Theresa Rebeck’s ‘The Understudy’ at the Wilma
This production about the frustrations of three actors is first-rate in every respect except the one that matters most: originality. Why do playwrights persist in confining themselves...
This production about the frustrations of three actors is first-rate in every respect except the one that matters most: originality. Why do playwrights persist in confining themselves...
We often hear about plays intended for audiences of all ages, but this broad satire of A Christmas Carol is a rare one that really works across a wide spectrum.
That Pretty Pretty isn’t a play; it’s a play about writing a play. Playwright Sheila Callaghan introduced numerous big post-modernist ideas but fails to develop any of them into …
Two secrets explain the success of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. This production adds some fresh ingredients to the mix.
The play certainly has some funny moments, and a few poignant ones too. But like its marquee star, Elling doesn't feel quite ready for the Broadway stage.
The free-lance drama critic Wendy Rosenfield recently took me to task for publicly excoriating one of my own contributors. She seems to see criticism as an insult. I see it as a compliment.
John Guare's history-based comedy starring Jeffrey Wright and Mos is an overstuffed misfire
How should a community respond to someone who’s the smartest fellow in town but also an obnoxious pain in the ass? That’s the intriguing question posed by Quintessence Theatre Gr…
In this existential tragic burlesque, the powerhouse young Irish playwright Enda Walsh redefines the unnamed suitors of Homer’s Odyssey. Here they emerge as minor, vile characters̵…
In Spirit Control, the high drama of an airport tower fades as a controller picks up the pieces years later. He’s haunted by a tragedy; I was haunted by the aftermath.
Lantern Theater’s production of Uncle Vanya is unusually intimate, shining more focus than usual on the unheralded characters in Chekhov’s tragicomedy of dissolute gentry. The ca…
The New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood recently decried the spread of “direct address”— in which actors speak directly to the audience rather than “natur…
(A-)
Emma Rice’s inspired adaptation of Noel Coward’s play and David Lean’s film has made the transition from off-Broadway to the Great White Way with all of its charm and intim…
La Bête is a wild Molière parody/homage, nearly two hours of rhyming couplets delivered at breakneck speed. The effect is jawdroppingly amazing— and very, very funny.
David Mamet’s play about an older actor and his protégé-rival is full of snippets and in-jokes celebrating life on the stage but bereft of Mamet’s signature ferocity and danger.
In this original and often charming one-woman autobiographical tour, the multi-talented comedienne Jen Childs reflects on her life as an aspiring dancer who’s a tad too short and clunk…