The Acting Company in association with The Guthrie Theater has delivered a trimmed and taut reinvention of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (“The Scottish Play”) to audiences at the Pearl Theatre in Manhattan as part of its current tour paired with Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” This ninety minute “Macbeth” delivers the Bard’s iconic tragedy compressed…
“Time it was /And what a time it was, it was/A time of innocence/A time of confidences/Long ago it must be/I have a photograph/Preserve your memories/They’re all that’s left you.” “Bookends” by Simon & Garfunkel The insidious sounds of “right now” that threaten to relegate the present to the past creep eerily into Hank’s Bar in Chicago in 1992. Hank…
“With a smirk on their face, they wait now in the silence/and that dark hole/there, in front of me.” – The Artiste in “Music Hall” Somewhere, someone is waiting backstage – or even on stage – to perform, to dance, to sing, or to tell a story to a gathered few sitting in the dark. Those gathered, for whatever reason,…
I recently had the opportunity to interview the cast of Jean-Luc Lagarce’s “MusicHall” currently running at 59E59 Theaters in Manhattan. “Music Hall” is a remarkable and important play with rich themes and a brilliant cast. The responses from each cast member follow the questions. Theatre Reviews Limited: Jean-Luc Lagarce’s script is often challenging and demanding for the audience. Do you…
What is a successful money manager to do after serving time in prison for the misappropriation of funds and finding he is bereft of family, friends, and home? The Speaker in Def Poet RJ Bartholomew’s “I of the Storm” faces that precise circumstance and chooses to come to terms with his homelessness by embracing it and “letting go.” This Speaker…
In his new two-part lecture “On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me as Her Young Lover,” Arthur Meek presents the indisputable and indefatigable premise that probable 2016 Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton requires a virile unsullied young lover and that the only candidate for that role is the lecturer himself. This imaginative and well-constructed riff just completed its…
The charming chamber musical “John & Jen” opened in 1995 at the Lamb’s Theatre and is enjoying its twentieth anniversary revival at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row. It is a musical montage of the lives of Jen Tracy (Kate Baldwin), her brother John (Conor Ryan) and Jen’s son John also played by Mr. Ryan and explores the sometimes complicated…
Everything you touch turns to gold. Everything you touch turns to dust. “Everything you touch surely dies.” (From the song “Let Her Go” by Passenger) “Everything You Touch” is a time warp and space warp marathon, pushing and pulling at the audience as it takes audience members on a roller-coaster ride through events in real time, through events in the…
Referencing the word “Abundance” in the dictionary, several meanings appear, including ‘an extremely plentiful or over sufficient quantity or supply,’ ‘overflowing fullness,’ and affluence or wealth,’ which all diligently support the aptly titled Beth Henley epic play. The current revival of this important work by TACT, now occupying the Beckett Theater, closely examines the plight of two brave, unrelated, young…
“When you’re poor like us sir … It’s the money, the money! If you haven’t got the money … I mean you can’t bring the likes of us into the world on decency. We’re flesh and blood. Our kind doesn’t get a chance in this world or the next. If we go to heaven they’ll put us to work on…