Tennessee Williams's "Two Character Play'

A great playwright's dismaying final chapter

The Two Character Play is an agonizing glimpse into the darkness of Tennessee Williams's soul in decline. And yet I can't get the image of the playwright's smiling face out of my mind.

Carol Rocamora

Sep 09, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

Pig Iron's "Pay Up' at the FringeArts Festival (1st review)

The uses and abuses of money, in one bizarre hour

The trouble with most “immersive theater” is that you remember the form rather than the content. Pig Iron's Pay Up, by contrast, is a razor-sharp, insightful investigation of how humans (and even animals) interact when it comes to money.

Carol Rocamora

Sep 08, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

A man's guide to the 2013 Fringe Arts Festival

No music or feelings, please: A man's guide to the Fringe Arts Festival

Men may dominate the theater world, but women dominate the audience. So how can a male theatergoer enjoy this month's Fringe Festival? By choosing carefully and relying on the expert guidance of my weightlifting teammates and drinking buddies.

Jim Rutter

Sep 01, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

Mauckingbird's "Importance of Being Earnest'

Oscar Wilde gets the ‘post-gay' treatment

Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is a Victorian comedy about men who lead double lives. The Mauckingbird Theatre Company's “post-gay” production overlooks Wilde's motivation for raising such a theme in the first place.

Judy Weightman

Aug 20, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

'The Trojan Women' in 21st-Century Greece

Calling Donald Rumsfeld, or: What war means

With The Trojan Women, Euripides may have written the most powerful anti-war play ever. It has lost none of its relevance: In the fine recent production in Athens, the parallels to the siege Greece is under today from predatory lenders were not far under the surface.

Robert Zaller

Aug 13, 2013 · Articles · 8 minute read

Shakespeare Festival's "Two Noble Kinsmen'

The Bard's last gasp

Shakespeare's last play is rarely performed, and for good reason: The Bard was paying his dues and departing with a whimper when he wrote The Two Noble Kinsmen. Still, it's worth seeing, if only for its clues to the homosexuality of Shakespeare's patron, King James I.

Steve Cohen

Aug 11, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

McCraney's "Choir Boy' in New York

Coming of age by turning the other cheek

Here's something different: A gay coming-of-age play that reacts to homophobia not with rage but with resilience, humor and song.

Carol Rocamora

Aug 03, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

"Natasha, Pierre': A musical "War and Peace'

Heeeere's Napoleon! Or: Why didn't Tolstoy think of this?

A musical War and Peace with a three-course Russian dinner in a carnival tent? This kitschy hybrid of dinner theater, story-telling and campy night club act is the latest example of a new trend: adapting the classics for film and stage, with each production trying to outdo each other in ingenuity, artistic excess and chutzpah.

Carol Rocamora

Jul 27, 2013 · Articles · 5 minute read

Madoff redux: "Tom Durnin' in New York

The swindler's homecoming

The sensational saga of the Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff is the stuff of which powerful dramas are made. But unlike Willy Loman or James Tyrone, the central character here (like Madoff himself) is utterly unsympathetic.

Carol Rocamora

Jul 21, 2013 · Articles · 6 minute read

"Noises Off' at People's Light (2nd review)

Noises off, nothing on, and what's missing?

You have to marvel at Michael Frayn's inventiveness. If only it weren't so cold and calculating.

Steve Cohen

Jul 16, 2013 · Articles · 3 minute read