All stories by Dmitry Zvonkov on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Broadway Theater Review: SIDE SHOW (St. James) by Dmitry Zvonkov

A TWIN/LOSE SITUATION Henry Krieger’s succulent score and the co-leads’ powerful, penetrating voices are among the few reasons to see Side Show, a dull bio-musical set in the first half …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:31AM
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: MAJOR BARBARA (The Pearl Theatre Company) by Dmitry Zvonkov

MAJOR TO MINOR The Pearl Theatre Company and Gingold Theatrical Group’s revival of George Bernard Shaw’s 1905 comedy Major Barbara feels like theater for people who go to shows for the …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:49PM
Sunday, November 9, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: POWERHOUSE (Sinking Ship Productions at New Ohio Theatre) by Dmitry Zvonkov

SINKING SHIP SAILS IN UNCHARTERED WATERS My favorite element in Powerhouse, a delightful new devised play created by director Jon Levin, writer Josh Luxenberg and the Sinking Ship Ensemble, …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:49PM
Thursday, November 6, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: STICKS AND BONES (The New Group) by Dmitry Zvonkov

BRAWL IN THE FAMILY Ozzie (Bill Pullman) and Harriet (Holly Hunter) are living out the American dream. They have a house, a car, a TV, and two sons: happy-go-lucky high-schooler Rick (Raviv …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:50PM
Friday, October 31, 2014

Los Angeles Theater Preview: THE OLD WOMAN (Mikhail Baryshnikov & Willem Dafoe at Royce Hall) by Dmitry Zvonkov

RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AS SURREAL BURLESQUE Delightful wouldn’t be a word I’d expect to use when describing a Robert Wilson show. But The Old Woman, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from an absur…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:05AM
Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: LIFT (Crossroads Theatre Company at 59E59 Theaters) by Dmitry Zvonkov

BETTER CROSS THIS OFF YOUR LIFT Nothing quite fits together in Walter Mosley’s flat, agenda-heavy and undisciplined Lift, about a young black man and woman who find themselves trapped in a…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:59PM
Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: JAMES DICKEY’S DELIVERANCE (Godlight Theatre Company at 59E59) by Dmitry Zvonkov

SEE THE MOVIE Imagine John Boorman’s film Deliverance staged, “panties” scene and all, as a piece of dinner theater, with all the performers looking very serious and projecting their v…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:00PM
Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: JACUZZI (Ars Nova) by Dmitry Zvonkov

WARM TUB The lights come up on a couple, Helene (Hannah Bos) and Derek (Paul Thureen), reading in a Jacuzzi, inside a cozy Colorado skiing cabin one cold winter evening sometimes in the 1980…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:27PM
Saturday, October 11, 2014

Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: LYING (Blessed Unrest at The Interart Theatre) by Dmitry Zvonkov

HOW TO FAKE HONESTY “I exaggerate,” states Lauren (Jessica Ranville) at the beginning of Lying, which gets a delightful staging by Jessica Burr and her company Blessed Unrest at the Inte…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:46PM
Monday, October 6, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: UNCANNY VALLEY (59E59 Theaters) by Dmitry Zvonkov

AN UNCANNY PERFORMANCE FROM PODULKE; LESS SO THE PLAY’S ENDING In Thomas Gibbons’ Uncanny Valley, directed by Tom Dugdale, Alex Podulke plays Julien, a sophisticated artificial human, wh…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:56PM
Monday, September 29, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE MONEY SHOT (MCC Theatre at Lucille Lortel) by Dmitry Zvonkov

SHOW ME THE MONEY Two couples are having aperitifs at a luxurious home in the Hollywood Hills (sexy stylish set by Derek McLane). They are Steve (Fred Weller), an aging action superstar; Mis…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:01PM
Sunday, September 28, 2014

Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: CHINESE COFFEE (Roy Arias Stage II Theater; directed by Louise Lasser, starring Austin Pendleton) by Dmitry Zvonkov

WHEN BEING A STARVING WRITER IS NO LONGER ROMANTIC Austin Pendleton’s breathtaking performance and Ira Lewis’s penetrating script make Chinese Coffee, with all its flaws, a most worthwhi…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:56AM
Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: ILLUSIONS (Jerome Robbins Theater at the Baryshnikov Arts Center) by Dmitry Zvonkov

THE UNKNOWABLE WORLD THAT WE LIVE IN Is it possible for true love to be unrequited? Or, to put it another way, is it possible for unrequited love to be true? These questions, on the surface…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:30PM

Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: ICEBOUND (Metropolitan Playhouse) by Dmitry Zvonkov

THE GOOD, THE LOST, AND THE VAIN Owen Gould Davis, Sr.’s thoughtful and masterfully crafted 1923 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Icebound, which explores Puritan vanity and its many ironies, …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:29AM
Sunday, September 21, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: ROCOCO ROUGE (Company XIV) by Dmitry Zvonkov and Lindaann Loschiavo

A CABARET SHOW THAT GOES FOR BAROQUE Mae West, the sage and sybarite from Brooklyn, used to say, “Let joy be unrefined,” a point of view that also suits Austin McCormick, artistic direct…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:00PM
Monday, September 15, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: SOLITARY LIGHT (Axis Theatre Company) by Dmitry Zvonkov

