Theater
2680 results
Page 176
‘Once’ at the Academy of Music (2nd review)
Not quite a concert, not quite a play
Once is a miniature folk concert accompanied by a slender story about a man and a woman who briefly come together, then go their separate ways.
Articles
4 minute read
‘Once’ at the Academy of Music (1st review)
Can music keep us together?
What’s more irresistible than two people falling in love to music? Especially when you can go on stage and order a beer and listen to Irish music at the same time? Whether such a love can last— that’s another story.
Articles
5 minute read
Curio Theatre’s lesbian ‘Romeo and Juliet’
When gender is irrelevant
Everyone producing Shakespeare these days is adapting the Bard somehow. So why not a lesbian Romeo and Juliet? The tension of the gender swap grips the experienced theatergoer throughout the performance.
Articles
4 minute read
Donmar’s ‘Julius Caesar’ in Brooklyn
Friends, Romans— and women, too
Phyllida Lloyd’s ingenious production of Julius Caesar stages Shakespeare’s classic in a women’s prison with an all-female cast. This audacious concept reveals the play’s relevance to what’s happening in our turbulent political world today.
Articles
5 minute read
Irish Rep’s ‘Juno and the Paycock’ in New York
The boil on the Boyles
The seductive Sean O’Casey masterpiece, Juno and the Paycock, runs the gamut from hilarity to heartbreak in a milieu constricted by both financial and emotional poverty, as well as suppressed rage at the insignificance of Irish lives as filtered through church-influenced godly standards of purity.
Articles
3 minute read
Danai Gurira’s ‘The Convert’ at the Wilma
Who’s the savage?
Danai Gurira’s The Convert uses the classic story of Pygmalion to explore the clash of religion and culture in colonial Africa. The key players, Gurira makes clear, are not the male warriors but the deceptively strong women who linger on the fringes of the struggle.
Articles
4 minute read
‘The Devil’s Music’ at People’s Light
The night before Bessie Smith died
Miche Braden offers a dazzling performance as Bessie Smith, the singer known as “the Empress of the Blues.”
Articles
2 minute read
Life lessons from ‘4,000 Miles’ (2nd review)
Grandparents, grandchildren
and nine life lessons from 4,000 Miles
Vera and her grandson Leo are each lost in a journey of aloneness but determined to somehow survive without complaint. In less than two hours 4,000 Miles brings us nine truths too rarely found in theatrical experiences.
Articles
3 minute read
Amy Herzog’s ‘4,000 Miles’ (1st review)
Grandmother and grandson:
An unequal matchup
As superbly portrayed by Beth Dixon, Vera is the sort of sharp and witty old lady we’d all love to have in our family. Her foul-mouthed, immature grandson is another story.
Articles
2 minute read
Joshua Harmon’s ‘Bad Jews’ in New York
What’s a modern Jew to do?
Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews is a hilarious comedy turned dead serious about the Jewish identity crisis in today’s younger generation. If you’re secure in your own religious identity, then beware: Bad Jews will unsettle your certainties.
Articles
5 minute read