Deirdre Donovan

Writer

Journalist Deirdre Donovan has written for the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, among others. Her theater writing has been published in The Brooklyn Paper, Our Town, West Side Spirit, Curtainup, Theaterscene, and Offoffonline.

Reviews by Deirdre

  • Waiting for Godot

    Jamie Lloyd’s Broadway revival of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot finds Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter trading Bill and Ted’s comic banter for Beckett’s haunting silences. With Brandon J. Dirden and Michael Patrick Thornton rounding out the cast, Lloyd once again turns minimalism into a bold theatrical statement. Before parsing the current production, it’s worth…

  • The Wild Duck

    The first major Off-Broadway staging of The Wild Duck has winged into Polonsky Shakespeare Center for a brief sojourn, in a co-production of Theatre for a New Audience and Shakespeare Theatre Company. David Eldridge’s new version infuses fresh energy into the old play. Directed by Simon Godwin—making his debut with Ibsen—this production arrives with the…

  • The Weir

    Irish Repertory Theatre’s fourth staging of Conor McPherson’s The Weir, directed by Ciarán McPherson, proves why the play has become one of the company’s touchstones. What begins as an evening of pub banter deepens into a spellbinding meditation on memory, loneliness, and connection. The intimacy of the production, sensitively directed by Ciarán O’Reilly, is its…

  • Trophy Boys

    Faced with the question, “Has feminism failed women?”, a group of elite private school boys set out to argue in the affirmative — fueling the fire of Emmanuelle Mattana’s audacious new comedy, Trophy Boys. As they prepare for a high-stakes debate against the girls from a rival girls’ school, the play exposes the smug entitlement…

  • Angry Alan

    In Angry Alan, directed with clinical precision by Sam Gold, John Krasinski plays Roger, a 45 year-old man from the Midwest, teetering on the edge of crisis. Reeling from a divorce, a demotion, and a growing sense that the world no longer makes space for him, Roger finds solace—and danger—in an online movement that promises…

  • Lowcountry

    In Lowcountry, playwright Abby Rosebrock delivers a razor-sharp romcom that dives headfirst into the emotional wreckage of modern love, and life on the margins of respectability. Under Jo Bonney’s clear-eyed direction, what unfolds is not just a first date gone awry, but a raw, often hilarious exploration of psychic pain in the age of dating…

  • Purpose

    Set in Illinois, Purpose revolves around the fictional Jasper family, and its rich history in politics and culture. The plot unfolds during a family dinner that exposes deep-seated tensions and long-hidden secrets. The play explores themes of legacy, the struggle for individual identity within a family rooted in activism, and the challenges of trying to…

  • Good Night and Good Luck

    George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s new play, Good Night, and Good Luck, an adaptation of their 2005 film, arrives on Broadway with plenty of buzz. Directed by David Cromer, this production doesn’t disappoint, largely due to Clooney’s charisma and his affecting portrayal of the revered broadcast journalist, Edward R. Murrow. Describing Good Night, and Good…

  • Vanya

    Andrew Scott takes on the Herculean task of performing a one-man production of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 tragicomedy and succeeds in turning it into a mesmerizing virtuoso performance. Directed by Sam Yates, and created by Scott, along with Yates, Simon Stephens, and Rosanna Vize, Stephen’s adaptation in modern vernacular with anglicized names retains all of the…