Following in the footsteps of Maureen Stapleton in the original and first revival and Mercedes Ruehl featured in the second revival on Broadway comes Marisa Tomei as Serafina Delle Rose in the current production of “The Rose Tattoo” at Roundabout American Airlines Theatre. This rare tragic comedy by Tennessee Williams about a heartbroken, widowed, Italian American who shuts herself off…
Since its premiere at The Public in 1976 and its subsequent transfer to Broadway later that year, much has happened to continue to impact the lives of the women of color celebrated by Ntozake Shange in her choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf” currently running at The Public Theater’s Martinson Hall. In this incarnation,…
Three Gen Y Conservative Christians gather at Justin’s (a thoughtful and broken Jeb Kraeger) backyard in Lander, Wyoming to celebrate Generation X Gina’s (a confident and willful Michelle Pawk) inauguration as president of Transfiguration College of Wyoming. These “heroes” are preparing for a battle of Armageddon-like proportions. They do not simply disagree with those infidels on the left: they despise…
The sharp and witty dialogue of the latest dramedy penned by playwright Tracy Letts is foreshadowed by the title “Linda Vista” which means “pretty view” in Spanish. The midlife crisis of a bitter fifty-year-old, divorced, white male, who seems to have an insatiable libido and absolutely no respect for women – preferring to exhibit his unbridled male testosterone – is…
When couples have conversations about aging and approaching the end of their lives, generic yet fundamental questions arise. “What happens if I die before you? “Do you think you will die before I do? What am I going to do without you? “How will I live without you? “Is there anything you want to tell me before one of us…
As a result of playwright Mfoniso Udofia’s profound interest in the African Diaspora, perhaps no fictional couple in the recent history of Off-Broadway theatre have had their histories more parsed than Nsikan Disciple Ufot and his wife Abasiama Ekpeyong Ufot. “runboyrun” and “In Old Age,” currently running at New York Theatre Workshop, are the third and eighth plays in Mfoniso…
The nature-nurture psychological debate and the predestined-free will theological debate collide in Bess Wohl’s “Make Believe” currently running at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater, resulting in the brave and somewhat disturbing exploration of the blurred boundaries between what is perceived to be real life and what is perceived to be make-believe. The playwright raises several enduring questions, including whether there…
Last season, two off-Broadway plays – “Daddy” and “Slave Play” (both by Jeremy O. Harris) – highlighted significant issues about the self-identity of young black gay and queer men and raised rich and enduring questions about the role of family, friends, culture, and “indifferent yet fetishizing white gays” in that process of discovery. This season, Michael R. Jackson’s original musical…
With renewed concerns about an escalation of conflict in Iraq and the possibility of a new war initiative there, one would tend to believe that the revival of Christopher Shinn’s “Dying City,” currently playing at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater, would provide new insights into the earlier Iraq War and its effects on the soldiers who served here and on…
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts in Dave Malloy’s a cappela musical “Octet” currently playing in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center. A group of eight “addicts” meets regularly (summoned by the mysterious Saul) to share the dynamics of their various addictions, hoping to achieve the recovery attainable through the support…