Off-Broadway Reviews

'Alex Edelman: Just for Us' review — fighting the haters with comedy and gusto

Logging onto social media these days is like opening a potentially poisonous box of chocolates: You never know what bad takes, misinformation, and hatred you're going to get amid the good stuff. But that's why we use social media, comedian Alex Edelman suggests: to see bad opinions from safely behind our own screens, where we can feel self-righteous for disagreeing without ever having to truly face most of the people spewing their venom. Unless, of course, you're Edelman, in which case you're...

'Long Day’s Journey into Night' Off-Broadway review — welcome to lockdown's journey into night

In a bright stroke in director Robert O'Hara's intriguing but not always persuasive take on Long Day's Journey into Night set in Covid-era 2020, Mary Tyrone spends the opening moments silently practicing yoga. Dressed in leggings and a long-sleeve hoodie, the morphine-addicted matriarch motors through poses — downward dog, cat-cow, pigeon. Welcome to Lockdown's Journey into Night.Yoga actually turns out to be an apt activity for Mary in Eugene O'Neill's 1957 Tony winner. She is always posing....

'The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe' review — Cecily Strong delivers an out-of-this-world performance

If alien life-forms ever come to Earth and require a human representative, take them immediately to Cecily Strong.She's already had the practice, after all, playing Trudy, who is explaining Earth to aliens in Jane Wagner's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe at The Shed. I'd just as soon nominate Wagner (whose cosmic insights, about life's great importance being found in the small moments, are still captivating 30 years after the play premiered) or Tomlin (who made the play...

'The Streets of New York' review — a 'decadent' holiday musical that's full of joy

Holiday musicals are often cheery but don't quite leave an imprint. So when one does, it sticks like a wet candy cane. The Streets of New York, a musical revival adapted from Dion Boucicault's 1857 play The Poor of New York, is a festive production full of melodramatic storytelling and poppy tunes delivered with merriment by an unforgettable cast.The award-winning musical, previously staged in 2001 at Irish Repertory Theatre, has returned to the Off-Broadway house this winter. The classic...

'Kimberly Akimbo' review — a bittersweet musical packed with surprises

In the opening moment of Kimberly Akimbo, a misfit New Jersey teenager waiting for a ride home stretches her candy choker into her mouth and chomps down on it. Such a kid thing to do.It's a perfect start to this funny-sad musical treat by composer Jeanine Tesori and writer and lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire, based on his play. Like the nibbled necklace, the show gives you something to chew on as it looks at life, death, and what comes in-between."Dad? Are you okay to drive?" Kim asks her father...

'Selling Kabul' review — unrelenting tension muddies the play's 'compelling' emotional core

What happened to the citizens of Afghanistan after the United States military withdrew its forces in 2013 ― especially those who assisted the former occupiers? In Selling Kabul, which just opened at Playwrights Horizons in Manhattan, Sylvia Khoury answers that question and many others by focusing on how the Taliban swooped into the empty power void to claim control and eradicate anyone who aided the enemy. Khoury accomplishes this by presenting the struggle between two small families as a proxy...

‘Is There Still Sex In the City’ review — Candace Bushnell still has tales of the city

On a chilly New York evening in November, two best girlfriends grabbed their $60 coats and tapped their $800 iPhones to pay for a $2.75 ride downtown to the Daryl Roth Theatre to see the latest from Candace Bushnell, a New Yorker as classic as Lady Liberty, a Rockette, and Carrie Bradshaw herself. As they rode the subway, they couldn't help but wonder: how long will we crave glamorized stories from wealthy, fabulous women whose lives we'll never have? Turns out, at least 90 minutes more.The...

'Love Actually? The Unauthorized Musical Parody' review — a brainless good time

The Theater Center is a strange, intimate beast — home to both the longest-running play in New York and a house named in honor of stage legend Jerry Orbach, yet somehow totally nonexistent for anyone but confused tourists lured through its doors. The venue's operators are also among the co-defendants in a recent suit seeking to block the city's vaccination mandate for theaters — though, you'd never guess it from attending Love Actually? The Unauthorized Musical Parody, where a sole usher...

‘West Side Story’ movie review — the beloved musical is more relevant than ever

There's a place for us. Somewhere, a place for us. When news broke that Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner were remaking West Side Story, there was a bit of discussion around redoing a beloved film that many believe to be one of the best movie musicals ever made. Why mess with perfection?Well, the director and screenwriter have proved that the world needs this story now, and the vibrant, technicolor film courses with electricity and passion and doesn't let up for two and a half hours. The acting?...

'A Sherlock Carol' review — an inventive take on a holiday classic

As quickly as the holidays come around, so does another iteration of Charles Dickens's 1843 tale, A Christmas Carol. This season, Mark Shanahan samples Dickens' Christmas classic and blends two of the most famous storybook characters, Scrooge and Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, to create A Sherlock Carol, a merry yet uneventful production open now off Broadway at New World Stages.In Shanahan's story, also under his own direction, the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge morphs into a coy murder mystery. Set...