Twenty-one-year-old Sally Poppy (a powerful yet broken Haley Wong) is convicted of murdering young Alice Wax and sentenced to hang in March of 1759 on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk, in England. Sally claims she is pregnant and if that is true, she cannot be hanged. To determine the truth of Sally’s claim, the Justice “calls for a jury…
Since the Atlantic Theater Company first announced that Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara would lead the cast of the new musical “Days of Wine and Roses” based on the book by JP Miller, it was evident why theater goers would rush to buy tickets. Add to that fact, the music and lyrics were written by Adam Guettel, who once…
Comedy is usually a successful way to approach any discussion about a difficult and awkward situation and often eases the tension surrounding the stigma that might be associated with the uncomfortable problem. Comedy writers have used this technique for years creating some of the most successful sitcoms that deal with controversial social issues. It may be more difficult to implement…
“The Fact, the very Fact that it is biologically possible is Devastating. I need to know that I am where it ends.” – Bonnie to Diane If a suicide could be dissected, what would be found that explained its provenance, it’s development, it’s cure? The morphology of a suicide is examined in Alice Birch’s dense “Anatomy of a Suicide” currently…
The epic new work penned by Stephen Adly Guirgis entitled “Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven” refers to the vast array of residents in a transitional shelter for women on the upper Westside of Manhattan. It is a motley group of misfits of every age, race, size, color and sexual status that seem to have a firm grip on the…
With a nod (intentional/unintentional) to the genre of disillusioned youth represented by Kenneth Lonergan’s 1996 “This Is Our Youth,” Carla Ching’s “Nomad Motel” currently running at Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2 dives headlong into the lives of a triangle of vagabond California youth yearning to belatedly separate and individuate from adults who have been less than successful in providing safe…
Somewhere in France, or perhaps in England in the nineteenth century, a young married woman is standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes after an evening meal. A dish slips from her hand, breaking I pieces as it hits the floor. The young woman begins to cry, sob really. Her husband not understanding any of this “odd behavior,” reaches out…
The present-day social climate in the theater world has fervently addressed non-traditional casting, gender identity, and diversity as part of an effort to be inclusive and accepting. When a production exhibits a little gender bending, there should be a valid explanation or reasoning behind the decision, whether it be historical, social, or dramatic persuasion. In the case of “Eddie and…
Abby Rosebrock introduces an interesting mélange of broken characters in her new play “Blue Ridge” currently running at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater. She drops these six disparate “recovering” personalities into the vortex of a Christian halfway house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. Pastor Hern (a cagey but caring Chris Stack) and his partner Grace…
It is clear from the start of Donja R. Love’s “Fireflies” that Olivia Grace (DeWanda Wise) is among the disconsolate: Olivia is languishing: Olivia’s wounded heart needs healing. There is a fire in Olivia’s soul that counterpoints the fire in the 1963 Fall sky above the home in the Jim Crow South she shares with her preacher-activist husband Charles Emmanuel…