Off-Broadway Reviews

Review of Seared, starring Raúl Esparza & Krysta Rodriguez, at MCC Theater

Theresa Rebeck's Seared, currently playing at MCC Theater, should be required viewing for all students of the culinary arts, as well as all lovers of the theatrical arts. For the former it will act as a cautionary tale, and for the latter it will stand out as a beacon of the intersection of a truly inspired meeting of all the theater disciplines - writing, directing, stagecraft and acting. With the winners being the audience who get to enjoy an insightful, laugh-out-loud evening at the...

Review of Macbeth, starring Corey Stoll, at Classic Stage Company

A heralded Scottish general, contented with what he has achieved, stumbles upon witches during his travels returning home from war and receives a prophecy from them that he will become King of Scotland. Telling his wife the prophecy, she becomes consumed by ambition and spurs him on to murder the King and ascend to the throne. He becomes tortured with guilt and paranoia of his deed and commits more and more murders to protect his place and becomes a tyrant out of fear. A civil war ensues and the...

Review of The Michaels at the Public Theater

Commissioned by the Public Theater, The Michaels is a world premiere both written and directed by Richard Nelson. It is a perceptively understated ensemble piece that runs a fast two hours with no intermission."It is what it is."I'm coming to the Richard Nelson party late. I have not seen any of his other works in the Rhinebeck Panorama, The Apple Family Plays, and The Gabriels. All Chekhov reminiscent in that they deal with the mundane of life, the cooking, the washing, the cleaning, the...

Review of Roundabout Theatre Company's Scotland, PA at Laura Pels Theatre

Let's start with the premise. Scotland, PA, now playing at the Laura Pels Theatre, is a musical parody of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth.Go ahead and read that sentence again. It doesn't change. Would that it did.This is yet another in the list of "Never blame the actors" (said by John Randolph) productions. The cast is an extremely talented and committed group of actors and singers. Some of the singing is downright sublime.There ends the good news.This is the story of a young couple, Mac...

Review of Keen Company's Molly Sweeney at Theatre Row

In Keen Company's production of Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney there is a mighty tale to tell. As the title indicates, this play is her story. Molly (Pamela Sabaugh) is at the center of it, while the planets in orbit around her are affected by her fate. Frank (Tommy Schrider) has been her husband of some years. He is a fanciful man with a wandering heart. Projects pull him from place to place, and, until he met Molly, he was not much interested in locating himself. Mr. Rice (Paul O'Brien) is the...

Review of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf at the Public Theater

The Public Theater is reviving Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf which had its Off-Broadway premiere there. The 'choreopoem,' a phrase coined by Shange, hasn't been seen in New York in over 40 years since it closed in 1978, after having moved to Broadway from The Public. Even though it's been a staple on college campuses around the country and was turned into a TV special in 1982 and a movie by Tyler Perry in 2010. This exploration and...

Review of Is This A Room at Vineyard Theatre

In a rare instance, an FBI transcript was declassified. Tina Satter, who conceived and directed Is This A Room, now playing at the Vineyard Theatre, immediately realized the value of this unique moment of history and transparency in any administration. Verbatim for 70 minutes the transcript of Reality Winner (Emily Davis) being arrested by the FBI is reenacted.Every stutter, um, cough is captured on a bare stage. Although 11 agents descended on Winner's home only three are depicted in the play -...

Review of the LCT3 production of Power Strip at Lincoln Center Theater

Power Strip is a right-now story freighted with all the tales of virgins and pillage the world has ever seen.The plot has a raw quality, as it focuses on a young woman living by her wits, in a refugee camp. Yasmin (Dina Shihabi) has carved out a crude haven in a denuded olive grove, on the edge of a Greek camp for Syrian refugees — people fleeing barbarism and resigned to whatever is next. Her previous cosseted life, with expectations of marriage and children and order, is in ruins.Now she is a...

Review of Little Shop of Horrors, starring Jonathan Groff, Tammy Blanchard & Christian Borle, at Westside Theatre

The plant at the centre of Little Shop of Horrors that feeds on human blood may have had its sights on world domination, but the musical that was based on the low-budget 1960 comedy sci-fi film of the same name has actually long achieved it, so it ultimately got what it wanted. And now the show has come full circle, 37 years on from its Off-Off-Broadway beginnings at the WPA Theatre (now no more) in May 1982, before moving to the larger Orpheum Theater on Second Avenue in the East Village that...

Review of Soft Power at the Public Theater

One feels fortunate to be alive in a time where artists from marginalized demographics are getting a long overdue platform to stage boldly authentic and incisive works, made by and for themselves. Recent shows like Slave Play and A Strange Loop have also demonstrated their economic viability. With Soft Power, currently running at the Public Theater, it feels like Asian artists are finally getting their turn.The King and I, but with the roles reversed? It's less gimmicky than you'd think! When a...