Juliet Stevenson (Photo: Stephanie Berger) The Doctor By Deirdre Donovan Of all the productions that have arrived in New York this summer, The Doctor may well be the most memorable. Written and directed by Robert Icke, and starring the superb Juliet Stevenson, this play invites theatergoers to take a fresh and clear-eyed look at…
Marie Mullen (Photo: Carol Rosegg) The Saviour By Julia Polinsky Who saves whom? And from what? Mothers tend to say that there are some topics unsuitable for polite conversation. In The Saviour, Deirdre Kinahan’s marvelous play currently running at the Irish Repertory Theater, the formidable Maire hits on most of them, chiefly religion and sex….
Kelli O Hara and Brian d Arcy James (Photo Credit: Ahron R. Foster) Days of Wine and Roses By David Schultz This haunting chamber musical is perfectly suited for composer Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins, The Light in the Piazza). The complex contrapuntal stylistic music is Guettel s signature calling card. Sweet, simple melodic…
Caleb Eberhardt and Susannah Flood (Photo: Monique Carboni) The Comeuppance By Deirdre Donovan Some plays demand reflection; others ask that you place yourself in their frame-of-mind. With Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative new play, The Comeuppance, you must do both. Directed by Eric Ting, this unsettling new drama invites theatergoers to take a close look at…
Jay O. Sanders, William Jackson Harper, and Eric Berryman in Primary Trust (Photo:Joan Marcus) Primary Trust By Cammy Paglia It isn’t that often that a theater critic can take in an audience’s reaction to the play at hand and also be engrossed in the performance as well. “Primary Trust” makes both…
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,…
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…