Did You Eat?, the current offering from the Ma-Yi Theater Company’s residence at the Public Theater, belongs firmly in the realm of solo performances standing in for therapy, with an excellent performer but a difficult book. In Did You Eat?, Korean-American Zoë Kim, the playwright and performer, shepherds the audience through a lifetime – her…
Jamie Lloyd’s Broadway revival of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot finds Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter trading Bill and Ted’s comic banter for Beckett’s haunting silences. With Brandon J. Dirden and Michael Patrick Thornton rounding out the cast, Lloyd once again turns minimalism into a bold theatrical statement. Before parsing the current production, it’s worth…
The 2024 Sony Pictures release Saturday Night dramatizes, and I use the term loosely, the chaos and anarchy that preceded the launch of NBC’s Saturday Night (the Live didn’t happen till the second season) on October 11, 1975. While it illustrates the frantic tugs-of-war among cast members, producer Lorne Michaels, and the NBC brass, it…
At the turn of the 20th century, America grappled with its identity. Immigration, race, class and cries for social justice were challenging its promise as a refuge where all could succeed. That epic story is beautifully told in the musical Ragtime, based on E.L. Doctorow’s extraordinary novel about three families pursuing the American Dream. Now…
“This is what four thousand years old looks like when you moisturize!” So saith Holy Divine, one of the ancient three sisters in a rocking gospel-trio. And we’re off and running on another wild and wonderful Jordan E. Cooper adventure. You remember Cooper’s last mad caper called Aint No Mo’, don’t you, when the playwright,…
Performance: Extraordinary. Story: Heartbreaking. Production: Challenging. Firmly in the school of “solo performance acting with video projections of the actor,” Nothing Can Take You From The Hand Of God gives its star, Jen Tullock, who wrote the play with Frank Winters, a superb opportunity to display her acting chops. Which are significant. She’s superb. She…
There’s a 1940 movie, The Mortal Storm, wherein an average family in the German Alps is divided and undone by the rise of the Third Reich, with tragic results. Since these earnest young Germans are played by James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young, and Robert Stack, it’s a bit of a challenge to take at…
This Is Not A Drill, now at the York Theatre, offers a pleasant enough way to pass a couple of hours in the theater. If there are no surprises, then also there’s something to be said about smooth sailing and just enjoying the show. The story of This Is Not A Drill follows 3 tourist…
Punch, James Graham’s powerful new drama, is stunning Broadway audiences with an impact that lives up to its title. In short, it’s a knock-out. Known for his award-winning plays on an impressive variety of topics – This House (2012) on the British parliamentary history, Ink (2017) on the rise of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, and Dear…
“Once you see, you can’t feign blind.” The line is courtesy of Stalin’s daughter Svetlana, commenting on perception and reality. Played to perfection by Dani Stoller, she is one of several compelling characters in Jonathan Spector’s This Much I Know, now off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters. Spector, who won a Tony for “Eureka Day,” a satiric…