“[One] not busy being born is busy dying.” – Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” It is one thing to have an imaginary friend, created to be summoned at will for conversation, company, and surcease from sorrow. It is quite another thing to have an alter ego, perhaps once created, but able to appear at its will and…
A novella by Henry James is the inspiration for the new Dance Play “The Beast in the Jungle” which marks the final mainstage production of the Vineyard Theater’s 35th Anniversary Season. The book by David Thompson follows the escapades of John Marcher (a credible Peter Friedman) over several decades, as he battles demons and searches for the single entity that…
Begun in 1945, and first produced in 1947, Tennessee Williams called “Summer and Smoke” a “drama of sensibility.” Rich in allegory, yet grounded in realism, the play explores the deep conflicts between body and soul and between the sacred and the profane and examines the themes of the marginalized and the results of having a poorly integrated sexuality. Currently running…
The latest offering of the Irish Repertory Theatre is the revival of “The Seafearer” by Conor McPherson, which opened on Broadway in 2007 and was nominated for a TONY award for best play that season. It follows the renowned style of the playwright, producing incredible natural dialogue, executed in somewhat ordinary life situations, with a collection of disreputable characters, and…
Whether medieval or modern, no plague is comfortable. The first part of “The Amateurs,” currently playing at Vineyard Theatre, is uncomfortable in a different way and the audience wonders, “Can this play be as amateurish as it appears. What is the Vineyard thinking?” As it turns out, the iconic Off-Broadway theatre is thinking outside-the-box and out with the fourth wall,…
Harry Clarke (the persona and the person) was born out of the dysfunctional matrix of paternal abuse and maternal collusion that plagued Philip Brugglestein from his childhood through his adulthood. David Cale’s play “Harry Clarke,” currently playing at the Vineyard Theatre, is a complex and engaging psychological study of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and explores the provenance of that condition…
Although billed as being “loosely based” on the classic Shakespearian comedy, “Desperate Measures,” currently playing at the York Theatre Company, has the “guts” of “Measure for Measure” with the charm and appeal of a traditional Broadway musical. Peter Kellogg and David Friedman are to be commended for achieving this feat and bringing this clever retelling to the stage. Somewhere out…
“And this is the thing: they will train you, they will teach you to hit, they will teach you to move – but they never tell you about the fear. Nothing the people in your Corner can tell you will prepare you for the fear.” – Jody to Carl Despite the outstanding performances of Arnie Burton and Matt McGrath, the…
“Okay. Some day we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house, and a couple of acres and a cow and some pigs and . . . And live off the fat of the land! And have rabbits. Well, we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.” – George in “Of Mice…
“See, this is the crux of the matter. We have different aesthetic touchstones. I am drawn to characters like Apollo, Persephone, Oedipus Rex. You prefer Jiminy Cricket – Bambi – Goofy. My Pluto lives in Hades, yours lives in a doghouse. You are living in some silly parallel universe, of which I want no part.” – Igor If the theme…