Contributing Writer
KK Moggie and Ted Koch Photo Credit: Marielle Solan By Ron Cohen The Gravedigger’s Lullaby sounds like it could be one of those Z-Grade horror flicks filling the multiplexes. It does have one genuinely horrific moment, but Jeff Talbott’s new drama is a thoughtful and articulate depiction of those subsisting on the bottom…
Jordan Lage as Richard and Chris Bauer as Charles photos by Doug hamilton By Ron Cohen Psychiatry, journalism, the law and the Old Testament all get knocked pretty hard in David Mamet’s The Penitent. Summing up the play’s general attitude early on, the protagonist declares, “Human nature is evil.” Mamet’s misanthropic leanings can…
L-R: John Epperson, Matthew Broderick, Jill Eikenberry, Annapurna Sriram, Larry Pine, Claudia Shear By Ron Cohen Playwright Wallace Shawn has no compunctions about letting his characters talk on and on and on… So, it’s fitting that his latest effort, being presented by The New Group, is entitled Evening at the Talk House. And…
By Ron Cohen Steven Levenson, who has apparently hit pay dirt with his book for the new Broadway hit musical Dear Evan Hansen, scores again with If I Forget, a rich family drama being given an exemplary Off-Broadway production by Roundabout Theatre Company. The play takes us deeply into the complexities of life…
Geoff Sobelle in NYTW’s THE OBJECT LESSON, Photoa… Joan Marcus.jpg The Object Lesson By Ron Cohen Piles of props and a nimble raconteur make for a telling journey through the debris of living. “What the hell is going on here?” creator and performer Geoff Sobelle asks early on in his solo show The…
Melody Grove (Photos by Jenny Anderson) By Ron Cohen Is Hell really next door to a Costco parking lot? Whether true or not, that intriguing factoid is put forth with a completely straight face in The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. It’s one of the many elements, both large and small, that make…
Joan Marcus From left, John Douglas Thompson, Michael Potts, Anthony Chisholm and Brandon J. Dirden By Ron Cohen One of the first things that may strike you in watching Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s lovingly directed production of Jitney is the joy his company of nine actors seems to bring on stage in performing August Wilson’s…
Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh (JOAN MARCUS/©2016 JOAN MARCUS) By Ron Cohen Libidos run amok, fueled by a flood tide of wine and vodka, in Sydney Theatre Company’s luminous production of The Present. But before all that sexuality breaks loose, there’s plenty of talk…talk that often grabs the intellect and plucks at the…
David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig photos by Chad Batka By Ron Cohen Conceptual director Sam Gold and cohorts take on William Shakespeare’s Othello with no holds barred in this hotly anticipated New York Theatre Workshop production. It’s a good, sometimes violent tussle, but the two who emerge indisputably victorious from this three-hour-plus fray…
Photos by Jeremy Daniel By Ron Cohen “You have so much information, you want to say everything, it’s very hard to stick to the point.” So says Aaron Port, the writer who is both the narrator and central character in Richard Greenberg’s play, The Babylon Line, just as he is about to wrap things up….