470 stories by "Jacob Malizio"
One man and his family are caught up in the pressures and delusions of living the American Dream. Miller's play is the story of a traveling salesman whose illusions of picture-perfect busine…
Mantello has leaned into the play's sense of abstraction " Willy often loses himself in his own mind " which has the effect of emphasizing both its timelessness and its timeliness. (Miller's…
And yet, I was ultimately unmoved. Why? In sitting uncertainly between total adornment and its weighted ideas of temporal displacement, the production had never quite gotten me there. This S…
From the breathtaking opening scene when a car drives onstage, its bright headlights shining into the audience, to the moment it backs out of Chloe Lamford's astonishing set, this Salesman d…
A worthwhile revival will always give you the feeling " even more significant than re-seeing an astonishing play " of truly hearing it, and that's what happens here. Again and again, as Lane…
Down to the smallest roles, this production is astutely cast, and its arresting design elements add a suitably shabby grandeur to the play's unsparing view of America's broken promises. Mant…
But first and last, Salesman is Willy's story, and generation after Broadway generation has thrown its best into the role, from Lee J. Cobb, Fredric March (in the 1951 film), George C. Scott…
The newest Broadway production of Arthur Miller's storied play (directed by Joe Mantello) has lost none of its power in the tale of a man fighting the demons of his past while also strugglin…
As with his direction of the actors, however, Mantello likes to pour it on gooey. Each act is introduced with Caroline Shaw's overly somber music, reaching for but failing to achieve Philip …
What's most striking is the musicality of his voice. This isn't a musical, and yet it often feels like one when he speaks. Lane shapes Miller's language as if he's singing it, or delivering …
COME ONE, COME ALL " The Jellicle Cats are having a BALL. Based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, Andrew Lloyd Webber's worldwide phenomenon CATS is reimagined in a produc…
If you're lucky enough to have a knowledgeable and prepared audience around you, the atmosphere at the ball crackles " literally. Those sitting close, at the set's little bar tables, egg on …
It works. It works because the ballroom setting lends weight and specificity to a narrative world that previously felt airless, abstract to the point of nothingness. It works because Webber'…
This is a culture steeped in tradition and history. The chosen family is its bedrock, and elders hold a place of high esteem, though there are too few. This is not the story about queer peop…
What wasn't preordained is just how beautifully executed the entire venture turns out to be. You'd have to be a real stickler for tradition to begrudge Jellicle Ball its innovations, and one…
Broadway is burning " and that's something to celebrate. "Cats: The Jellicle Ball," a refreshed version of the downtown 2024 hit, blazes anew, having made the trek uptown with its extravagan…
The production makes a thrilling number of choices to update and revise and comment on the bizarre musical entity borne of a posh Brit's love of T.S. Eliot's poems for children, but it retai…
Through it all, there's a euphoric energy pulsing through the theater, manifesting in several moving ways. Quiet weeping, dropped jaws, fervent applause and the occasional attendee literally…
"Cats: The Jellicle Ball" is overflowing with so much unbridled joy that you may sometimes catch yourself shedding tears, for no other reason than you simply don't want it to end. It's a tra…
Without fail, the best Broadway shows are the off-the-charts inventive ones that could not have possibly originated anywhere else but the five boroughs. This season, that's "The Jellicle Bal…
A blind date spirals spectacularly off the rails in Becky Shaw, the razor-sharp dark comedy from two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Gina Gionfriddo. When it made its New York premiere Off-Broa…
These characters aren't likable at all. Yet they do the job so well, we don't need them to be.
The post Funny vs. Likable? Funny Wins. appeared first on Did They Like It?.
Second Stage, which produced its off-Broadway premiere, has brought it back for a Broadway premiere that's damn near perfect. Directed by Trip Cullman with a dynamism that perfectly matches …
It's Gina Gionfriddo's iron guts that make an incisive, observant, scathing, and hilarious play like Becky Shaw possible.
The post Broadway Finally Meets Becky Shaw, and She's Got a Sharp To…
Seventeen years after being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, Gina Gionfriddo's dark, sometimes giddy comedy Becky Shaw finally arrives on Broadway, and noting that it was worth the wait is an…
