Deanna Dunagan & Peter Friedman photos by Joan Marcus By Eugene Paul Startlingly accomplished new playwright Max Posner is having his long gestated, lovingly autobiographical first major play being hijacked by the brilliant performance of Deanna Dunagan as his captivating grandmother sliding into dementia.That he as well as we lose sight of the…
Liza Colón-Zayas and Carrie Coon photos by Joan Marcus By Ron Cohen Be prepared to have your emotions shredded. Amy Herzog’s Mary Jane quietly pulls you into the life of its title character, a single mother caring for her chronically ill child, and never lets you go. And Herzog does this without any…
ALEC LEYZER BURKO, GERA SANDLER Photos: Pedro Hernandez By Eugene Paul The New Yiddish Rep returns after Moshe Yassur’s distinguished production in Yiddish there of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman with his earnest, underfed staging of Eugene Ionesco’s indigestible Rhinoceros, whose Yiddish translation – there are the necessary crutch of titles –…
By Ron Cohen The story’s a little muddy, but director John Doyle and company still fill this trip to Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden with lots of happy sightseeing. Oscar- and Tony-winner Ellen Burstyn sits quietly on stage, atop a wardrobe trunk, a big book on her lap – presumably the collected works of…
Photo credit Edward Medina by Edward Medina Some believe that “the oldest profession” is an idiom that conjures up mental images of brothels and clandestine encounters. Others believe that the expression goes back further in time. It harkens back to the time when we as hominids gathered around the fire and told stories…
By Eugene Paul Playwright Dan McCormick is having a valuable production of his play, The Violin, under splendidly sympathetic direction by Joseph Discher in an uncommonly atmospheric setting by Harry Feiner. Giovanni’s Tailor Shop. You can’t take your eyes off Gio’s musty, cluttered old tailor shop. Illuminating designer Harry Feiner has made…
Mark Shanahan (Walt Disney) and Stephen D’Ambrose (Igor Stravinsky)I Photo by Carol Rosegg By Eugene Paul Theater going is a joy unto itself, ramified by the thread of “Is this the one?” constantly running behind every visit even as each theater work has its separate world of creativity displayed for us to weigh,…
Kathleen Chalfant (© Joan Marcus) By Edward Medina No amount of pixie dust can make this emotionally laden Peter Pan take flight. Two time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award nominee author Sarah Ruhl wrote For Peter Pan as a gift to her actress mother Kathleen Kehoe Ruhl who, in real life, joyously played…
By Ron Cohen The leading character is named Hester, she is a single mom, and she does tote the letter “A” on her persona. Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A was, as the playwright has frequently said, inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s mid-19th Century novel, The Scarlet Letter. But beyond these salient facts, the play bears…
C.J. Wilson and Mary McCann star in Simon Stephens’s On the Shore of the Wide World, directed by Neil Pepe, at Atlantic Theater Company. (© Ahron R. Foster) By Ron Cohen “it’s really difficult, isn’t it?… Just, the whole business of, you know, being alive. Very complicated,” says a loquacious cab driver toward the close…