Joan Marcus

Off-Broadway Review: “Thom Pain (based on nothing)” at The Pershing Square Signature Center’s Irene Diamond Stage

In this revival of “Thom Pain (based on nothing)” at The Pershing Square Signature Center’s Irene Diamond Stage, Will Eno steps over, under, and in between the resting places – and the writing desks – of the literary canon’s most prominent surrealist writers of the past and present. Eno seems to stop there to chat, listen, tremble (who wouldn’t), and…

Read More Buy Tickets

Broadway News: “Once On This Island” at Circle in the Square Theatre to Close Sunday January 6, 2019

“Once On this Island” was certainly an enchanting and memorable visit twenty-seven years ago and that may in fact cloud the opinions expressed when recently returning to this island and commenting on what had changed. Some audience members may have experienced finding an unknown out of the way place that had a simple and charming ambience, with friendly locals that…

Read More Buy Tickets

Broadway Review: “King Kong” at the Broadway Theatre

It is difficult to imagine that anyone would not know the story of “King Kong” since the first film release was in 1933 and many new versions being released with the most recent in 2017, as well as being broadcast on television for the first time in 1956. In 1998, The American Film Institute ranked it as #43 on the…

Read More Buy Tickets

Off-Broadway Review: “India Pale Ale” at Manhattan Theatre Club’s New York City Center Stage I

Jaclyn Backhaus’s “India Pale Ale” currently running at Manhattan Theatre Club’s New York City Center Stage I has a collection of “teachable moments.” Some of the lessons are rather unimportant though interesting. The audience learns the history of IPA (India Pale Ale), the hops and alcohol content of the iconic enhanced pale ale, and how at least one white hipster…

Read More Buy Tickets

Off-Broadway Review: “What the Constitution Means to Me” Reopened at The Greenwich House Theater

After greeting the audience at New York Theatre Workshop, playwright Heidi Schreck introduces her play “What the Constitution Means to Me” as follows: “When I was 15 years old, I travelled the country giving speeches about the Constitution at American Legion halls for prize money. This was a scheme invented by my mom, who was a debate coach, to help…

Read More Buy Tickets

Off-Broadway Review: “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties” at MCC Theater’s Lucille Lortel Theatre

By agreeing to carefully examine the sex-role stereotypes attributed to women, five disparate women named ‘Betty’ cautiously approach self-acceptance and self-understanding in Jen Silverman’s “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties” at MCC Theater’s Lucille Lortel Theatre. Their collective rage about their loneliness, their fears, their submission, and their dismissions by men is a welcomed examination of gender and sexual…

Read More Buy Tickets

Broadway Review: “The Nap” at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre

One would think mounting a Broadway show about snooker would be perilous. Richard Bean’s “The Nap,” currently running at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, unfortunately confirms that fear. Think “The Hustler” staged as a farce with poorly developed characters whose conflicts are not believable and drive a less than satisfying plot. Dylan Spokes (an energetic and engaging Ben…

Read More Buy Tickets

Off-Broadway Review: “Smokey Joe’s Café” at Stage 42

“Faded pictures in my scrapbook/Just thought I’d take one more look/And recall when we were all/In the neighborhood.” – “Neighborhood” The revival of Grammy-Award-Winning “Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber & Stoller,” having headed south from its recent engagement at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, has landed at Stage 42 in New York City to positive notices from the…

Read More Buy Tickets

Off-Broadway Review: “The House That Will Not Stand” Celebrates Freedom’s Prodigality at New York Theatre Workshop

Beartrice Albans (a resolute and Machiavellian Lynda Gravátt) spent her life under the oppressive laws that governed people of color in the colony of Louisiana. Specifically, she was Lazare’s placée a status that allows her as a woman of color to set up common law households with a white man to circumvent legal prohibitions. Beartrice’s mother signed the papers that…

Read More Buy Tickets

Broadway Review: “Straight White Men” at The Hayes Theater

When entering The Hayes Theater to see “Straight White Men, the audience is bombarded by loud music – so loud, one cannot speak to one’s neighbor. Person in Charge 1 (more later) approaches to ask if the music is too loud. If one answers ‘yes,’ one gets a free set of earplugs. If one answers ‘no,’ one finds out later…

Read More Buy Tickets