Oscar Wilde’s belief that “Life imitates art, more than art imitates life” was confirmed during the performance of Jill Campbell’s “Chemistry of Love” currently playing at the La MaMa First Floor Theatre. As the cast struggled on stage to make sense of Ms. Campbell’s script about the meaning of making art and how the making of art counterpoints with the…
Things fall apart (Chinua Achebe) and the center sometimes just does not hold (W. B. Yeats). For Hannah (Hannah Cabell) and David (Elliot Villar) the center fails when the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in 2007 sends David’s car into the river (almost drowning) and the so-called Global Financial Crisis of 2008 threatens Hannah’s position at her law…
“Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?” – Thomas Wolfe, “Look Homeward Angel” Being strangers in a strange land and being forever alone haunt the six intriguing characters in Elisabeth Gray’s “Southern Discomfort”…
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now from up and down and still somehow/ It’s cloud’s illusion I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all. I’ve looked at love from both sides now from give and take and still somehow/ It’s love’s illusion I recall I really don’t know love at all. I’ve looked at life from both…
Sometime success comes in simple packages. A successful new musical needs interesting characters; these characters need engaging conflicts; the action of the musical needs to take place in a variety of inviting settings; and, finally, the plot driven by the conflicts must feature important themes. Donna Moore’s “Cougar the Musical,” currently running at St. Luke’s Theatre in Manhattan, addresses all…
An overturned chair on an otherwise bare carpeted stage “speaks” volumes about the current status of the Seaview Hotel in Helensburgh Scotland. Upright that same chair and the audience is transported back in time to a flashback of epic proportions. Move the chair about the stage during the flashback and the scenes change disclosing a tryst between two persons, two…
It is difficult to identify the real antagonist in Penny Jackson’s new play “I Know What Boys Want” running at the WorkShop Theater through April 13. The conflicts are as numerous and entangled as the over-the-top tangle of cell phones dangling from the “ceiling” of the set. The main conflict which drives the predominant plot is between Vicky Walker (Sara…
Point of view percolates a delicious brew of intrigue in Anna Khaja’s “Shaheed: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto” playing at Culture Project at 45 Bleecker Street. Through the points of view of eight characters, Khaja’s engaging play focuses on the life and death of Benazir Bhutto and this literary device allows the audience member to have access to…
Surrealism collides with abstract expressionism in Eddie Elks “Botallack O’Clock” currently running at 59E59 Theater C as part of the “Brits Off-Broadway” Festival. Mr. Elks’ dramatic canvas reinvents and reimagines the brush strokes of Roger Hilton’s richly complex life and the result is performance art at its best. Eddie Elks’ palette includes paint pots full of real interviews with Hilton…
An important piece of theater aptly entitled “Hit the Wall” is consuming the small stage at The Barrow Street Theater in New York City’s West Village. Ike Holter’s new play examines the incidents which occurred at the birth of the gay movement at the nearby Stonewall Inn where riots erupted on the night of Judy Garland’s funeral on June 26th…