Richard Topol, José Espinosa (Photo: Pavel Antonov) The Merchant of Venice By Deirdre Donovan The Arlekin Players Theatre’s new production of The Merchant of Venice at the Classic Stage Company, adapted and directed by Igor Golyak, is a wild and wooly take on Shakespeare’s great work about anti-Semitism and bigotry. Although it brings some fresh…
The cast of Shit.Meet.Fan. (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) Shit. Meet. Fan. By David Schultz Based on a 2016 Italian film, “Perfect Strangers,” this slick, shallow production attempts to update the tale from the film. In fits and starts, it has its perverse amusements, but in the long run it runs out of steam well before the…
Scott Shepherd (Photo: Joan Marcus) Gatz By Deirdre Donovan Gatz is back! The Elevator Repair Service’s (ESR) verbatim reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby returns to the Public Theater for its swan song. Directed by John Collins, and starring Scott Shepherd as Nick, this encore production is truly a gift to theatergoers who…
Dominic Weintraub, William Strom, Hugo Williams, and Claire Bird (Photo: Teddy Wolff) Burnout Paradise By Deirdre Donovan The live game show Burnout Paradise, now making its North American debut at St. Ann’s Warehouse, is experimental theater at its best and zaniest. Directed, written, designed, and performed by Australia’s Pony Cam, a collective based in Melbourne,…
Joseph Kloska, Kenneth Branagh (Photo: Marc J. Franklin) King Lear By Deirdre Donovan The legendary theater director Peter Brook compared King Lear to a mountain whose summit has never been reached. Actor-director Kenneth Branagh seems to have taken that observation as an invitation to scale what is arguably Shakespeare’s greatest achievement. But although Branagh grabs…
Deirdre Lovejoy, Donnetta Lavinia Grays (Photo:Valerie Terranova) In The Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot By Julia Polinsky Family, climate, love, survival: Sarah Mantell’s In The Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot, directed by Sivan Battat and now at Playwrights Horizons, takes on some big subjects. Speculatively set in a not-too-distant future, the play gradually makes it clear that…
Adam Driver (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) Hold On To Me Darling Playwright Kenneth Lonergan’s revival of his 2016 play has much to offer in its new incarnation. Once again directed by Neil Pepe, the finely tuned cast brings out the humor and pathos in fits and starts. The running time of almost three hours gives…
Susannah Flood, Anthony Edwards (Photo: Joan Marcus) The Counter by Lydia Sue Keidel Meghan Kennedy’s The Counter, now at the Laura Pels theater, tells the story of an unlikely friendship unfolding at a diner in a small town in upstate New York where time appears to have stood still. The Counter starts slowly, establishing the…
Julia Brothers, Lukey Klein, Richard Brothers, Joy Avigail Sudduth (Photo: Maria Baranova) Sump’n Like Wings By Marc Miller Lynn Riggs, if he’s remembered at all today, is remembered as the author of Green Grow the Lilacs, a minor Theater Guild flop of 1931 that achieved unexpected immortality a dozen years later, when Rodgers and Hammerstein…
The cast of Our Class (Photo: Jeremy Daniel) Our Class By Deirdre Donovan Those theatergoers who missed Polish playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek’s Our Class at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) last winter have a second chance to see the award-winning play at Classic Stage Company. Directed by Ukrainian-born, Jewish director Igor Golyak, and with many in the cast…