Sasha Diamond, Shannon Tyo, Sky Smith in Regretfully, So the Birds Are. (Photo: Chelcie Parry) Regretfully, So the Birds Are By Julia Polinsky Julia Izumi’s Regretfully, So the Birds Are turns cliches on their heads while poking hilarious fun at them. Considering that play’s premise comes straight out of a tabloid headline —…
Cara Ricketts, Thomas Jay Ryan, and Tony Roach in Arden of Faversham. Photo: Carol Rosegg Arden of Faversham By Lydia Keidel Hear Ye! Hear Ye! The Red Bull Theater presents a bloody, dark, comic Elizabethan noir thriller. Arden of Faversham is playing for a limited run (ending April 1st) at the Lucille Lortel Theater….
Jessica Hecht and Zane Pais in Letters From Max. Photo by Joan Marcus Letters From Max, A Ritual By Julia Polinsky Sarah Ruhl’s Letters From Max, A Ritual at the Signature Theatre’s lovely Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre, is a two-handed meditation on life, friendship, death. Ruhl, a MacARthur fellow, has a Spotlight Residency at…
Josh Radnor (Photo: Joan Marcus) The Ally By Julia Polinsky Itamar Moses’ new play at The Public, The Ally, offers some superb, heart-rending performances, excellent writing, and relentless consideration of arguably the most controversial flashpoints in politics today: Israel/Palestine, race relations, white privilege among them. But is it a handsomely mounted, beautifully produced play,…
Ben Steinfeld (Photo: Austin Ruffer) Pericles By Deirdre Donovan When Ben Steinfeld strolls out with a guitar to sing Gower’s Prologue in Fiasco Theater’s Pericles, you immediately feel that you’re in good hands. Steinfeld is wearing a troubadour’s outfit, and there’s a confident air in everything he does. His eyes scan the audience; his…
Katie Holmes and Eddie Kaye Thomas in The Wanderers. (Photo by Joan Marcus) The Wanderers By David Schultz and Julia Polinsky David: Playwright Anna Ziegler’s overly stuffed The Wanderers has quite a lot on its mind. The comingling of past and present at first seems confusing, but the story does settle eventually with a…
Matt de Rogatis, Courtney Henggeler, and Frederick Weller in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Photo by Ismaeel Skalli Cat on a Hot Tin Roof By Cammy Paglia Tennessee Williams grappled with his many demons, internalized homophobia and alcoholism being the most monstrous. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for which…
Nancy Ma, Kim Wuan (Photo: Russ Rowland) Warrior Sisters of Wu By Julia Polinsky The tag line for Damon Chua’s delightful play, Warrior Sisters of Wu, is “Romance of the Three Kingdoms meets Pride and Prejudice.” Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a classic Chinese epic and billions of people have known and loved this…
Roger Dominic Casey, Tom Holcomb. (Photo: Jeremy Daniel) Aristocrats By Deirdre Donovan “I’m suddenly sick of Chopin — isn’t it strange?” asks Claire in the final scene of Brian Friel’s Aristocrats, but audiences visiting the Irish Repertory Theatre’s revival of his 1979 play may well hear Claire’s cri de coeur as…
Eric Yang and Amy Kim Waschke. (Photo: Ahron R. Foster) The Far Country By Fern Siegel Immigration is a hot topic of debate. But the searing human cost is often lost in weaponizing it. Lloyd Suh’s The Far Country, now at the Atlantic Theater Company, reveals a tragic period in American history, the…