Archive for the 'Theater Reviews' Category
“Translations” is moving tale of politics of language
Brian Friel’s play examines how Brits used English language to dominate the Irish. The Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of Brian Friel’s 1980 play ”Translations” is a stunning and moody production that examines the use of language to bond and to divide in both a personal and a political sense. It also becomes a symbol of patriotism and conscience as it plays into the conflicts and connections among the occupied and the occupiers in Ireland in 1833.
Setting his tale in the imaginary Irish village of Ballybeg, (itself renamed from the Gaelic, Baile Beag) in a hardscrabble dirt-floored school house in a mud-walled old barn, Friel presents a ”conquered” people who may be dirt poor and no match for British military power, but who are literate and thoughtful.
“A Spanish Play” on Actors’ Culture Mixes Trite & Trendy
The subject could be sitcom. It involves a family of women. The mother Pilar (Zoe Caldwell) is a widow who has just found a younger lover. Her daughters, both actresses, Aurelia (Linda Emond) and Nuria (Katherine Borowitz), are excruciatingly jealous of each other.
As this is by French playwright Yazmina Reza, it’s not sitcom, but cultural commentary. But the attempts at commentary are slight. If her apercus had sharp edges in France, they were worn down crossing the Atlantic.
“The Clean House” a quirky satire about social class
It’s a telenovela! declares Mathilde (Vanessa Aspillaga), the 
Brazilian maid, in Sarah Ruhl’s riff on the roles and status ascribed by social class. Part fantasy, part deftly devised social commentary, and part a passel of good jokes, the play unfolds in a delightful zig zag of unexpected turns.
The insouciant housekeeper, Mathilde, doesn’t like to clean houses. “When I was a child,” she recalls, “I thought, if the floor is dirty, look at the ceiling.” She spends her time inventing good jokes (which we hear in Portuguese) and dreaming about her parents, who had a very good time dancing, making love and telling jokes.
“The Apple Tree” cute musical spoof of love, jealousy, celebrity
Adam and Eve – men and women — through the ages turn love into self-love. 
This is a cute, quirky spoof about male-female relations, jealousy and power, and the celebrity culture of Hollywood. It starts out with Adam and Eve and progresses to love, which turns out to be lethally self-involved. The movie star piece is a good finish, since the celebrity world represents the apotheosis of self-love. The three vignettes, in which the central characters are all women – all Kristin Chenoweth — might be considered sexist, except for the fact that men don’t come out looking so good, either.
“The Vertical Hour” is pretentious political theater
Bill Nighy a standout in a flawed play about liberals and morality. 
David Hare has written some very good political plays, among them “Stuff Happens,” which follows the Bush Administration decision-making that led to the invasion of Iraq.
He appears to have dashed off “The Vertical Hour” as a comment on the American character, particularly the character of American liberals in the light of that war. He should have written an Op Ed.
“Company” a surreal, sophisticated view of marriage game
Artists tend to have signatures styles and so do playwrights, so why not directors? 
Following on the success of his production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeny Todd” last year, John Doyle has staged Sondheim’s “Company” with the same artifice of having the players double as musicians, reverting to their flutes and cellos after delivering their lines.
The device gives a surreal tinge to both plays. Surreal made sense in “Sweeny Todd,” a tale about murder. But surreal for the marriage game, where a bunch of New Yorkers are trying to get their single friend, Robert (Raúl Esparza), to wed? Well, yes, it works in “Company,” too. It’s a way of taking vignettes that might seem sitcom and turning them into artistic riffs about life. George Furth, who did the book, somehow manages to touch all the stereotypical bases without seeming clichéd.
“Mary Poppins” a bumpy musical flight of fantasy
Brandishing sticks topped with round brushes, the chimney sweeps do a tap dance atop a London row house, and audience spirits rise as high as that roof. 
When life-size toys in opera voices menace children who’ve thrown a temper tantrum, one again sees vintage Matthew Bourne, co-director and co-choreographer of “Mary Poppins,” the new musical on Broadway. Alas, most of the production numbers don’t reach those heights. (The co-choreographer is Stephen Mear.)
Not to say they aren’t engaging. A dull park turns bright green with painted flowers. Statues come to life and dance (more Bourne). And officious bank officials in black morning coats bob and weave against a backdrop of columns and domed ceiling. That is all fine for Broadway, just not what we’ve come to expect of subtly witty Bourne. Think entertainment, not artistry.
“Dick Cheney’s Holiday Spectacular 2006″ a witty musical satire
What would you choose for the opening music of a play about Dick Cheney and George Bush? 
“Money makes the world go around…” from “Cabaret,” of course. In the tradition of good satire, this tongue-in-cheek play-length musical skit by The Billionaire Follies, the performing wing of Billionaires for Bush, is witty political commentary and enormously entertaining.
It’s Christmas Eve, and a frantic mother (Tanya Elder, aka Frieda Marquette – say the syllables slowly) who must buy her kid a “Binky,” whatever that is, is knocked out by sharper-elbowed competitors at “All-Mart,” which is what the country has become. The visions that dance in her head turn out to be “Dick Cheney’s Holiday Spectacular 2006!”
“Suddenly Last Summer” is gripping portrait of moral disintegration
Tennessee Williams’ play about corrupt power gets stunning performance. 
The set is like a jungle: a New Orleans courtyard with large palms and an overhead trellis dripping with vines and blood-red flowers, and on the ground, poinsettias. In the middle of the garden is a Venus fly trap under glass. The genteel Violet Venable (Blythe Danner) used to feed it fruit flies that her son Sebastian ordered from a supplier in Florida. It is a metaphor for Violet and her son, who would consume and destroy people, and for the terrible eerily parallel vengeance their actions let loose. She shows it off casually when a visitor arrives.
