"Once': A musical about nothing, on Broadway

Calling Jerry Seinfeld

Other critics have praised the Broadway musical Once for its love story, its great songs and its compelling characters— all elements that I found lacking.

Steve Cohen

Jul 07, 2012 · Articles · 2 minute read

"Other Desert Cities' and "My Children! My Africa!'

Political protest and its unintended consequences

In two powerful plays about political protest— in the Vietnam-era U.S. and apartheid South Africa— everyone pays a price for discord between the generations.

Carol Rocamora

Jul 01, 2012 · Articles · 6 minute read

Bright Light's "The Fifth Floor'

Standing room only

Why didn't Shakespeare think of this? The Fifth Floor is a drama performed entirely in an elevator, complete with real (albeit unsuspecting) passengers who have no idea what they've stumbled into.

Alaina Johns

Jun 26, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

"Harvey' on Broadway

Rabbit on a slippery slope

Long before the American theater of the absurd, Mary Chase's Harvey offered useful lessons about the value of an active imagination as a survival tool in an absurd world.

Carol Rocamora

Jun 26, 2012 · Articles · 5 minute read

Lantern's "The Island' (4th review)

Incarceration, Inc.

The Island, Athol Fugard's co-authored play about prisoners on South Africa's infamous Robben Island, is both historically dated and timelessly relevant— especially to America's own carceral society, and our own political prison at Guantanamo Bay. The Island. By Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshuma; Peter DeLaurier directed. Closed June 10, 201 at the Lantern Theater, 923 Ludlow St. (215) 829-0395 or www.lanterntheater.org.

Robert Zaller

Jun 12, 2012 · Articles · 5 minute read

"Angels in America' at the Wilma

Angels, beyond AIDS

Now that AIDS is no longer immediately fatal, the original theme of Angels in America isn't as shocking. Instead we look to it for broader themes, which Tony Kushner's script fortunately provides. It's funny, too.

Steve Cohen

Jun 11, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

LaBute's "reasons to be pretty' by PTC

Beautiful but miserable

Like its predecessors in Neil LaBute's trilogy, reasons to be pretty throws together four insecure young people with hangups about beauty and their friends' opinions.

Steve Cohen

Jun 11, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

Tony Kushner's "A Dybbuk,' by EgoPo

Sympathy for our devils

Tony Kushner's adaptation of The Dybbuk concerns unrequited love among Hasidic Jews in Eastern Europe. But mysticism is only part of this tale: The story works for skeptics as well as for believers, and for non-Jews as well.

Steve Cohen

Jun 11, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

"Tulipomania' at the Arden (2nd review)

When the present interferes with the past

The intriguing story of Amsterdam's 17th-Century tulip mania somehow got subordinated within a fictitious story set in a present-day pot bar. Michael Ogborn should have let the audience draw its own comparisons.

Steve Cohen

Jun 02, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

"My Fair Lady' at Act II in Ambler

Henry Higgins, male chauvinist no more

Is it possible to improve on Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins? Tony Braithwaite has a youthful spring in his step that renders him more plausibly romantic.

Steve Cohen

Jun 02, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read