“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…
In October 1970, on his fourth attempt to smuggle hashish from Turkey to the United States, “the blond hippie” Billy Hayes was apprehended and remanded to Sağmalcılar prison for a four year and two month sentence. Because of then President Nixon’s war on the smuggling of drugs into the United States and his pressure on countries like Turkey to stem…
Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage” is the epic examination of not only why marriages disintegrate but whether marriages are sustainable as a cultural institution. Director Ivo Van Hove’s reimagining of Bergman’s original screenplay – as did the television miniseries, the feature length movie, and prior stage versions – raises what are the essential questions about marriage, truly enduring questions…
Shipping ports worldwide are governed by rules of access: regulating who can dock and who cannot; who can ship to and from and who cannot; who has authority to enter and exit and who does not. Unlike those ports of call, the three men in Conor McPherson’s 2001 “Port Authority” have no control of their “ports.” These are men to…
Mario Correa’s “Tail! Spin!” was the breakout hit of the 2012 NY International Fringe Festival (Fastest-Selling Show in FringeNYC history) and the charmingly irreverent show has found its way into the Culture Project’s 2014 Season at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre. What TMZ is to celebrity gossip “Tail! Spin!” is to political gossip and it showcases a delightful romp through the…
The purpose of Theater Mitu’s documentary mythology piece is clear and certainly commendable. Addressing how Juarez, Mexico could have become “The Murder Capital of the World” and to rediscover director Ruben Polendo’s hometown, the company members “began traveling to Ciudad Juarez/El Paso, meeting with anyone who would sit down and talk to [them] to create a piece with and about…
Lauren Gunderson’s “Bauer,” currently playing at 59E59 as part of the 5A Series, transforms the rhythm, the form, the line, and the order of Rudolph Bauer’s life and work into sheer unbridled magic. The events of Bauer’s life – from his arrival in the United States in 1939 to his death in 1953 – are well known and accurately rehearsed…
The boys and girls in Dylan Coburn Gray’s extended prose-poem performance piece are Irish and their particular rant is about life and times in Dublin, which is a specific matrix of cultural fundamentals. Although “Boys and Girls” features four narratives (chapters), the speakers are identified only as A, B, C, and D and therefore these are universal stories that connect…
Something goes terribly wrong after the opening scene of “3Christs” the site-specific play about three delusional patients at a state psychiatric hospital each who believes he is the “one and only Christ.” As each of the three patients enters the stage constructed in the sanctuary of the Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan, each actor quickly defines his character with precision…
“If you act like you know what you are doing, people will believe you know what you are doing.” What do you call a nation-state that seeks prosperity for its citizens, encourages personal responsibility, prefers not to be dependent on other nation-states for its needs, and supports a deep and abiding faith in an all-powerful deity? The United States? England?…