Off-Broadway Reviews

'The Chinese Lady' review — an evocative exploration of cultural difference

The caged bird in Lloyd Suh's The Chinese Lady carries the full weight of history on her shoulders. Afong Moy, the first-known woman to arrive in the U.S. from China, was presented as a novelty attraction for Americans who paid 25 cents admission. Here, she speaks from behind a gilded frame and through time, exploring her role as an object of cultural exchange while asserting her obvious humanity.It's a double act of history and drama that urgently addresses the present moment, amid an alarming...

'Coal Country' review — poignant docudrama explodes with new relevance

It's difficult to avoid comparing Coal Country to its theatrical relatives. With a no-frills set, a plain-clothed ensemble performing directly to the audience, and music played right on stage (in this case, by composer Steve Earle), the staging brings Come From Away to mind. The exact genre of Coal Country recalls Girl From the North Country: a "play with music" moreso than a musical, in which the songs don't drive the plot, but reinforce the mood of a given moment.But perhaps most surprisingly,...

‘On Sugarland’ review — a dreamlike play about painful truths

Hollering is a recurring ritual in On Sugarland. Though wails of grief are certainly part of it, hollering is an act of mourning that overwhelms the whole body. As one character in Aleshea Harris's stirring and untethered new play puts it, a good holler starts in the toes and lives in the belly like a fist. It begins with the stomping of feet and often ends with someone passing out.The funerary custom hits like a gut punch every time in this production from director Whitney White, punctuating...

'Out of Time' review — five wise monologues remind us that life is fleeting

Memento mori is Latin for "remember that you will die." In Out of Time, a National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) and Public Theater co-production, the transient nature of life is never far from mind. The play features five accomplished Asian American actors, each starring in a monologue by one of five Asian American playwrights. At two and a half hours long in total, most of these monologues could have benefited from stricter editing, but ― memento mori: each performer is over 60 years...

'sandblasted' review — a 'thoughtful and worthwhile' story of sisterhood and survival

Holding it together takes on unexpected meaning in Charly Evon Simpson's sandblasted, an offbeat and intriguing play about self-preservation, survival, and sisterhood that's streaked with humor even when the going gets rough. Really rough.That includes when a woman's arm falls off and lands with a disconcerting thud on the ground. Better, on the sand. There's a pile of it on stage at Vineyard Theatre, where the show's setting could be a beach or a desert beneath a sky flecked with fluffy clouds....

‘English’ Off-Broadway review — a stunning play about hope, belonging, and desire

If language is how we tell people who we are, can identity get lost in translation? The humor, frustrations, and consequences of adopting a non-native tongue are the basis of Sanaz Toossi's play English. But the stories it tells also resonate deep beneath the surface, touching on hope, belonging, desire, and what makes people who they are. English is both a buoyant comedy of communication and a subtle but probing exploration of what it means to speak out loud and feel understood. That one play...

'Black No More' Off-Broadway review — a talented cast shines in a poorly conceived musical

The nicest thing I can say about Black No More, the New Group-produced musical at Signature Theatre, is that Tamika Lawrence is giving a Tony and Grammy Award-worthy performance. The cast is uniformly wonderful: Brandon Victor Dixon vamps amusingly enough despite having little actual singing or acting to do as the central Max Disher, a Black man who uses a machine to become white, and Lillias White belts to the rafters as an ancillary character. Sadly, it is all for naught.The music, lyrics, and...

'Space Dogs' review — ambitious musical doesn't quite reach the stars

If a pair of eager-beaver performances and cute overload were enough to make Space Dogs achieve orbit, then this new Off-Broadway musical about canines' ill-starred role in a Cold War throwdown, written by and starring Van Hughes and Nick Blaemire, could be categorized as out-of-this-world. But no. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it takes more, including songs you want to hear again and a narrative with a strong point of view, smarts, and a surprise or two. As is, the show gets tugged...

'Tambo & Bones' review — making money, but shortchanging the audience

"It's quite easy to write poorly and have a white person call you powerful," Tambo & Bones playwright, Dave Harris, details in an essay in the play's program. The new production, now open at Playwrights Horizons, proves his point perfectly. The three-act, 90-minute production, directed by Taylor Reynolds, is part minstrel act, part underground rap spectacle, part academic hoopla that throws racial tomfoolery and the n-word in the face of a mostly white audience who take the bait and call it...

'Prayer for the French Republic' review — standing tall under the weight of history

Prayer for the French Republic is an ambitious new play, currently running off Broadway at New York City Center with Manhattan Theatre Club, that clocks in at a jaw-dropping three hours. And the most amazing thing about it? Those three hours just fly by.Joshua Harmon remarkably explores a century in the life of one Jewish family while folding in 1,000 years of Jewish history. And in a dramatic feat, the play does not collapse under its own weight. Instead, Prayer for the French Republic is a...