122 stories by "David Kaufman"
As adapted for the stage by Anthony E. Palermo, it's roughly half the length of the film. But it still tells the same story about George Bailey, who on Christmas Eve in 1946 intends to take …
Philip's shaggy-dog yarn keeps exposing him as what used to be known as a pathological liar. And with little more than a wooden deck chair, a small table, a wooden slated floor and a sky-blu…
The protagonist of "Junk" is one Robert Merkin (Steven Pasquale), whose name alone is reminiscent of the real-life person he represents, Michael Robert Milken, the "Junk Bond King" of the mi…
Played to perfection with an infectious joy by one and all, the entire cast also takes a deadly serious attitude towards their lines and their actions. Indeed Ludlam's "Conquest" invokes "Ha…
The hype that surrounds an award-winning performance on one side of the Atlantic can often preclude its impact if and when it arrives on the other side. This is not the case, I'm happy to re…
With so many interruptions, it hardly makes for riveting theater, and it never becomes as riveting as a genuine tennis match can be, even though one is ostensibly taking place from the begin…
While superficially poignant, "Torch Song" remains what it always was: a fierce play about the need for respect as a gay person, when it was painfully more difficult to come by acceptance, l…
Elizabeth McGovern, Charlotte Parry and Anna Baryshnikov in a scene from J.B.Priestley’s "Time and the Conways" (Photo credit: Jeremy Daniel) David Kaufman, Critic Much to New York's b…
hough it's a one-woman show, Alison Fraser plays a number of characters by speaking in different voices with a certain technical prowess. The principal one is an upper West Side psychotherap…
As the show progresses with intermittent songs, the other musicians/singers (Ryan McCurdy, Matt Park, and Rocky Vega) also strip down to their underwear/lingerie. The sounds they all make ar…
With only a metal-mesh cage, bed-frame, and a gate--and gobs of black feathers that ultimately litter the stage--Nashman cavorts around the black box set (scenic design is by Marysia Bucholc…
The ambiguities in Mary Jane's character seem to stem more from the writing than the acting: though her behavior remains dubious or questionable, Mary Jane comes to real life as enacted by C…
The only color in the predominantly black-and-white show is orange, which appears as a pair of high heels, a hat and a cape, an apron, books, and various other odd items. There's also a larg…
Both as written by Stroppel and portrayed by Stephen D'Ambrose (Stravinsky) and Mark Shanahan (Disney), it also becomes clear that they are equally imperious--at first. Though they're both m…
In fact, Harry Feiner's marvelous, you-are-there set design for "The Violin" made me think of 'American Buffalo" (set in a shabby pawn shop) before the first words of the play were even utte…
The awkwardly titled "The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthias" has problems beyond its nomenclature. What, if anything, is it ultimately about? Though it claims to be a "satirical…
But Cohen the composer is another matter entirely--his jazz-inflected songs make "Come Light My Cigarette" a gem of a chamber musical. As more and more of the songs are revealed, time and ag…
Stephen Kaplan's "A Real Boy" is about a pair of puppets, named Peter and Mary Ann Myers, who adopt the eponymous child named Max, and it proves about as preposterous as such a premise sugge…
While the dialogue offers some stabs at humor and Opel--a first-rate comedienne of the old school--usually excels at comic timing, much of it falls flat here. Most of the 90-minute, intermis…
If you saw the original New York production of "Marvin's Room," you may find yourself feeling that the play was more effective when it was presented in the far more intimate environment of P…
In the spirit of being a critic, the play is always describing and commenting on itself, in other words, even as it unfolds--a kind of meta-theater experience that may not be to everyone's l…
Ludlam also starred in "Artificial Jungle," his last of 29 plays, which he also directed. It took its inspiration from Emile Zola's "Therese Raquin," which had already inspired James M. Cain…
The show's writer and host, Rob Berman, introduced many of the songs and, essentially, gave us the story of Lerner and Loewe's difficult, on-again, off-again partnership. Referring to them, …
While most of the audience remained stony-faced, my companion and I were laughing hysterically throughout much of "Can You Forgive Her?", a black comedy if ever there was one, by Gina Gionfr…
An import from the United Kingdom, as part of the 2017 Brits Off Broadway Festival at 59E59 Theaters, Jon Brittain's "Rotterdam" is not based on a true story relating to events in the eponym…
