“And anyway–it is an excellent time to be gay. I sorta like gay people better!” (Emily to Ben) If Emily (Jenna Gavigan) has her bioinformatics grad student finger on the national pulse when it comes to discerning whether the LGBT community has reached mainstream status, then it is a mystery why her boyfriend Ben (Jake Epstein) of four years has…
If the cacophony on stage during the Vineyard Theatre’s “Dot” even remotely characterizes the “noise” inside Dotty’s head, it is easy to understand the severity of her Alzheimer’s disease and just how far it has progressed. Colman Domingo’s new play tackles the horrific details of one family’s struggle to cope with the deterioration of their mother and how her mental…
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…
“The world is accident prone, no use attempting correction. After all, the loss of one fool makes room for another.” – Mme. Le Mode In the 1980s, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC is dedicated and Americans are ready to put the Vietnam War behind them. Interest rates reach an all-time high and Americans cash in on high-yielding Certificates…
Once upon a time there was a couple who, while vacationing in Vegas, decide to get married in the Little White Wedding Chapel. When they return home to Manhattan, Michael (played with a powerful vulnerability by Johnny Wu) assumes he will be able to move in to his new wife Sonya’s (played with the charming mix of feisty aggressiveness with…
“Communism, like General Motors, is people.” The above is an important reminder shared by a psychology professor to this reviewer many years ago. A reminder that people should always be more important than politics or social, political, and economic ideologies. Unfortunately, that truth seems difficult for humankind to grasp or achieve globally. After the Holocaust, humanity vowed to never let…
“Tuesdays that’s that. I spend the day there doing this and that dusting and all sorts. I shake out the tablecloth. I change the sheets. I empty the bin.” Pauline in “Tuesdays at Tesco’s” The only thing that interrupts the samsara of Pauline’s (Simon Callow) hum-drum life is the string of dream ballets that spontaneously burst forth from the piano…
Transgender themed movies far outnumber transgender themed plays: “In a Year of 13 Moons” (1978); “Paris Is Burning” (1990); “Ma vie en rose” (1997); “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999); and “Transamerica” (2005) all have raised the consciousness about transgender women and men who not only struggle with the important issue of sexual status and gender reassignment surgery but also battle fear,…
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” – Ecclesiastes 3:1 It seems everything in Cori Thomas’s “When January Feels Like Summer” is out of synch, out of time, somehow oddly akilter and often akimbo. The weather is not seasonal. Relationships are not functioning within desired limits. Gender shakes itself out of traditional…
Laryssa Husiak’s “She is King,” currently running at Incubator Arts Project at St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery, is a heartfelt and emotionally compelling tribute to the life and spirit of tennis superstar and innovator Billie Jean King. Ms. Husiak, who also portrays Billie Jean King, provides a sensitive and authentic depiction of the tennis star’s passion for gender equality, the importance of…