(l-r) Eileen Atkins, Jonathan Pryce Photo credit © Joan Marcus The Height Of The Storm By Ron Cohen Majestic performances illuminate the interplay of love, death and memory French playwright Florian Zeller creates compelling characters in mental disarray. In his plays previously mounted in New York, The Father took us with breathtaking…
Zawe Ashton ,Tom Hiddleston, and Charlie Cox star Betrayal By Ron Cohen Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, which premiered in London in1978, is making its fourth stand on Broadway, and three superbly honed performances make clear there’s still plenty of juice to be squeezed from this minutely detailed saga of marital infidelity. The production, directed…
Sea Wall/A Life By Fern Siegel Tom Sturridge Photo: Richard Hubert Smith An intimate chamber piece now at the Hudson Theater, Sea Wall/A Life posits two men musing on life, death and love. But mostly, it’s about death. The double bill, by authors Simon Stephens (Sea Wall) and Nick Payne (A Life), embarks on…
photos Deen van Meer Frankie & Johnny In The Clair De Lune By Eugene Paul Full, glittering turnouts are greeting every performance of this extraordinary revival of dear old Terrence McNally’s beloved schmatte of a play. For cause. Previous incarnations have always treated it as a schmatte, and why not, it’s coarse,…
Photos by Julieta Cervantes Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus By Ron Cohen The corpses are piled high. They’re oozing blood and other bodily liquids. And yes, as you probably have heard, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus is indeed a comedy, quite a funny one. Titus Andronicus was one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, perhaps…
Tracy Letts, Annette Bening. Photo: Joan Marcus By Fern Siegel “What kind of a person are you? Don’t you live in the world?” an outraged Chris asks his cornered father. Welcome to the complicated arena of ethical anger and public responsibility that is Arthur Miller’s forte. The current revival of All My Sons…
Laurie Metcalf, John Lithgow Photos: Julieta Cervantes Hillary and Clinton By Fern Siegel Hindsight is always 20-20. That’s especially true as history unfolds — and we see the consequences of presidential elections. But before the insidious manipulation of social media or the Mueller Report, the presidential election of 2008 proved a…
Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano Photo: Joan Marcus by Fern Siegel Before we knew the term “toxic masculinity,” Sam Shepard’s 1980 play True West, now in revival at the American Airlines Theatre, reveled in it. The story of two mismatched brothers is a study in menace, sibling rivalry and family despair. It’s like…
Jeff Daniels photos by Julieta Cervantes To Kill a Mockingbird By Ron Cohen Aaron Sorkin has done a monumental job in transplanting Harper Lee’s revered novel To Kill a Mockingbird into dramatic form. And it’s being performed in an emotion-grabbing production that helps elevate an extraordinary Broadway season for straight plays to even…
Elaine May photos by Brigitte Lacombe by Deirdre Donovan Kenneth Lonergan’s 1999 play, The Waverly Gallery, is in revival at the John Golden Theatre with a top-notch cast. Starring the legendary Elaine May, and directed by Lila Neugebauer (making her Broadway debut), it is a poignant portrait of an octogenarian suffering from Alzheimer’s disease…