There are times during Harvey Fierstein’s performance in his “Bella Bella,” currently playing at Manhattan Theatre Club’s New York City Center Stage I, that the audience is convinced – sans dress, sans hat, sans props – that he is the iconic social activist “Battling Bella.” When Mr. Fierstein channels Bella’s admonitions about the “voice of the people” superseding the importance…
The one and probably only thing you may be sure of when you leave the Cort Theatre after viewing the recent production of “Derren Brown: Secret” is that Mr. Brown is a very likable and convincing fellow, along with being a wonderful entertainer. He assures you that he cannot read your mind, that there is nothing contrived and there are…
By agreeing to carefully examine the sex-role stereotypes attributed to women, five disparate women named ‘Betty’ cautiously approach self-acceptance and self-understanding in Jen Silverman’s “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties” at MCC Theater’s Lucille Lortel Theatre. Their collective rage about their loneliness, their fears, their submission, and their dismissions by men is a welcomed examination of gender and sexual…
Members of the Primary Stages staff, prior to curtain, passed through the audience asking members to “select a button” based on who we thought would “win” the discordant discourse: Jefferson, Dickens, or Tolstoy – the three characters appearing in Scott Carters “Discord” currently running at Primary Stages. Further instructions included the option to change one’s mind after the play and…