Ben Curtis, Kathleen Huber, Julie Campbell, and Jacques Mitchell (© Russ Rowland) by Deirdre Donovan Plays about gun shootings seem to be the rage on New York stages nowadays. Moss Dewey becomes the latest playwright to try his hand with this hot-button topic in his Crusade of Connor Stephens. Directed by Moss,…
Namir Smallwood And Karen Pittman. Photos By Jeremy Daniel. By Ron Cohen The words come at you like machine-gun fire in Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline, and they are piercing, powerful and well-aimed. Morisseau has in her sight two deeply complex targets: the corroding educational pipeline with its failing inner city public schools and the…
Katy Sullivan and Victor Williams by Deirdre Donovan Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living at New York City Center Stage 1 isn’t light entertainment. But, as directed by Jo Bonney, this bi-plotted play can be an eye-opener for understanding how persons with physical disabilities cope with life. Under the aegis of Manhattan Theatre…
George Morfogen Jean Lichty Korinne Tetlow and Larry Bull By Arney Rosenblat The Traveling Lady by Horton Foote is a poignant story of longing and remorse set in a rural 1950’s Texas town. On the surface, the lives portrayed may appear remote to the in-your-face tell-all lifestyle of the typical Manhattan dweller,…
By Eugene Paul When you’re invited early to the performance in order to brave the bowels of Mistress Overdone’s bordello to get to your seat – you’re meant to stare at the deliberately malodorous collection of treasured objects therein, from a wall art five foot penis to a less endowed masked…
By Ron Cohen Phrase of the day is deus ex machina. Don’t bother clicking on or getting out your dictionary. Borrowed from the Greek, it translates literally as “god from the machine” and has evolved into a dramaturgic term referring to an unexpected or surprising – maybe even illogical — turn of plot that…
by Julia Polinsky So often, words are open to interpretation. In the best possible way, interpreting almost every word spoken makes Lauren Yee’s In A Word deeply engrossing, a surprise in a play so short. Usually, “80 minutes no intermission” is code for “we know it needs work, but don’t want…
by Deirdre Donovan The American loser gets his day in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. Sondheim’s 1990 vaudeville musical features two centuries of villains who have tried to kill the U. S. President. Some succeeded, others didn’t. But one thing was believed by all these historical reprobates, and dramatized by the Proprietor in the show’s opening…
By Ron Cohen The foreboding set establishes the mood immediately. A grimy wall of grey stone broken by half-circle windows, looking out into impenetrable darkness, surrounds the playing area. Dotting the playing area are spikes of misshapen metal. Some of them look like long-dead trees. The play Terezin, written and directed by Nicholas…
By Arney Rosenblat When Zero Mostel starred in Rhinoceros on Broadway, a critic remarked how realistic he was as a human being in the 1st Act- Drama Desk winner Jim Brochu, who both wrote and performs Zero Hour, seemingly channels the roaring bellowing rhinoceros Sam “Zero”Mostel, a complex man that used humor…