Off-Broadway Plays Archives

  • The Seafarer

    Matthew Broderick                                  Photos by Carol Rosegg                                      By Ron Cohen It’s a thick, beefy Irish stew of a play, Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, saturated in alcohol and – as you might expect in a McPherson opus — spookily seasoned with the supernatural. Originally produced in London in 2006 and then mounted on Broadway in 2007, it…

  • Summer and Smoke

    Nathan Darrow, Marin Ireland                  Photo: Carol Rosegg                                     By Fern Siegel The dichotomy of human nature — the sacred and profane — fascinated Tennessee Williams, who routinely employed elements of Southern Gothic to explore dysfunctional people ruined by inner demons. Such themes are evident in Summer and Smoke, now at the Classic Stage Company,…

  • The Metromaniacs

    Amelia Pedlow and Dina Thomas                                    by Edward Medina Words. Words. Words. Beautiful luscious words. Set in rhymes. Framed in metaphors. Hung in allegories. Displayed with glorious grace, slick style, and unending rapturous wit. The rhyme rules here and while some are more forced than others they all manage to fall lovingly on the ear….

  • Seagullmachine

                                                                  Photos by Theo Cote                   by Edward Medina Seagullmachine, now being presented at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club’s Ellen Stewart Theatre, is the totally immersive creation of The Assembly which describes itself as a collective of multi-disciplinary performance artists committed to realizing a visceral and intelligent theater for a new generation. There are two…

  • The Stone Witch

    Dan Luria   photos by Russ Rowland                               by Arney Rosenblat   Through a stunningly rendered production and compelling performances, The Stone Witch movingly explores the price of greatness Simon Grindberg is a “great man” who is revered as one of the world’s most illustrious children’s writers and illustrators but his next anticipated masterpiece is…

  • Harry Clarke

    Harry Clarke: Bill Crudup                                        Photo: Carol Rosegg                               By Fern Siegel Identity is fertile ground for drama, but disassociation kicks it up a notch. Or as our narrator explains: “I’ve gotten on a ride I can’t get off.” And it’s a wild one. The narrator is Billy Crudup — and for 80 minutes at…

  • Yerma

    Billie Piper                                                                                        Photo Credit: Stephanie Berger                                      By Arney Rosenblat With every beat of Her heart she and the audience slip further into searing despair as her desire to be a mother and have a child of her own unravels into an unfulfilled dream, which leaves the audience as wounded as Billie Piper, who…

  • Babette’s Feast

    Sturgis Warner, Jo Mei, Jeorge Bennett Watson, Sorab Wadia, Steven Skybell                                                   By Ron Cohen Babette’s Feast, a short story by Isak Dinesen, was famously transformed into an elegiac Danish movie in 1987, winning an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Now, the tale has been transformed once again into a pleasurable…

  • Prurience

    Christopher Green                                                   by Edward Medina An old woman sits quietly in a chair. Her chair is one of many in a circle. She sits amongst a group of fellow addicts that are in need of confession. Admissions and revelations begin spewing forth until she decides it’s her turn. She then tells the story…

  • Kings

    Eisna Davis,Zach Grenier, Aya Cash                                         by Deirdre Donovan An idealistic freshman congresswoman attempts to clean-up what’s wrong in Washington. It’s time for Sydney Millsap (Eisna Davis) to press the flesh at her fundraiser at the swanky Four Seasons resort in Vail, Colorado.  But the neophyte congresswoman from Dallas hasn’t left her hotel…