500 stories by "Jacob Malizio"
Ragtime settles into a richer and more internal mode quickly, in a large part due to the textured performances of its leads and the thought they've applied to Ahrens and Flaherty's score.
Th…
The original Broadway production in 1998 featured career-changing performances from Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald and Marin Mazzie. Now, in 2025, you feel every bit as fortunate to b…
While deBessonet could have better provided a certain focus or point of view " Ragtime's telling of America's immigrant tale is, at this point in history, ripe for the picking " she certainl…
Henry has been at the forefront of Broadway leading men for 15 years, but this show is his triumph. He takes one of the most demanding roles in the Broadway canon and he does it full justice…
One year ago, seated at City Center, I cried at both numbers and left the theater deeply shaken. If that same power hasn't quite held, it is perhaps no fault of a broadly first-rate producti…
As Jacob tears through Nottingham in a whirlwind of drugs, girls, and bar fights, he makes a fatal mistake that lands him in prison. But as he struggles to accept the consequences of his act…
"Punch" comes up short in capturing the exchange between the victim's family and the perpetrator because it always leans on Jacob's perspective, down to an ending that shows him happily movi…
James Graham's play Punch, as directed by Adam Penford, is a very, very British work: it's sturdily acted, choreo-directed within an inch of its life and shot through with a sense of communi…
It leads to a luminous climax, arguably the most beautifully written single scene of the year. Jacob, Joan, David, and moderator Nicola (Camila Canó-Flaviá) sit in a simple half-circle…
It's quite a story, though not necessarily the kind that makes for the most astonishing theater. That's not to denigrate Punch, which is solidly built and well-meaning without sanctimony. Gr…
Despite the inherent drama and sadness of the entire situation, Punch too often feels like a PSA for the restorative justice procedure, with lots of exposition and step-by-step procedural in…
To criticize a play that tells this story of transformation is to be a grump. But good intentions aren't enough to make a good play. The suspense leading up to the first meeting between the …
Bold and deeply human, Punch is initially a bit slow on the wind up, but its stellar cast help weave together an almost unbelievable story of compassion and empathy in its second act that le…
But while story itself is inspiring, some central emotional focus seems missing from the way it unfolds in Punch, which winds up feeling less like a full-blown play and more like a digressiv…
James Graham's Punch, just brought to New York from England's Nottingham (approx. 127 miles northwest of London) and London's fringe, plunges more deeply into emotional areas"almost Biblical…
Celebrated actors Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are real-life friends who are starring on Broadway as two friends searching for meaning in an absurd world. Waiting for Godot is the greatest p…
What's curious in "Waiting for Godot" is that the textual distillation we have come to expect from Lloyd is largely missing. So is his interpretive stamp. For the most part here, he doesn't …
Their finely tuned performances are unshowy and completely in service of the production. They're neither vaudevillians clowning for our enjoyment nor thespians hamming up each ponderous line…
Neither one of them is reinventing the wheel, and neither is Lloyd. Despite the absence of a tree"or maybe they're inside the tree?"it's a relatively straightforward Waiting for Godot that's…
Is Reeves any good? Eh, not really. This particularly meandering and stiff "Godot" is hardly an excellent adventure. Nor, by the way, is it a bogus journey. It's, as Bill and Ted would say, …
As for the acting, there's little doubt that Winter is the most natural (and more experienced) stage actor of the two, more versatile and, when necessary, capable to drawing real pathos from…
This production isn't exactly cracking the material open in any new way, but soars in one particular aspect: the friendship between its leads. Reeves and Winter are old friends playing old f…
Lloyd's production isn't an embarrassing misfire but it's underwhelming. This is a work in which the slapstick clowning and the tricky verbal non sequiturs should be merely the surface for r…
The pleasant prospect of seeing Reeves and Winter together makes this production to some extent critic-proof"and anyhow, this is a play in which "Crritic!" is the worst insult that Estragon …
This return match-up ("Together again at last!") has turned the playwright's vaudevillian clowns into comics of a cooler sort. If not stoner dudes " they are, after all, both 60ish now " the…
