE: Backstage at 11:17AMTuesday, May 1, 2012
Bedlam’s minimalist “Saint Joan,” at Access Theater, performed by a brilliant four-person cast, mines new life from Shaw’s underproduced classic.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:30AMMonday, April 23, 2012
Polish theater company TR Warszawa’s adaptation of the Danish film “Festen,” at St. Ann’s Warehouse, is too cold and calculating, blunting its impact.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMSaturday, April 14, 2012
At La MaMa, Poor Baby Bree, a comic waif with a nose for Tin Pan Alley's dustbin, makes vaudeville strange, bizarre, and captivating all over again.
SOURCE: Backstage at 10:00AMSunday, April 8, 2012
Dixon Place's "Lunatic Cunning," by the multitalented James Godwin, is for adults who want to regain puppetry's illusionary wonder without being patronized.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:03AMTuesday, March 13, 2012
In "All Hands" at Incubator Arts Project, Hoi Polloi's first-rate ensemble explores the notion of community in a smart and refreshingly theatrical evening.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:27AMThursday, March 8, 2012
La MaMa’s revival of the Talking Band’s 1983 “Hot Lunch Apostles” still has resonance yet feels like a nostalgic gasp from the past.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMTuesday, March 6, 2012
Company East's "Buddha" at La MaMa is crippled by the shapelessness of creator Kenji Kawarasaki's images, resulting in an evening neither affecting nor fun.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:31AMWednesday, February 29, 2012
Mark Snyder's emotionally overwrought "As Wide as I Can See," produced by At Hand Theatre Company at Here Arts Center, is overstuffed and immature.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:30AMWednesday, February 22, 2012
New York City Players' Richard Maxwell's take on Eugene O'Neill, in collaboration with the Wooster Group at St. Ann's Warehouse, lacks a beating heart.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMSunday, February 12, 2012
Just the right measure of quirk and psychodrama, buoyed by a smart and sharp production, makes Erin Courtney's new play the best 13P offering in years.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:12AMSunday, January 22, 2012
This revival of SITI Company's piece about Robert Wilson is tiramisu for avant-gardists, a communion between the celebrated director and Will Bond, one of the smartest, most disciplined ac…
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:36AMTuesday, January 17, 2012
Temporary Distortion's new film-theater piece about the private life of cops is strongest when it lets its stories speak for themselves and weakest when it dips into sentimentality.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMSunday, January 15, 2012
Young Jean Lee gives New York audiences the feminism they deserve: conflicted, unprocessed, at times ironic, at times sincere, always provocative. Feminism, she reminds us, is never a simp…
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:59AMFriday, January 6, 2012
This haunting collaboration between Croatian performance artists and former members of Goat Island is a first-rate love song to what we can't touch—in each other, in our art, and in …
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:44AMTuesday, December 6, 2011
Though drag royal Lady Bunny's sense of humor is as sharp and as vicious as ever, her one-woman show lacks the dynamism and original material to sustain a full evening.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMSunday, November 20, 2011
In this new play, a disjointed multimedia ghost story, writer-director Bryan Santiago's ambition exceeds his craft, resulting in a promising but baffling exercise in inarticulate creepines…
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:36AMSunday, November 13, 2011
The Foundry Theatre's new production feels like an unusual group therapy session that though at times forced and treacly manages to be quite powerful in spite of itself.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:18AMSaturday, November 5, 2011
Julia Jarcho's new play suffers under her affectless directing style, but a first-rate ensemble brings life to the otherwise chilly proceedings, resulting in an unfulfilling but still occ…
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:30AMThursday, November 3, 2011
Despite a provocative premise and a first-rate cast, this new musical's clichéd story and forgettable music keep the memory of the Moulin Rouge at an unfortunate distance.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMFriday, September 30, 2011
"Cyclops," a concert adaptation of a little-known Euripides play, rocks and rolls and in the tradition of the best rock operas, but, lacking motivation, it never fully ignites.
SOURCE: Backstage at 09:00AMSunday, September 18, 2011
This true-life ghost story of a lost modernist heroine is a set piece for the aged but fiery Ruth Maleczech, whose performance is not to be missed.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:00AMTuesday, September 13, 2011
Susana Cook's new play is a nonsensical, childish mess that tries to be a critique of right-wing Christianity but only manages to bore and exasperate.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:43AMSunday, September 11, 2011
This provocative interactive theater event walks a fine line between utopian sincerity and liberal critique as it makes audiences audition for a place in a supposed democratic utopia.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:30AMFriday, July 22, 2011
Director Amon Miyamoto adapts a Kafkaesque Japanese psychodrama for his newest production, serving up an occasionally earnest but terribly beautiful, epic, and unsettling theatrical feast.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:18AMFriday, July 8, 2011
The Assembly's ensemble-devised work is a familiar celebration of 1970s activism, but for an occasionally inspiring visit to an important moment in liberal history, this production is toug…
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:40AMWednesday, July 6, 2011
Yael Farber's South African version of "The Oresteia" is visually and musically thrilling, but her take on the Greek myth dilutes the story's dramatic power and political heft.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMThursday, June 30, 2011
Václav Havel's porcine parable, a combination media circus, rural operetta, and political critique, may be one of the more playfully rewarding offerings of New York's summer season.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:19AMSunday, June 26, 2011
Baba Brinkman's playful and imaginative romp through Darwin and modern culture is a great idea delightfully staged, but its mishmash of themes and arguments overwhelms as much as it clarif…
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMSaturday, June 4, 2011
Holly Hughes is as eloquent and sophisticated as ever as she traces the contradictions among her life, her passions, and her puppies in a poignant and endearing new solo show.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:43AM 
