212 stories by "Jason Rohrer"
GODDESS OF LOVE THAT YOU AREN’T David Ives’ two-character adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novel Venus in Furs wowed New York in 2010, largely for its star tu…
She realized in the middle of the final preview " near the top of the second act, when she spent five minutes upstage near the windows " that it wasn’t the flu. She stood quietly while…
SWEET SONGS UNSUPPORTED Tarell Alvin McCraney’s 2012 Choir Boy is a tantalizing, underdeveloped play-with-music not entirely improved by Trip Cullman’s direction, now at the Geff…
YOU’LL GET THIS GOAT Martin is an architect at the top of his profession; he and his wife Stevie and their son Billy live at, or on, the crest of civilization: rich, successful, smart,…
HEAVENLY DAY Samuel Beckett’s 1960 two-hander Happy Days presents a life in hell: Winnie, a middle-aged lady half-buried in an apocalyptic wasteland, is awakened and put to sleep by a …
ALL YESTERDAY’S PARTIES A projection reads "1,000,000 Years B.C.," and the countdown (count up?) begins; that’s a lot of numbers to scroll on a stage bare of performers, and it&#…
A SORT OF JUDGMENT The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle, Ross Dungan’s 2013 play about fate-after-death, is pleasantly eloquent and several times touching in a comforting way, but…
UNBURIED RED-HEADED STEPCHILD In the mid-1990s, Sam Shepard rewrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1978 play, Buried Child, for a new Steppenwolf production that director Gary Sinise dragged fro…
MAGICIANS OF THEATRICALITY Aaron Posner is on fire right now. His adaptations, My Name Is Asher Lev and Stupid Fucking Bird, are being produced all over the country, and his version of Sh…
FORD INTO PECKINPAH VIA THE CHICKEN HYMN I’m a big fan of John Ford and Howard Hawks; My Darling Clementine and Red River are apex achievements in Hollywood studio storytelling. But Fo…
FIRST PERSIAN PLURAL To see the oldest extant Greek tragedy performed sort-of as it was 2500 years ago, but excluding masks and including Anne Bogart’s affection for fabric and y…
A couple of weeks ago the theater artist David Jette called me "an infamously belligerent dick." That’s good, accurate reportage, well-phrased, best of all fair. David and I shared an …
THE RUBRICS OF FAITH A play as well presented and satisfyingly written as most of Robin Uriel Russin’s new The Face in the Reeds deserves special mention. The Family Holiday Dramedy wi…
The homeless constitute one of two demographics to whom a toilet cleaned by an indifferent minimum-wage worker looks pretty good. The other is rich people with maids. I am neither, and…
STRAWBERRY FIELDS I’m not sure what, but it says something about our young writers and aging audiences that the most durable millennial genre is the coming-of-middle-age medical trauma…
ONE ACT IS COMPANY, SIX IS A CROWD Here’s the thing: an evening of one-act plays always reminds me of those Night of Scenes showcases back in school. It’s a good chance for w…
BROADWAY VIA THE CATSKILLS AND THE ACTORS STUDIO I like plays featuring middle-aged guys who did everything right and still can’t figure anything out. So Ron Sossi and Larry Field&…
SWEET, DREAMY Based on the true story of a rabid blue-collar fan whose dream of making friends with her favorite Grand Ole Opry star came true in 1961, Always…Patsy Cline is an enormou…
AGONY UNVISITED In this play by Tim Livingston, apparently his first, an artist and self-proclaimed protagonist named Joey (played by the author’s brother Joey Livingston) complains in…
A BLOODY BUT WORTHWHILE MESS When Kenneth Clark asked of William Shakespeare, "who else has felt so strongly the absolute meaninglessness of life," he illustrated the point with this speech …
The web site for which I am a critic, Stage and Cinema, has enjoyed a boom recently from which I am grateful to benefit. Not that IÂ get paid; there are people who know how to work …
DOOM DOOM DOOM In the Boom Boom Room is a David Rabe play that did not win a Tony in 1974. In it, Rabe demonstrates no particular affinity yet for female characters, of whom there are ma…
GODDAMN CHEKHOV, AGAIN I suspect nobody really likes The Seagull except theater people. It established for the modern age some of the essential playwriting untouchables: a play about…
SOBER CANNIBALS, DRUNKEN CHRISTIANS This show made me wish I had chosen to sit through Lost Moon Radio’s Million Dollar Hair again. If this sounds like faint praise, it is; I did not e…
ITHACA John Perrin Flynn and Brenda Davidson’s production of Penelope is so vivid that it’s hard for me to imagine the play in any other presentation " even though I’ve rec…
