1,791 stories by "ELISABETH VINCENTELLI"
Part of the fun of going to the theater is watching live performers create a different world in front of our eyes.
That's not enough for some enterprising directors, so they go the extra mil…
Anglophiles with a fetish for bookish Cambridge students politely arguing about literature and life may get a kick out of "The Common Pursuit." Others may find themselves looking at their wa…
Anyone who caught the revivals this year of "The Road to Mecca" and "Blood Knot" knows that South African playwright Athol Fugard takes his sweet time to get to the point.
Both shows were bu…
Gypsy Rose Lee, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden walk into a house . . . This sounds like the setup for either a highbrow joke or Harvey Weinstein's latest Oscar-bait movie,…
It's tempting to think of "Title and Deed" as an elaborate prank played on a helpless audience.
This new piece by Will Eno " the critically acclaimed author of "Thom Pain (based on nothing)…
The new revue "Old Jews Telling Jokes" is inspired by the Web site of the same name " which consists of a parade of elderly cut-ups delivering jokes.
But unlike the Web, which you can leave…
Never mind its provocative title: "Cock" is about love. Things get complicated as people fall in and out of it, but this wonderful 90-minute show renders the emotional mess with great simpli…
Mark Ravenhill " best known for "Shopping and F - - king," a 1998 hit at New York Theatre Workshop " is one of Britain's finest provocateurs. His 2006 play "Pool (No Water)" spares us the ra…
The Encores! production of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is like a dessert stuffed with juicy morsels. Why quibble because the cake doesn't always hold the fruity bits together?
The lushest ni…
If the New Group company's new drama, "An Early History of Fire," were by a rookie, you could blame its mediocrity on inexperience. But the author is David Rabe, the Tony-winning writer of "…
This production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" looks real good. And not just because the cast includes Christina Ricci, Bebe Neuwirth and at least two guys who can't act but ha…
Even if you haven't caught the movie it's based on, you can see everything coming a mile away in "Leap of Faith." The only surprise in this predictable, mushy new Broadway musical is how rid…
It's pointless to even try to summarize "Don't Dress for Dinner," a sex farce more tangled than a plate of spaghetti. Actually, there isn't so much a story as a pileup of contrived lies, mis…
Few people today remember journalist Joseph Alsop, but once upon a time he was a big deal.
Or so everybody in "The Columnist," a new Broadway show about him, repeats over and over. That "eve…
There's a lot of fun stuff in "Nice Work If You Can Get It," a new musical made of old parts. For starters, this Gershwin jukebox is loaded with unimpeachable classics and a few brilliant ob…
Ben may be in the throes of terminal cancer, but his wife, Rita, is determined to know what he thinks about redoing their living room.
"I'm dying," he groans.
"Yes, I know," she replies. "Tr…
Something peculiar is happening in "Ghost the Musical." It's nothing to do with the plot, which involves a dead man looking after his (living) girlfriend, and a sham psychic with a 4G connec…
If pumping up improved acting, Sylvester Stallone would have as many Oscars as Meryl Streep, and Channing Tatum would be playing Hamlet.
But sadly, bulging biceps and taut pecs aren't enough…
The new Broadway show "Clybourne Park" is about cultural stereotypes and race relations.
Wait, don't run away!
Bruce Norris' play is also razor-sharp and funny as hell.
When some characters…
Chekhov's "Three Sisters" are unhappy all the time. The two who work are miserable. The married one doesn't love her husband. All of them are sick and tired of their dreary country life, and…
The humor in the new Broadway farce "One Man, Two Guvnors" is so broad, you could drive an 18-wheeler through it " which the actors gleefully do, at 100 mph and without seat belts.
Pratfalls…
Too many shows these days are workshopped or focus-grouped to death. As a result, they're nicely crafted but comfortably safe. "In Masks Outrageous and Austere" is the exact opposite.
This T…
You can do a play about Peter Pan and his gang with top hats, wire-assisted flying and sets that dutifully evoke a 19th-century British home or a tropical island.
Or you can do it with jokes…
There's something primal about one-on-one confrontations, and David Harrower knows it. The Scottish playwright's acclaimed drama "Blackbird" pitted a middle-aged man against a woman with who…
The opening of "Massacre (Sing to Your Children)" is the single scariest minute of the year.
It would spoil the surprise to describe the scene in detail, so let's just say it involves loud m…
