Tuesday, June 14, 2016
RADIANT THEATER In Philip Ridley’s brilliant black satire Radiant Vermin, a seemingly nice, average twenty-something couple with an infant, tells us of the horrible things they did to get …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:15AMWednesday, June 8, 2016
A BRILLIANT TRIFLE Watching members of the Stephen Joseph Theatre perform Alan Ayckbourn’s Confusions under the playwright’s helmsmanship, I found myself mentally comparing the troupe to…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:33PMTuesday, May 10, 2016
MINDING THE BODY When the lights come up on Body: Anatomies of Being, the nine cast members walk out and stand at the foot of the stage facing the audience, all of them naked save one, who i…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:41PMSunday, May 1, 2016
WILLIAMS ASCENDING Irene Glezos delivers a lovely, stirring performance as Lady in Austin Pendleton’s staging of Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece Orpheus Descending. A force of nature, La…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:52PMMonday, March 28, 2016
THE EFFECT OF GREAT THEATER In Lucy Prebble’s captivating two-act, The Effect, crisply directed by David Cromer, 20-somethings Connie (Susannah Flood) and Tristan (Carter Hudson) meet as t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:36PMMonday, March 14, 2016
ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam’s remarkable new play The Humans begins with Erik Blake (the excellent Reed Birney) standing on the upper level of a shabby, half-dark basement/ground-floor ten…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:33PMSunday, March 13, 2016
LET’S GET PHYSICS ALL For parents who recall Professor Julius Sumner Miller’s television programs with nostalgia, who wish the Science Channel had more science shows, and for whom qu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:07PMPHONY PONY TALE There exists a type of small theater production in which a lack of resources—material ones and, sometimes, those less tangible—is made up for by the show’s intimacy an…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:07PMThursday, February 18, 2016
BURIED BETWEEN THE LINES In Scott Elliott’s surefooted staging of Sam Shepard’s imperfect Buried Child, watching Ed Harris sitting on a raggedy couch under an old blanket in front of a l…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:36AMTuesday, February 2, 2016
HE AND SHE AND ME The performers’ abundant charm can’t overcome the script’s shortcoming in I and You, Lauren Gunderson’s tedious comedic drama about two high schoolers attempting a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:10PMMonday, December 21, 2015
A MAIL-ORDER BRIDE I guess it’s my own fault, but when I read about The Golden Bride, a Yiddish operetta from 1923 that was lost in the 40s, found in the 80s, and is now enjoying its firs…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:58PMWednesday, December 9, 2015
OUR CHRISTMAS TOWN Under Dan Wackerman’s superb direction, Peccadillo Theater Company’s A Wilder Christmas, comprised of two Thornton Wilder one-acts—The Long Christmas Dinner and Pull…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:05AMMonday, November 30, 2015
OUR ANIMAL FELLOWS The always energized and entertaining Bedlam theater company opens their current season with New York Animals, Steven Sater’s musical play about New York City life in th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:26PMWednesday, November 25, 2015
NEITHER NORA Nora, Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, centers on its titular character, a beautiful young wife and mother, whose cozy life at her husband’s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:37PMWednesday, October 21, 2015
LOVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA Daphne Rubin-Vega delivers a riveting performance in Empanada Loca, a sinewy one-woman show written and directed by Aaron Mark. Inspired by the legend of Sweeney To…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:14PMA CERTAIN FUTURITY César Alvarez’s fascinating musical Futurity begins with Mr. Alvarez and Sammy Tunis taking the stage as themselves, greeting the audience, engaging in improvised ban…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:10PMMonday, September 28, 2015
ANTIGONE AND JULIETTE In Anne Carson’s crisp new translation of Sophkles’ Antigone, the great Juliette Binoche embodies the title character, a young woman who breaks the law under penalt…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PMHAM IN BED At the beginning of Hamlet in Bed, when its author and co-star Michael Laurence comes up to the standup microphone at the front of the stage, I can’t help wanting him to succee…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PMON GOLDEN PONDLING In her perfect little one-woman show Pondling, Genevieve Hulme-Beaman is captivating as Madeleine, a little girl who lives with her older brother on her grandfather’s fa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PMFriday, August 28, 2015
THROWN BY A LOOP I’m not partial to dramas set in prisons; these tend to be ugly, depressing, violent and hopeless, or worse—sentimental, and I find myself reluctant to be transported t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:01AMSunday, August 23, 2015
ALTRUISM OR ARTISTRY? Margaret’s Safe Place, “a boarding facility that houses the most vulnerable students of The Kibera School for Girls” in Kenya, sheltering girls from domestic sexu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:38PMFriday, July 24, 2015
MÉNAGE À TWADDLE At the conclusion of Yussef El Guindi’s new play Threesome it isn’t unreasonable to ask oneself the following question: What does the semi-comic attempt of three young…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:16AMMonday, July 13, 2015
TOOTHLESS RUTHLESS Though useful as a showcase for the capable performers and boasting some excellent singing, Joel Paley’s revival of his gray farce Ruthless!, a self-referential spoof o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:32PMMonday, June 22, 2015
SHADOW (OF A) PLAY Visually striking and radiating love and sincerity, Manual Cinema’s shadow-puppet show Ada/Ava, which attempts to explore septuagenarian Ada’s inner turmoil after th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:01PMTuesday, June 16, 2015
THEIR PERFECT MINDS Written by director Kathryn Hunter and performers Paul Hunter and Edward Petherbridge, My Perfect Mind begins with Dr. Witznagel (Mr. Hunter) coming out onto Michel Vale�…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:50PMThursday, June 11, 2015
GREAT DEPICTION OF WAR, BUT WHAT FOR? Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait, written and directed by Daniel Talbott, begins in near darkness with a Serbian Woman (Jelena Stupljanin) in a de…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:10PMTuesday, May 26, 2015
HOW SWEET THIS SOUND The standout theater company Elevator Repair Service (ERS), much acclaimed for their six-hour-plus show Gatz, among others, brings the first part of William Faulkner’s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:20PMThursday, May 21, 2015
EVERYTHING OLD COUNTRY FEELS NEW AGAIN In Mark Roberts’ delightful and moving play New Country, skillfully directed by David Harwell, 25-year-old country music star Justin is up to his usu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:34AMSunday, May 10, 2015
THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING In Lucia Cox’s play One Hand Clapping, which she adapts from the 1961 Anthony Burgess novel and brings as director to 59E59 Theaters as part of their Brits O…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:55PMFriday, May 1, 2015
ALBANIAN/AMERICAN STORYTELLING As my Albanian friend put it: “The legend of Doruntine is the very core around which the Albanians’ national code of morals is organized (say those who bel…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:24PMWednesday, April 15, 2015
FIRST CLASS Directed by Cosmin Chivu, the staged reading of Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s play Our Class at the Skirball Center is everything one would expect from such an enterprise when put to…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:34AM 
