Every once in a while, there comes along a little gem of a play that certainly will knock you off your feet, especially if it is a first-rate production and impeccably performed by two remarkable actors. This happens to be the case at hand on the stage of The Irish Repertory Theatre, where Chester Bailey penned by Joseph Dougherty is…
Currently running at Classic Stage Company, “A Man of No Importance” chronicles gay middle-aged bus conductor Alfie Byrnes’s (a gloomy and dispirited Jim Parsons) struggles to claim his agency in 1960s Dublin, Ireland’s repressive homophobic environment. His sexual status defines him as a criminal; however, Alfie self-defines as an ordinary man who secretly loves Robbie Faye (a spirited and generous…
There is too much noise on the set of Victor I. Cazares’s “american (tele)visions” currently running at New York Theatre Workshop (co-produced with Theatre Mitu). Although that noise comes from what is certainly a dynamic and innovative set design by Bretta Gerecke and a clever technical design by Theatre Mitu’s Justin Nestor, Alex Hawthorn, and Kelly Colburn, it unfortunately masks…
Elodie (Francesca Carpanini) and Otto (Uly Schlesinger) reunite in a bedroom after they meet in a town square in Chartres, France in August 1944. Crazy things happened in the square including Elodie having what seems an epileptic seizure. A woman laughed at Elodie, and Otto wanted to spit on her. Before Elodie arrives, she has visited the bombed out Gornall’s…
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the definition of “cycle” is a permutation of a set of ordered elements in which each element takes the place of the next and the last becomes the first. Using that definition, it seems safe to interpret the new musical production “Los Otros,” now playing at A.R.T., a song cycle. Two characters, Lillian (an enthralling…
Theatergoers who missed the successful Broadway production of “Kinky Boots” should make their way to Stage 42 for the Off-Broadway revival which will be sure to please. A more condensed version of the original does not compromise the structure or diminish any of the crucial themes of the story. It is actually quite a different experience because of the intimacy…
Promising a touching love story following a one-nightstand encounter in Amsterdam, Clarence Coo’s “On That Day in Amsterdam” (currently on at 59E59 Theaters) delivers instead a convoluted story of risk, disenfranchisement, immigration policy, art history, and duplicity that has little to do with the narrative’s main characters. This is unfortunate given the actors are outstanding, the direction first-rate, and the…
As children fishing together and hanging out at the hide they had built in the chicken house, Francie Brady (an emotive and troubled Nicholas Barasch) and Joe Purcell (the effervescent and spirited understudy Dan Macke at this performance) know they could “live this way forever.” But both boys live in Ireland’s troubling neocolonial times. The political violence and the economic…
New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) (Artistic Director Patricia McGregor and Managing Director Jeremy Blocker) announced today that Jonathan Groff will star as “Franklin” and Lindsay Mendez will star as “Mary” in Merrily We Roll Along, featuring music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a book by George Furth, and based on the original play by George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart….
Drawing inspiration from concerts that evolved from Brooklyn front porches to its own rooftop balcony and large-scale exhibitions mounted on its exterior facade, St. Ann’s Warehouse returns, merging public art, theater, and activism at a whole new level. In September, St. Ann’s gathers hundreds of artists, cultural, and community-based organizations to welcome Little Amal, a 12’ tall puppet of a…