Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater by Eugene Paul In this city of miracles, something of a miracle is happening in Central Park and the adumbrations at the Delacorte are many. A. Performances continue to be free, an impossible dream for the dreamer, Joe Papp, a continuing benison to millions of visitors old and new,…
L-R: Russell Dixon, Ben Porter, and Sarah Parks By Eugene Paul “How else can we hope to cram a life time of events into two or three hours?” asks playwright Alan Ayckbourn in his eloquently terse essay, “Time Was…”, a lovely little gift in the Ayckbourn Ensemble program that accompanies this greater gift, a…
Back L-R: Sarah Stanley, Kim Wall, and Bill Champion; Front: Elizabeth Boag By Eugene Paul Ah there, first off, we need once again to remind us that Alan Ayckbourn, noted Alan Ayckbourn is here with a passel of his plays. Not all seventy-eight, heaven forfend, no, just four, and of the four, two are…
QURRAT ANN KADWANI By R. Pikser St. Luke’s Church, located across Eighth Avenue from the big Broadway houses is just barely off Broadway. The church has fitted its basement into an elegant theater space with comfortable chairs on risers and a small stage that still manages to have three wings. The tannish color…
Bill Champion and Kim Wall Photos by Andrew Higgens by Eugene Paul Sitting in front of me were two breathlessly beautiful, makeup free girls, the older one, at least sixteen, extravagantly overdressed, advising her younger companion from her copious notes. Students, I thought. How wise, how even brilliant of their teacher to have sent them…
By Michall Jeffers Jan Maxwell is what’s known as “An Actor’s Actor;” there just doesn’t seem to be anything she can’t do. The City of Conversation revolves around her; she’s on stage nearly the whole time, and every scene concerns her character, Hester Ferris, in one way or another. Hester is the Hostess with the…
Eileen Rivera_Hubert Point Du-Jour photos by Paula Court by EUGENE PAUL There’s a grungy someone lying supine at the edge of the stage, nose in the air, ankles crossed, at ease in John McDermott’s vigorously suggestive, multileveled setting , suggestive of what, we are wondering until we are brought up short by the…
Carol Schultz as Mrs. Malaprop and Jessica Love as Lydia Languish photo by Al Foote III The Rivals by Eugene Paul There’s a persistent literary rumor that Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s perilously near fatuous hit play, The Rivals, was a particular favorite of George Washington’s. Yes, that George, “The Father of Our Country”. Doesn’t…
04/13/2014 A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity & Clean By: Eugene Paul Gavin Jon Wright and Joanna Tope in a scene from A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity (Photo credit: Jeremy Abrahams) Please allow me to give you the full title of the first of the two plays of the evening: A Respectable Widow Takes…
03/23/2014 Satchmo at the Waldorf By: Deirdre Donovan John Douglas Thompson as Louis Armstrong in a scene from Satchmo at the Waldorf (Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson) Terry Teachout is changing hats from theater critic to playwright with his one-man play Satchmo at the Waldorf which stars John Douglas Thompson as the jazz legend. Both…