“And the wheel goes round and round./And the flame in our souls will never burn out./And the wheel, and the wheel goes round.” – Rosanne Cash, “Wheel” Under the brooding branches that overarch Derek McLane’s visually stunning set that “goes round,” Julie’s (played with sumptuous death-dodging life by Grace Van Patten) life coalesces into a gripping surreal reality in Hamish…
Under the ruse of “receiving consent” from a minor, pedophile Joe (played with a remorseless arrogance by Joe Tippett) plays out an erotic asphyxiation fantasy with fourteen-year-old Jenny (played with a delusional naiveté by Abigale Breslin) in the basement of his suburban South Carolina home after “abducting” her from her home earlier. It does not matter whether Jenny got into…
The New Group has announced that two-time Tony Award winner Matthew Broderick joins Wallace Shawn’s Evening at the Talk House, with, as previously announced, Jill Eikenberry, John Epperson, Larry Pine, Wallace Shawn, Claudia Shear, Annapurna Sriram and Michael Tucker, representing full casting for this U.S. premiere directed by Scott Elliott. Previews for Evening at the Talk House begin January 31 in advance of an Official Opening Night on February 16 at The Pershing Square Signature Center (The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, 480 West…
Although it is difficult to experience a musical like “Sweet Charity” without comparing the current production at the New Group with previous productions, that is the only fair way to be critical of the current incarnation of that iconic work done by Neil Simon, Cy Coleman, and Dorothy Fields. “Sweet Charity” at the New Group at the Pershing Square Signature…
“Yesterday today next summer tomorrow just uh moment uhgoh in 1317 dieded thuh last black man in thuh whole entire world. Uh! Oh. Dont be uhlarmed. Do not be afeared. It was painless. Uh painless passin. He falls twenty-three floors to his death. 23 floors from uh passin ship from space tuh splat on thuh pavement. He have uh head…
It is with sadness that Signature Theatre announces its Founder James Houghton passed away at his home in Manhattan on August 2, 2016 after a two year battle with stomach cancer. He was 57 years old. Under James Houghton’s leadership as Founding Artistic Director, Signature Theatre became one of the country’s preeminent theatre companies. Signature was the first company to…
When a play is about something more than boy meets girl or boy meets boy, (or boy becomes girl) it can be an inspiring, even cathartic experience. This week, for example, I saw a show that is theoretically about suffering, but it is funny and touching and relatable. Oh, did I mention that it is also about not talking? I…
“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.” ― Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World”…
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned.” (W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming’) In Terry Johnson’s “Insignificance,” currently running in Room 505 at “Langham Place” in New York City (the first staging…
No matter how diligently humankind attempts to “reap angels,” the presumed effects of “The Fall” not only carry forward into the present but subvert any attempt for a successful journey “on to perfection” (John Wesley). “Angel Reapers” – currently running at the Pershing Square Signature Center – is a theological and psychological tour de force that exposes the underbelly of…