If Eugène Ionesco and Martin McDonagh watched The Maltese Falcon, they may very well have come up with something akin to Stolen Chair’s Kill Me Like You Mean It; but it wouldn’t be nearly as good as the comedic masterwork currently running at Fourth Street Theatre. When private eye Ben Farrell is hired to investigate a series of crimes seemingly…
My, the immersive theatre has come a long way. From its ‘haunted house’ origins, this creepy interactive genre spawned such cult classic as”Sleep No More” and its spooky successor “Then She Fell.” Writer/Director Ava Lee Scott has nudged the form further with ‘Serenade’ a haunting, Gothic musical inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The audience begins the show…
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Attributed to Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud’s iconic phrase might be an apt descriptor for David Ives’ “Lives of the Saints” currently running at Primary Stages at the Duke on 42nd Street. When Mr. Ives tackles the vicissitudes of the human condition (tackles the lives of the saints) as he does in the satisfying…
“I like to imagine him in that night,/A trial berserker/An orphan in the moonlight,/Walking, singing, patrolling the bins by the coastal path,/looking for a tribe to protect.” Claire in “The Events” Reportedly, Anders Breivik – the rightwing extremist who bombed a government building in Oslo, Norway in 2011 killing eight people then shooting sixty-nine more in a youth camp –…
“But what if I was? What if I was standing in the bathroom with my ear up to the door? What if I heard every word you said, what would you do? How would you feel? Would you be embarrassed?” – Jaclyn When a play asks rich, deep, and enduring questions – truly rich and deep and enduring questions –…
“I’m speaking of the journey of your soul.” Pope Augustine in “The Road to Damascus” It is easy to get trapped in the seductive Siren-like lure of reality when watching Tom Dulack’s “The Road to Damascus” currently running at 59E59 Theaters as part of its innovative and successful 5A Series of plays. The events of the play – a future…
You know you’re in for a treat at the theatre when one of the performers brings down the house by taking a single, stylized breath of air. Yes, the New York Times decreed that the veteran performance group Parallel Exit could get laughs ‘simply by breathing,’ and the capable comedians were quick to prove them right. Their new show Everybody…
A naked man, a disco ball, and a discourse on drunk moose sets the events of ‘Loveplay’ and it’s companion piece ‘Playmoney’ into motion. Written and performed (emceed, really) with loveable braggadocio by Sam Alper, the plays are a sequence of riffings on romance (Loveplay) and success. (Playmoney) With funky poetics, awkward vignettes, occasional improv and no fourth wall to…
‘You made me hate Syria! You made me hate my home!’ howls a wrathful Jameel. Haytham, a gentle, middle-aged man, sits bound and gagged in a claustrophobic apartment as Jameel inflicts atrocity after atrocity on his fragile body. It’s the grim ritual of history and violence now playing at Rattlestick Theatre. Playwright/Performer Laith Nakli spins a tale of suffering past…
“I have survived them all. If there were any left, they’d be too old and weak to stand trial today. My work is done,” said the real Simon Wiesenthal before he retired from his work as a Nazi Hunter in 2003. But the Wiesenthal given to us by writer/performer Tom Dugan is anything but satiated on the day of his…