Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Winners makes me yearn for my years of reviewing psychotic performance art in meat lockers. Those days were horrific, to be sure, but at least ritalin-deprived cacophonies have the potential to evoke some sort of reaction. Maggie Bofill’s new play not quite thoughtful, not quite comedic, but something wedged woefully in between. Something of a manic artsy…
There is a special kind of merriment in a mystery play, and no, I’m not talking about Medieval liturgical drama. A mystery play lives and dies by the intensifying of suspense, the genius of its plot, and the brilliance of its characters always being ever-so-enjoyably one step ahead (or behind) the rest of us. The theatrical equivalent of Sudoku, it’s…
Despite every possible obstacle – including a dispassionate and disinterested father and growing up in an oppressive and homophobic environment – Sam Harris has maintained an astonishing professional career in music, television, stage, and screen. His recent book “Ham: Slices of a Life” chronicles that story of success and is the subject of Mr. Harris’s current “Ham: A Musical Memoir”…
Ayad Akhtar’s “The Invisible Hand” currently playing at the New York Theatre Workshop is an intelligent, emotionally charged, and captivating exploration of the complex dynamics of self-interest in a globally codependent environment. Under Ken Rus Schmoll’s electric direction, the ensemble cast leads – sometimes propels – the audience through a series of “ah-ha” moments which culminate in the kind of…
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 has been “Acoustic Kitty” and “Project Pigeon” in the CIA’s arsenal of operations. Marc Rogers’s “Asymmetric” currently running at 59E59 Theater C adds another: the rather oddly named “Icarus Drone” operation. Mr. Rogers’s tasty espionage drama centers on retired agent Josh (Sean Williams) using his interrogation skills to discover to whom the fifth floor mole has been leaking information…
“You would not see. I can’t get beyond these hands. I jam in the fingers. I break on the bone. I am lonely. I mean, oh, no, not exactly lonely, not really. That’s a little strong, actually.” (Ozzie to David) As soon as Rick (Raviv Ullman) enters his family’s house in David Rabe’s “Sticks and Bones,” the audience knows it…
Most of us (at least the Everyman in most of us) get through life by continuing to put one foot in front of the other day in and day out despite life’s often unseemly vicissitudes. This works until we encounter some “road block” and often that road block can be the fast-paced life, one of those “roads not taken” that…
Rural green forest swallows the set of “Pitbulls,” the most recent installment from veteran playwright Keith Josef Adkins. Though overwhelming at first glance, the lush stage proves a fitting frame for this gothic tale of love and violence. Mary, a modern-day witch survives in the forest by brewing wine with her son Dipper. When the mayor’s prize-fighting pitbull is killed,…
Under St. Mark’s Theatre looks like a Eurotrash sex dungeon. Not that that’s a particularly bad thing, but I didn’t expect it to house one of the sweetest shows I’ve seen since “Peter and The Starcatcher.” In the first scene, a gruff, drunk (and preposterously attractive) homeless man gives a frantic dancer his jar of coins so she can make…