Theatre Reviews Limited

“spot on the wall” at the New York Musical Theatre Festival at Theater 3 (Closed Tuesday July 14, 2015)

July 8, 2015 | NY Musical Theatre | New York Musical Theatre Festival

“spot on the wall,” currently playing at Theater 3 as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, is a complicated, entangled love story utilizing art and mythology as metaphors. The book by Kevin Jaeger introduces themes including a love triangle, unfaithful marriage, struggling artists, and father/son antagonism that provide no perspicacity, resulting in feeble dialogue and idealistic situations. Mr….

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“This Is Mary Brown” at La MaMa (Closed Sunday June 28, 2015)

June 26, 2015 | big gay, Off-Broadway, she loves me | La Mama

Everything seems to be in place in Winsome Brown’s one woman tribute to her late mother Mary. Ms. Brown has gathered stories from her mother’s life, written a script which tells those stories from the points of view of a cast of fifteen characters (in addition to several Irish cousins), used more than the requisite number of rich tropes, and…

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“Cuddles” at 59E59 Theaters (Closed Sunday June 28, 2015)

June 25, 2015 | Off-Broadway, trapped | 59E59 Theaters

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose, And nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free.” Kris Kristofferson, “Me and Bobby Mcgee” Under the guise of a grippingly gory vampire story, Joseph Wilde’s “Cuddles” exposes more than throbbing veins. His sharp and witty (actually, it is) tale of two sisters living a symbiotic life in the elder’s home exposes…

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“My Perfect Mind” at 59E59 Theaters (Closed Sunday June 28, 2015)

June 25, 2015 | Off-Broadway | 59E59 Theaters

Who we are, who we were, who we think we are, who we think we were, who others think we are, and who others think we were is the stuff of the process of examining one’s practice – even the stuff of metacognition. Such thinking can be restorative or contemplative; however, often it results in a kind of restlessness that…

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“American Mill #2” at La MaMa (Closed June 27, 2016)

June 25, 2015 | Off-Broadway | La Mama

Based on the experience of child textile workers in industrial-era United States, Pioneers Go East Collective’s American Mill #2 is about as by-the-book as a postmodern theatre piece can be. Multimedia, song and movement, found text, and an ephemeral premise touch on all the conventions to which we’ve grown accustomed. PGEC shows their youth in American Mill #2 ; some…

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“Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait” at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre at the Gym at Judson (Closed Saturday June 27, 2015

June 23, 2015 | Off-Broadway | Gym at Judson, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

“Remember that feeling? Of endless energy?/Endless joy? Like when you’d have your/parents’ car late at night with your friends? All/the windows down? In the summer? Loud/music? Your hands on the wheel? Everything/felt so strong? So easy? So light?/Where is that?/Who feels that anymore?” – Mom to Smith Daniel Talbott has written one of the best surreal, kaleidoscopic fables about not…

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“For the Last Time” at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row (Closed Saturday June 20, 2015)

June 20, 2015 | Off-Broadway | Clurman Theatre, Theatre Row

When Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “The Marble Faun” (his last novel), he was concerned about themes that recur in his previous novels. Are there any benefits extant in human suffering? What happens when humans fall into sin? Does guilt result in changes in one’s identity? This last novel also includes Hawthorne’s interest in how prolonged exposure to a foreign culture exacerbates…

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“The Spoils” at the New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center (Closed Sunday June 28, 2015)

June 8, 2015 | last stand city center, Off-Broadway | Pershing Square Signature Center, The New Group

Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Spoils,” currently running at the New Group, is the “This Is Our Youth” for the twenty-first century millennial generation and captures the angst of this generation with gripping honesty and often disturbing realism. The complicated dynamics between the protagonist Ben (Jesse Eisenberg), his Nepalese roommate Kalyan (played with a charming innocence by Kunal Nayyar), Kalyan’s girlfriend Reshma…

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“Nice Girl” at the Labyrinth Theatre Company at Bank Street Theater (Closed Sunday June 21, 2015)

June 8, 2015 | Off-Broadway, the prom | Labyrinth Theatre

What is a nice girl to do when her grieving mother insists she keep the promise made to her now deceased father that she would return home from her freshman year of college after the funeral to care for her mother? If the young woman were nineteen it might seem a reasonable and necessary – although temporary – decision: suspend…

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“The Assistant” Presented by Six Part Productions at the Treehouse Theatre (Closed Sunday May 31, 2015)

May 31, 2015 | a delicate, delicate balance, house that will, Off-Broadway, she loves me, the house | Six Part Productions

“The Human Brain is such a fu** up” says Craig, praising the elegance of a computer and lamenting his learning-disabled daughter. It’s a sad, if vexingly relevant, notion that fits right at home in “The Assistant, “written by Ashley Minihan. (The Sunrise Side, Remission) A show about the future, family, and faulty-wiring, her play is a beautifully delicate balance of…

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