Exiles from Europe’s last true dictatorship, the Belarus Free Theatre delivers a knockout punch with its monumental “Trash Cuisine”, now onstage at La MaMa. An amorphous dedication to capital punishment under the guise of an international cooking program, the show gruesomely highlights socially sanctioned killing from around the globe. Leather straps, machetes, and bulk food items are brought ominously to…
Whether the audience member chooses to appreciate “It Shoulda Been You” as a delightful old fashioned musical with a solid score, a serviceable book, and an outstanding cast or chooses to explore the musical’s rich layers of plot, either way, the opportunity to experience David Hyde Pierce’s exemplary and creative staging of the new musical at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre…
“The Tailor of Inverness” is the compelling and often haunting story of playwright Matthew Zajac’s inexhaustible search for the truth about his father Mateusz’s past after discovering new information about him after his father’s death in 1992. This information is provided through a powerful and engaging performance by Matthew Zajac in this first offering of 59E59 Theaters’ “Brits Off Broadway”…
A welcomed case of the blues has landed in Manhattan at the new pop-up blues supper club currently residing at the iconic Don’t Tell Mama on Restaurant Row in midtown Manhattan. Under Ehud Asherie’s music direction, three of New York’s most distinguished blues and jazz singers croon and make the audience swoon with their rich blend of voices and superlative…
“Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.” Sigmund Freud, from “New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis,” 1932 There are soliloquies. There are asides. These are two dramatic conventions that allow the audience to know what an actor is thinking and feeling without the other actors on stage knowing….
Classic Stage Company’s “Hamlet” might just be the definitive “Hamlet” for the twenty-first century. Staged with shimmering creativity, the iconic Shakespearian tragedy bristles with a contemporary edge firmly rooted in tradition. The castle in Elsinore here is a swanky mansion with a designer dining table, bar, and contemporary seating areas. The platform, the room of state, Polonius’s house, the churchyard,…
“That isn’t me. (at J. M. Barrie) That’s him. He’s Peter Pan. (Barrie – perhaps only realizing this for the first time, too) He just has my name. And it’s the best present any boy was ever given, anywhere in the world.” (Peter Llewelyn Davies in “Finding Neverland”) For those who have never grown up and still indulge in imaginative…
“Danger! Danger! Warning! Warning!” – Robot in “Lost in Space” Lost in space, the Robinson family knew they had landed in a dangerous place. But danger is not found only in outer space: indeed, Earth itself is a dangerous place. The danger is sometimes closer than one thinks, lurking in the shadows, rustling in the closet at night, waiting under…
“Don’t worry. That cycle of violence you wannna break so badly? We didn’t enlist into it. We were born into it. Once you accept that, going won’t be so scary.” Lance Corporal Lynn Downey, “Soldier X”) After seeing Rehana Lew Mirza’s “Soldier X” at the HERE Arts Center, one wonders whether the playwright takes on too much, just enough, or…
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; /Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, /The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned; /The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” Rachel Corrie was a remarkable young woman who willingly traded the comfort and privilege of her…