Review by Julia Polinsky Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt weaves a tale of family, place, time, and identity. The family is Jewish, the place Vienna, the time surrounds the Holocaust, and the question of identity is answered with a very hard kick. Leopoldstadt’s five acts, which occur in 1899, 1900, 1924, 1938 and 1955, take place in…
Review by Julia Polinsky Cost of Living switches back and forth in time and place, interleaving the stories of two couples, with a prologue out of chronological order (Jo Bonney’s seamless direction helps hugely). Both couples consist of a caregiver and “differently-abled” partner in a wheelchair; blue-collar Eddie (David Zayas) and his estranged wife Ani,…
The Roundabout Theatre Company’s 1776 cast. (Photo: Joan Marcus) 1776 By Fern Siegel The Broadway musical 1776, which chronicles the founding of the United States, opens with 10 pairs of shoes on an empty stage. And as the cast enters – female, nonbinary and trans – they step into history. When it first debuted in…
Francesca Carpanini,Austin Pendleton, Angelina Fiordellisi, Uly Schlesinger Photo by Emilio Madrid This Beautiful Future By Marc Miller This Beautiful Future could have been sweet. A World War II love story, and how many of those do we get anymore, where the nice young couple overcome cultural differences, grope toward greater understanding, and point their lives…
Between the Lines Review by Julia Polinsky “Enchanting” is not too strong a word to describe Between the Lines — especially since our heroine takes refuge in books from her overwhelmed, workaholic mother, her absent, detached father, and the general dreariness of life, and in this case, by reading and re-reading a children’s story. Based on a…
Nicholas Barasch (center). (Carol Rosegg) Francie Brady is an energetic, but ballistic teenager with a seemingly cheeky disposition. But behind the red hair and sparkling eyes lurks a troubled boy who claims: “They were all after me on account of what I done on Mrs. Nugent.” The Butcher Boy, a musical now at the Irish…
Anastasia Hille in Oresteia, Park Avenue Armory, 2022 Photo: Joan Marcus Oresteia By Deirdre Donovan Aeschylus’ Oresteia is the kind of work that makes most directors go weak in the knees. Not Robert Ickes. British writer-director Ickes has grabbed the bull by the horns and astonishingly reworked the tragic trilogy for contemporary sensibilities. His Oresteia, currently running in repertory with Hamlet at the Park Avenue Armory, is not only a successful realization of the…
The ensemble cast confronts danger in Into the Woods. (Matthew Murphy) Into the Woods By Fern Siegel “Are you certain what you wish is what you want?” asks the Baker in Stephen Sondheim’s masterwork Into the Woods. The interlocking stories of fairy-tale characters offering a treasure trove of psychological insights has its latest Broadway revival…
Jonathan Hadary, C.J. Wilson, Heather Burns, Marylouise Burke and Omar Metwally star in Brian Watkins’ Epiphany. (Jeremy Daniel) Epiphany By Fern Siegel There are epiphanies and the Epiphany. One is a sudden realization of the essential meaning of an idea or event. The other is an often-forgotten holiday celebrated on Jan. 6 that…
Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jessica Hecht in The Orchard at the Baryshnikov Arts Center Photo: Maria Baranova The Orchard A Review by Deirdre Donovan Robots rule in The Orchard, the fascinating new adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC). This new take on Chekhov’s masterpiece has the quality of soulfulness, not to mention a superb performance by Mikhail Baryshnikov as the old servant Firs….