1,084 stories by "Matthew Murray"
Is there a more normal American man than Ben?
Towering is the word.
Is the past supposed to neat and tidy, or is it - regardless of its state - merely supposed to explain where we are today?
Few would dare dispute that the effects of war can linger long, even for those who've never taken a weapon onto a battlefield.
Take cover! Outside of the David Mamet oeuvre, it is rare indeed to find a play that begins as speedily and forcefully as Colman Domingo's new piece for the Vineyard Theatre, Dot.
History, both past and future, weighs heavily on the characters in Smokefall, the deliciously (sometimes too-deliciously quirky) play by Noah Haidle that MCC Theater is producing at the Luci…
Because death is one of the very few experiences that all living people share, and because no one who knows what it's really like is able to tell the tale, it's always exerted a particular f…
Maybe it's not so much that you can't teach an old dog new tricks as that an old dog knows when he doesn't need them?
Horror occurs in countless forms and at varying degrees, describing a sweeping range of experiences that define who we are.
Is the weirdness real, or merely the outward manifestation of a diseased soul?
It's here at last: The ultimate battle between Heaven and Hell.
Have you "got to be carefully taught," as Oscar Hammerstein II posited in South Pacific some 67 years ago? Or, as Avenue Q musicalmeisters Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez first mused in 2003, is …
The glow of memory is at once crystalline and cloudy in Prodigal Son, John Patrick Shanley's curiously cursory new play at City Center for Manhattan Theatre Club.
Silence, precisely enough articulated, can indeed speak volumes. And it does, time and time again, in The Woodsman, the haunting, lovely, and unforgettable puppet"fairy-tale extravaganza tha…
William Shakespeare's plays are an obvious fit within the musical theatre idiom, their sprawling themes and natural lyricism giving way so easily to song that it's no surprise they've been a…
Loss compounds several times over, and with stinging consequences, in Nick Gandiello's new play The Wedge Horse, which just opened at the IATI Theater Mainstage in a Fault Line Theatre produ…
Finding yourself is difficult enough without other people getting in the way.
For all we so often claim we can learn about the past, we genetically tend toward blotting out the parts of it we don't agree with and pretending that what remains is all there is.
Love and history collide on planes both personal and global in Our Mother's Brief Affair, the curious and frequently flavorless confection by Richard Greenberg that just opened at the Samuel…
If the two are inextricably tied together, what happens to your soul when your job goes away?
The iconic image of Mother Courage hitching herself to her wagon and dragging it on through impossible odds could not be more apropos than it is when it's performed by Kecia Lewis in Classic…
Until recently, I never had much of a taste for sardines. But that all changed after seeing Lloyd Dallas's intense new touring production of Nothing On.
Maurice Hines is not afraid to pay credit where credit is due. With his new quasi-bio, quasi-concert evening that just opened at New World Stages, Tappin' Thru Life, he's always willing to s…
All the world's a madhouse--or at least the basement of one--in Jesse Berger's new revival of The Changeling for Red Bull Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
Yes, the holidays should be big, bold, colorful, and exciting, but you don't want to lose the intimacy and the quiet meaning of it all within the rush. That balance might be one of my favori…
