'Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq' at the Wilma (3rd review)

A wounded hero and the fierceness of his victims

Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq is as much about sexual abuse as it is about the wounded veteran. Why aren’t we talking about that?

Naomi Orwin

Apr 01, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

'Phantom of the Opera' at the Academy of Music

Reimagining Phantom

A new production of The Phantom of the Opera, designed to be taken on the road, has been bankrolled by the wealthy man who mounted the original version a quarter-century ago.

Steve Cohen

Mar 31, 2014 · Articles · 3 minute read

‘Don Juan’ comes Home from Iraq' at the Wilma (2nd review)

War and other atrocities

Paula Vogel’s Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq is not so much a drama as an unrelievedly angry anti-war harangue.

Dan Rottenberg

Mar 30, 2014 · Articles · 1 minute read

‘Rocky’ to music, on Broadway

He’s ba-a-ack

Yo! Rocky’s back, and his musical adaptation is a knockout, thanks to a director with a dynamic sense of theater space and its endless possibilities.

Carol Rocamora

Mar 29, 2014 · Articles · 3 minute read

'Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq' at the Wilma (1st review)

A marine in freefall

A gripping play about veterans of the Iraq war is daring and frightening in its world premiere.

Steve Cohen

Mar 28, 2014 · Articles · 3 minute read

Durang’s ‘Vanya and Sonia’ by PTC

Six characters in search of a catalyst

Christopher Durang’s witty if lightweight comedy Vanya and Sonia poses a puckish literary question: If Chekhov’s characters were given a second chance to pursue the road less taken, where would they go?

Dan Rottenberg

Mar 27, 2014 · Articles · 4 minute read

‘A Doll’s House’ in Brooklyn

The Scream comes to life

The resemblance between Munch’s terrified figure in The Scream and Hattie Morahan as Ibsen’s tortured protagonist, Nora, is even scarier than the lot of modern women.

Carol Rocamora

Mar 22, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

Lantern’s ‘Julius Caesar’ (2nd review)

The man who made ‘dictator’ a dirty word

Charles McMahon chose to set Julius Caesar in feudal Japan, a period contemporaneous with Shakespeare’s England, and, in McMahon’s view, similarly dominated by an aristocratic ethos of military prowess and honor. The analogy goes only so far, but the verse is as resonant as ever.

Robert Zaller

Mar 22, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

'All the Way’: LBJ on Broadway

Utterly charming, utterly ruthless

Robert Schenkkan’s stage adaptation of Lyndon Johnson’s first year in office is a hugely ambitious work about a hugely overwhelming politician. But it offers only brief interior glimpses of the man behind the Texas-sized swagger.

Carol Rocamora

Mar 22, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

The Lantern Theater’s Japanese-‘influenced’ staging of 'Julius Caesar'

At last, lend your ears to Charles McMahon

The Philadelphia theater community has been abuzz with reactions to the Lantern Theater's recent production of Julius Caesar, which is set in feudal Japan but features no Japanese actors. Director Charles McMahon has remained silent — until now.

Alaina Johns

Mar 21, 2014 · Articles · 6 minute read