Riccardo Hernandez

Broadway Review: “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” at the Broadhurst Theatre

“Pretend that we’re the only two people in the entire world, that’s what I’m doing, and it all falls into place.” – Johnny to Frankie Moonlight – the kind of light that shines into Frankie’s (Audra McDonald) apartment window at night – provides the best light for pretending. The kind of pretending that has the chance of making an incursion…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Light Shining in Buckinghamshire” Muses Successfully on Revolution at New York Theatre Workshop

In an October 17, 2015 “New York Post” article, Michael Goodwin raises the rich, albeit uncomfortable, proposition of James Piereson in his July 2015 book “Shattered Consensus: The Rise and Decline of America’s Postwar Political Order;” namely, “America is due for a revolution.” In the “Post” article, Mr. Goodwin summarizes Mr. Pierson’s argument thusly: “there is an inevitable “revolution” coming…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Mlima’s Tale” at the Public’s Martinson Hall

“I’m Mlima of the Great Plains. Eldest of my clan. I was tracked for many days, taken by a poison arrow. Why are there so many of you?! Mumbi? Koko? Do you hear me?” Mighty Mlima, “Kenya’s most famous elephant,” – the old, large elephant “with extraordinary tusks” – is murdered for those tusks by the Somali poachers Raman and…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Miss You Like Hell” Redefines Redemption at the Public’s Newman Theater

After seeing her estranged daughter’s “veiled suicide threat” on her “anonymous” blog, Beatriz (the irrepressible Daphne Rubin-Vega) drives her truck “like a bat out of hell” from California to Philadelphia to take her daughter Olivia (the deeply reflective Gizel Jiménez) on a seven-day road trip. After some mild mid-adolescent protestations, Olivia – sixteen – agrees to the trip hoping, perhaps,…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Admissions” Dissects Belief Systems at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

When a speaker raises alternate views of a significant problem and seems at one point to take “one side” and then “the other side,” and then advocates for the purity of moral ambiguity – presenting profound rhetorical arguments for each of those points of view – the audience is left bombarded by what seems like conflicting ethos, pathos, and logos…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train at The Pershing Square Signature Center’s Irene Diamond Stage

The value of enduring questions is that they are not specific to a time or place or event. Theatre should be raising enduring questions and conflicts that playwrights (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago and remain relevant today. Stephen Adly Guirgis raises several such questions in the revival of his play “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train,” currently…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Oedipus El Rey” Creates Mythos at The Public’s Shiva Theatre

“No one should be considered fortunate until dead.” – Greek Maxim The fifth century B.C.E. is not the present-day Los Angeles borderlands: although the bones of Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus Rex” engaged the citizenry of Athens, urban America needs a Phoenix-like rebirth and retelling of the ancient tale to affect an authentic catharsis. Luis Alfaro’s “Oedipus El Rey,” currently running at…

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Broadway Review: “Indecent” Shatters the Comfort of Safety at the Cort Theatre

Created by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, “Indecent” could not have opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre at a more auspicious time. During an increasingly frenzied discussion about what is and what is not decent in contemporary American society and culture, this remarkable and stunning play – based on true events surrounding the 1923 Broadway debut of Sholem Asch’s…

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