Ohio State Murders By Julia Polinsky It must be said: Audra McDonald is a force of nature, and her performance in Ohio State Murders is wrenchingly, devastatingly sublime. Those are fighting words, perhaps, but it would be hard to find another single actor who could drive a play about race, murder, failure, and success, while…
Andrianna Hicks, (center, l) J. Harrison Ghee (center, right) (Photo: Matthew Murphy) Some Like It Hot By Fern Siegel The Billy Wilder’s 1959 movie classic “Some Like It Hot” remains the top comedy on the American Film Institute’s list. And for some cinema purists, turning it into a musical comedy on Broadway…
Eric Yang and Amy Kim Waschke. (Photo: Ahron R. Foster) The Far Country By Fern Siegel Immigration is a hot topic of debate. But the searing human cost is often lost in weaponizing it. Lloyd Suh’s The Far Country, now at the Atlantic Theater Company, reveals a tragic period in American history, the…
The Piano Lesson by Cammy Paglia Tony Award nominee Latanya Richardson Jackson makes her directorial debut in the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Piano Lesson, a masterpiece that not only tugs on your soul, it forces the mind to venture into the ugly truth which underlies the story of America’s shameful…
The Rat Trap By Marc Miller First, a bit of history. It’s 1918, and young Noel Coward is performing in other people’s plays while trying to write his own. Under these busy circumstances he concocts The Rat Trap, which, it is speculated, he conceives to star himself and his great friend, the celebrated young actress…
Victoria Clark plays the lead in the off-beat musical. (Joan Marcus) Kimberly Akimbo By Fern Siegel Sometimes the youngest person in the room is the wisest even if she is 16 and looks like a 72-year-old. That s the premise behind the Broadway musical Kimberly Akimbo, starring Victoria Clark as the smart, dry-humored New…
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Corey Hawkins in Topdog/Underdog. Photo: Marc J. Franklin Topdog/Underdog Review by Julia Polinsky Topdog/Underdog tells the story of two brothers — Black men — endlessly vacillating between contempt and admiration for each other; affection and anger; conflict and cooperation; who’s winning, who’s losing. Named for an American president and his assassin,…
Melanie Long in Angel of the Amazon Angel of the Amazon By Cammy Paglia Under the direction of Nancy Rhodes and musical direction by Elizabeth Hastings, composer-librettist Evan Mack’s Angel of the Amazon is an operatic portrayal of a devout soul who was assassinated for her convictions. Mack was inspired to write the work after…
(l-r) A.J. Shively and Jim Parsons (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) A Man of No Importance By Fern Siegel “You love who you love,” Alfie Byrne, a middle-aged bus conductor in 1963 Dublin explains to a friend. Alfie is making a philosophical statement, but quietly underscores the “love that dare not speak its name.” Yet in his…
By Cammy Paglia Belgian born actor Ronald Guttman takes on the daunting task of elucidating the inner workings of the complex mind of Nobel Prize winning philosopher, Albert Camus in the stage production of The Fall. Directed by Didier Flamand and adapted for the stage by Alexis Lloyd, tickets will give you entree to 70 minutes…