All in Play
“The Winter’s Tale”, one of Shakespeare’s notorious “problem plays”, is given a solid new production by Arin Arbus with a terrific troupe of actors. While not a canonical favorite of mine, this play offers fascinating insights, is well-designed and performed, and is sure to delight any lover of Shakespeare.
Billy Crudup is simply captivating and astonishing as he seamlessly summons 15 characters in David Cale’s one-person thriller “Harry Clarke”. At once funny, sexy, and scary, the elements of this crisp production exist in exquisite harmony, balanced and honed by the production team to achieve a memorable and chilling evening at the theatre. You do not want to miss Mr. Crudup’s performance in this superb play.
Two new plays that opened Off-Broadway recently document finer points of the immigrant experience—in the United Kingdom and the United States. "An Ordinary Muslim" and "queens" are long-winded but well-acted, and offer important, thought-provoking, and memorable perspectives that buck common perception, making for rewarding theatre.
“Admissions” is a provocative new play by Joshua Harmon that pierces the veil of “white liberalism” to reveal simmering interpersonal issues that contradict beliefs in institutional ideals. Smartly staged and exquisitely acted, this play poses uncomfortable but important questions about race, identity, and privilege as our country navigates an increasingly divisive and siloed discourse.
Jeff Hiller is hilarious and captivating as a disgruntled gay guest at a same sex wedding in Drew Droege’s one man show, “Bright Colors and Bold Patterns”. If you like to laugh, this is one show you will not want to miss.
“Three Wise Guys” is a charming new comedy based on Prohibition-era short stories by Damon Runyon, featuring a lovable cast of thieves, bootleggers, socialites, and chorus gals on a zany, Christmas Eve romp. Cleverly designed, it offers light, low-budget, fun fare guaranteed to deliver laughs, smiles, and a carefree chance to escape for a little while.
“Amy and the Orphans”, a new comedy by Lindsey Ferrentino based on her family, both features a title character and stars an actor with Down syndrome, an important milestone in New York theatre. The play, which examines the relationships among three disparate, adult siblings and explores the meaning of “family” and “home”, is stunted and static in character and plot development. I sense the playwright is too close to the material.
A roundup look at three plays that opened recently Off-Broadway. I highly recommend the Vineyard Theatre's striking "The Amateurs" and Signature Theatre's superb "At Home at the Zoo", but suggest skipping MCC Theater's "Relevance".
“America is Hard to See” by Life Jacket Theatre Company is a new documentary play with music that explores the lives of a community of child sex offenders in Florida, testing the limits of our capacity for empathy and forgiveness. Deeply unsettling, surprisingly humane, and ultimately uplifting, it is a powerful play that provokes more questions than answers, and is guaranteed to leave you changed.
Eve Ensler’s “In the Body of the World” is an exquisite poem of a solo performance that connects one woman’s journey with uterine cancer to the plight of women worldwide and the very devastation of our earth. Crisp, funny, devastating, and transcendent, this play is a must see.
“Hangmen”, a hilarious dark comedy about vengeance, packs the top-notch twists, violence, and laughs we’ve come to expect from Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. Superbly acted and directed, this sold out limited run will likely end up on Broadway, and for good reason. See it if you can.
Trailblazing experimental African American playwright Adrienne Kennedy’s powerful new play, “He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box”, pieces together an anatomy of interracial young love amidst 1940s Georgia, stewing in the horrific inescapability of history, the tragedy of racism, and contradictions of life in the Jim Crow South. Dense, quick, sentimental, angry, and mysterious, this is one new work from a legend worth checking out.