ASPHYXIATING Neither the excellent quartet playing quality pieces that are at times rousing, nor Karl Ruckdeschel’s lovely period costumes, are enough to make Solitary Light, with music an…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:00PM
Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: BAUER (59E59) by Dmitry Zvonkov

A BIO-DRAMA THAT WORKS “Of course I care (what she thinks), I hate her,” says a character in Lauren Gunderson’s Bauer, a San Francisco Playhouse production about the German artist Rudo…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:16PM
Monday, September 8, 2014

Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: SMOKE (The Bats at The Flea Theatre) by Dmitry Zvonkov

SMOKIN’ The premise of Kim Davies’ new play Smoke, that two strangers, a young man and woman, who independently come to the kitchen to have a cigarette while a friendly S&M sex party…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:46AM
Sunday, September 7, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: BASTARDS OF STRINDBERG (Scandinavian American Theater Company at The Lion Theatre) by Dmitry Zvonkov

BASTARDS OUT OF SWEDEN In 2012 the Scandinavian American Theater Company commissioned four playwrights to each write a sort of riff on Strindberg’s Miss Julie. The result is the four short…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:03PM
Monday, August 18, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: VOICES OF SWORDS (Right Down Broadway Productions at Walkerspace) by Dmitry Zvonkov

A SWORD THAT’S HARD TO SWALLOW The best thing I can say about Kari Floren’s new play Voices of Swords is that it seems to be well-intentioned. Unfortunately, sitting through it feels lik…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:19PM
Monday, August 4, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: DONKEY PUNCH (Ivy Theatre Company at SoHo Playhouse) by Dmitry Zvonkov

A TASTY PUNCH NEEDS TO BE SPIKED Flowing dialogue, skillful performances, and Audrey Alford’s solid direction make Micheline Auger’s banal and predictable Donkey Punch, a play which atte…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:28AM
Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: DROP DEAD PERFECT (Theatre at St. Clement’s) by Dmitry Zvonkov

A DROP-DEAD DELIGHT Delightful in an over-the-top yet grounded and sympathetic portrayal of Idris Seabright, a well-off spinster obsessed with memories of her long-gone Latin lover, Everett …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:53PM
Monday, June 23, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE OLD WOMAN (starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe at BAM) by Dmitry Zvonkov

RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AS SURREAL BURLESQUE Delightful wouldn’t be a word I’d expect to use when describing a Robert Wilson show. But The Old Woman, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from an absur…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:15PM
Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: TIME OF MY LIFE (written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn at 59E59) by Dmitry Zvonkov

THE PRODUCTION RUNS LIKE CLOCKWORK, BUT SOME MAY SEE IT AS A WASTE OF TIME Much mastery of theatrical craft is on display in Alan Ayckbourn’s staging of his play Time of My Life, which is …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:00PM
Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES (written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn, 59E59 Theaters) by Dmitry Zvonkov

HALF AND HALF Kim Wall delivers a brilliant performance as Barry, an aging municipal employee, in Alan Ayckbourn’s Arrivals and Departures, part of the Brits Off-Broadway Festival at 59E59…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:30PM
Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: MURDER FOR TWO (New World Stages) by Dmitry Zvonkov

BORED TO DEATH In Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s ill-conceived two-hander musical comedy Murder for Two, lively performances and Scott Schwartz’s energetic direction are not enough to o…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:54PM
Monday, May 5, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: AN OCTOROON (by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at Soho Rep) by Dmitry Zvonkov

NOW THIS IS HOW YOU ADAPT A PLAY In 1859 Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon opened in New York City to much acclaim. The plot of this suspenseful melodrama centers on George, a young man of So…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:07PM
Monday, April 28, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE COMPLETE AND CONDENSED STAGE DIRECTIONS OF EUGENE O’NEILL, VOLUME 2 (New York Neo-Futurists) by Dmitry Zvonkov

NOW SHOW ME HOW TO CHEW IT As a critic I have a confession to make: when reading a play for fun I usually skim over the stage directions. I generally don’t care how many chairs are in a ro…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:06PM
Monday, April 21, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: TO DAMASCUS, PART 1 (Strindberg Rep at Gene Frankel Theatre) by Dmitry Zvonkov

STRINDBERG ON PROZAC Throughout my tenure with Stage and Cinema I have criticized a number of productions for staging foreign plays too literally, insisting that it is misguided for director…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:43AM
Thursday, April 17, 2014

Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: AN ECLECTIC EVENING OF SHORTS VII: BOXERS AND BRIEFS (Theater 54 @ Shelter Studios) by Dmitry Zvonkov

SOME ARE TKO’S, SOME SHOULD BE BRIEFER The first play featured in this annual showcase of ten-minute plays by emerging writers, An Eclectic Evening of Shorts VII: Boxers and Briefs, i…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:14PM
Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Off-Broadway Theater Review: SHAKESBEER (New York Shakespeare Exchange) by Dmitry Zvonkov

BOOZE AND BARD In ShakesBEER, NYC’s Original Shakespearean Pub Crawl, New York Shakespeare Exchange members perform ten-minute scenes from four Shakespeare plays in as many bars over the c…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:31PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards