dance nation
The beloved Rogers and Hammerstein “Carousel” has not often been revived on the Broadway stage since it first opened to critical acclaim in 1945, so this third incarnation, after a long hiatus since the highly successful production at Lincoln Center in 1994, will be welcomed by audiences who savor the familiar lavish score. Theater aficionados will be delighted by the…
There is something magnificent happening at Lincoln Center Theater, and it has to do with a powerful and intriguing woman, who has currently walked onto the stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, revealing that Eliza Doolittle has arrived in the twenty-first century, branding “My Fair Lady” as an old musical destined for a new era. The phenomenal revival directed by…
After seeing her estranged daughter’s “veiled suicide threat” on her “anonymous” blog, Beatriz (the irrepressible Daphne Rubin-Vega) drives her truck “like a bat out of hell” from California to Philadelphia to take her daughter Olivia (the deeply reflective Gizel Jiménez) on a seven-day road trip. After some mild mid-adolescent protestations, Olivia – sixteen – agrees to the trip hoping, perhaps,…
The members of the Gordon family have secrets they hope will never be disclosed, embarrassing facts or simply undisclosed facts that, if revealed, might have a detrimental impact on how they are perceived by other family members or by the community at large. These “skeletons in the closet” can be kept at bay and remain hidden knowingly – consciously –…
“I’m the kind of person who embarks on an endless leapfrog down the great moral issues. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. Forever. Endlessly.” – Tom Stoppard in an Interview with Mel Gussow about “The Real Inspector Hound,” “New York Times,” April 26, 1972 Apparently, Tom Stoppard practices what he preaches. The type…
In Tanya Shaffer’s and Vienna Teng’s “The Fourth Messenger,” currently playing at the New York Musical Festival at the Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row, the journey of protagonist Sid Arthur (Nancy Anderson) counterpoints the journey of Siddhārtha Gautama the Buddha of the current age. “Mama Sid” – as the world-renowned spiritual leader is addressed by her devotees – is holding forth…
Perhaps “Temple of the Souls,” the new musical being presented as part of NYMF, would be more powerful as an operetta, which would validate the melodrama afforded in this current production. It is yet another version of the ever-familiar love-struck youth from to different cultures, torn apart by their family and resulting in a tragic finale. Inspired by some truthful…
Following the inauguration of the forty-fifth President of the United States, not a day goes by without listening to Members of Congress – from both sides of the aisle – airing their points of view on all things Trump on national television. Among the chorus of regional dialects is the unmistakable Southern drawl with a twang that seems able to…
“Ain’t a man’s talkin’ big what makes him big-long as he makes folks believe it? [Sure], I talks large when I ain’t got nothin’ to back it up, but I ain’t talkin’ wild just [the] same. I knows I kin fool ’em—I knows it—and [that’s] backin’ enough [for] my game.” – Brutus Jones It is not easy to watch Eugene…
The 2017 Broadway revival of “Miss Saigon” raises rich and deep enduring questions. Based on Giacomo Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” the mammoth musical has enjoyed decades of success – as has Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s “Les Miserables.” Success aside, the questions remain: What is the “ultimate sacrifice” one human being can make for another? What are the moral parameters involved…