At the beginning of “Job” which is currently running at the Helen Hayes Theater, Jane (a frenetic yet oddly focused Sydney Lemmon) enters Lloyd’s (a seemingly focused yet not fully at ease Peter Friedman) office holding a gun, confident she knows “who he is.” Although she then briefly experiences some temporary doubt about her well-researched hypothesis, she is willing to…
Twenty-one-year-old Sally Poppy (a powerful yet broken Haley Wong) is convicted of murdering young Alice Wax and sentenced to hang in March of 1759 on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk, in England. Sally claims she is pregnant and if that is true, she cannot be hanged. To determine the truth of Sally’s claim, the Justice “calls for a jury…
Dave Malloy’s “Three Houses currently running at Signature Theatre’s Linney Theater is a retelling/interpretation of the classic fairy tales “The Three Little Pigs” and “Red Riding Hood” (among other cautionary folklore narratives) in which The Big Bad Wolf appears. Stand-ins for Little Red Riding Hood and those Three Little Pigs are Susan (a manic and hedonistic Margo Seibert), Sadie (a…
When does “life” begin? Depending upon one’s religious beliefs, or scientific beliefs, or social media threads, the answer to the question is different. Does “life” begin at conception; in utero; at birth; in childhood; in adolescence; in old age; in death; or after death? Seen through the eyes of his older self in “Water for Elephants” (currently on at the…
Adapted by Eddie Izzard’s sibling Mark Izzard, this “Hamlet” is among the best “Hamlets” on stage, screen, or stream. From the first scene of the iconic tragedy on the battlements of the royal castle at Elsinore when Marcellus relieves Francisco from his watch and where he, Horatio, and Bernardo encounter the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, to the closing scene where…
As patrons enter the performance of Jordan Seavey’s “The Seven Year Disappear” at The Pershing Square Signature Center, they see Miriam (Cynthia Nixon) sitting across from her thirty-something son Naphtali (Taylor Trensch). The two are motionless and intently staring at one another in the style of Yugoslav performance artist Marina Abramović facing off with a MoMA patron in the famed…
Asaf and the members of the audience are the unwitting protagonists of Itamar Moses’s “The Ally” which is currently running at the Public’s Anspacher Theater. Asaf Sternheim (a well-meaning but uncommitted Josh Radnor) is Jewish, a writer, and an adjunct professor of writing at a prestigious American University in a struggling American city where his Korean American wife Gwen Kim…
Microsoft’s Text to Speech Voice read’s Mona Pirnot’s script aloud (scored with sequences of punctuation to create pauses and silences) as the playwright sits with her back to the audience at a small desk adorned by her laptop and a small lamp. Pirnot’s non-fictional narrative is the personal yet “Everyman” story of loneliness, love, loss, death, bereavement, acceptance, confession, forgiveness,…
The time “Jonah,” currently running at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre, takes place is described in the program as “The past and the present. But everything is slippery.” ‘Slippery’ is the operative word here. Everything is slippery in “Jonah” in addition to the time: the series of bedrooms in Wilson Chin’s cerebral and surreal design; the changeability and moodiness…
Award-winning Malaysian director and performer, Shafeeq Shajahan, invites you to “Satyam Shivam Sundaram”, a cabaret odyssey that peels back the layers of his queer, Muslim heritage. Presented at the Soho Theatre, the show is part of Soho Rising, a celebration of new work created by comedians, writers and performers who have taken part in the Soho Theatre’s Lab programmes. An…