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…
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…
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…
Stephen McKinley Henderson in Between Riverside and Crazy. Photo by Joan Marcus Between Riverside and Crazy By David Schultz Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis must be grinning like The Cheshire Cat. First staged almost ten years ago at The Atlantic Theater in Chelsea, followed by a move uptown to The Second Stage in 2015,…
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…
Nancy Robinette, Daniel Oreskes, Richard Masur, Ari Brand, Ethan Haberfield (Photo: Jeremy Daniels) Prayer for the French Republic By David Schultz Complex generational stories are a dime a dozen. Prayer for the French Republic, penned by Joshua Harmon (Significant Other, Bad Jews), is the exception. This play, currently running at Manhattan Theatre Club s Friedman…
Jeremy Pope and Paul Bettany in The Collaboration. Photo by Jeremy Daniel The Collaboration By Julia Polinsky Anthony McCarten’s The Collaboration, as directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah at the Old Vic in London, has been beautifully transferred to the Manhattan Theatre Club. Interesting, eye-filling, and talky, The Collaboration presents the manipulated collaboration and unexpected…