“Home” a gem of a play about class in England
Story is played out by inhabitants of a mental asylum. 
In this gem of a play, thing are not what they seem, and what appears normal shares defining characteristics with what appears odd and eccentric. It shows how dissembling can be what middle and working class appearances communicate to onlookers.
“Post Mortem” jokes about life in post-Bush America
Funny one-liners adorn thin plot about mounting of subversive play. 
There’s a new genre of plays that has appeared in the past few years. A combination of political theater and theater of the absurd, they are, for want of a better term, the Bush-Cheney plays. Among them currently are “Bush is Bad,” a musical parody, and “The Dick Cheney Holiday Spectacular,” a revue by the inimitable “Billionaires for Bush.” Add to that A.R. Gurney’s shaggy dog comedy, “Post Mortem.”
“Butley” dissects a nasty, witty London lit prof
Nathan Lane brings intensity to a Simon Gray revival. 
This dark, well-made character study of a nasty, self-hating closet-gay British professor, takes place in 1971, the year Simon Gray’s play was first produced in London. The theme fits into one of Gray’s traditional subjects, the crises faced by middle-aged male intellectuals.
There’s little to like about Butley (Nathan Lane), the man. He sloughs off his work and dismisses students who arrive for tutorials. He speaks in doggerel, showing his contempt for intelligence. He reserves his energy for envying those who’ve made something of their talents. He is a miserable alcoholic. Lane’s intensity aptly captures a man whose energies have no productive place to go.
“Grey Gardens” fascinates with stunning Christine Ebersole
Feminist or camp, the musical serves up wit, imagination and panache
The fascination of “Grey Gardens” is in its depiction of what happens when rich people lose their wealth. Wealthy eccentrics are cosseted while poor relatives are held in contempt. Edith Bouvier Beale (a stunning Christine Ebersole) is flakey but monied, and elegantly garbed. We find her amusing. When Ebersole plays her daughter, Edie Beale, some thirty years later, she is an oddball who bulges unattractively out of bag-lady garments, an object of ridicule and pity.
“A Chorus Line” has timeless dancing but dated story
Score and choreography are luminous; harassment of dancers isn’t
By Lucy Komisar
“A Chorus Line,” conceived, choreographed and directed by Michael Bennett, became a legend after it opened on Broadway more than 30 years ago. It won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and ran for 15 years. Perhaps time has dimmed its luster, or what was shocking […]
“Losing Louie” is potboiler about impact of an affair
Sons harbor envy and resentment and a secret you will probably guess
By Lucy Komisar
“Losing Louis” was a big hit in London. Maybe it lost in the translation from “Louis” to “Louie” as it crossed The Pond. If this is British humor, it’s of the “No Sex Please, We’re British” variety, not of the Tom […]
“Heartbreak House” a sublime Shavian commentary
Useless self-absorbed upper class ignores slide into war
By Lucy Komisar
The politics is subtle, the story is arch, the acting sublime. “Heartbreak House,” given a delightful production by Robin Lefevre at the Roundabout Theater, was written by a master who knew how to put his opinions forth with artistry. Shaw dissects the bourgeoisie at the time […]
“My Names is Rachel Corrie” is theater as political debate
But email musings by 20-something on Israel-Palestine is not good drama
By Lucy Komisar
This solo theater piece will be judged by two standards.
The first is political: are viewers convinced by its arguments against Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza? Are they moved and persuaded by the writings — journal and emails — of Rachel […]
“The Hairy Ape” Is O’Neill’s Reflection On Class Divide
Brilliant revival of 1920s play evokes workers’ alienation
By Lucy Komisar
Director Ciarán O’Reilly has finely staged – sometimes choreographed — an emotionally and aesthetically powerful production of “The Hairy Ape,” Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 drama about class and alienation. Especially if you’ve never watched it performed, this is a version to see.
Yank (brilliantly played by Greg Derelian), […]
James Sewell brings wit and imagination to ballet
Mix of classical and modern creates a vibrant dance idiom
By Lucy Komisar
Suddenly dancers in classical pose are transformed into modern angular shapes that twist and jump to the sounds of the baroque. The music becomes electronic as classical body language turns into erratic gyrations in “Anagram,” choreographed by James Sewell to the music of Franz […]
Theater At War, First As Tragedy, Then As Farce
Classic and modern plays target Bush and (other) terrorists
By Lucy Komisar
The Public Theater in recent months consciously chose three plays to comment on the Bush war. Not by name, of course, but hardly mistakable. So did The Classic Stage. An import brought from Ireland by the Atlantic Theater Company skewered war in general.
War historically has […]
“Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living In Paris”
Songs of love, loss and war shimmer in this witty cabaret
By Lucy Komisar
This charming, poignant, elegantly staged theater piece of love-and-loss songs envelopes one so completely that you feel as if you’d wandered into a Paris cabaret instead of the slightly seedy Zipper Theater, where the lobby bar and cozy corners establish a mood that […]
“The Wedding Singer” campy romp revives the 80s
Send-ups of love, Wall Street and politics stoke the laughs
By Lucy Komisar
Director John Rando, known for the brilliantly campy “Urinetown,” has another success here with a witty, lively send-up of 1980s style — a Boy George look-alike (Kevin Cahoon) with long hair and swishy demeanor – mixed with a 1950s “gotta get a husband” attitude.
The […]
“Jersey Boys” a vibrant memoir of the sixties
Exuberant sounds mix with realistic vignettes of remarkable lives
By Lucy Komisar
If you came of age in the 60s, this smart, vibrant, clever memoir of the ways things sounded will evoke shivers of delight. And also some fascination, as the pulsating, exuberant sounds of Motown and doo-wop are skillfully linked to the story of some decidedly […]
“The History Boys” fails at important lesson
Play gives errant gay prof a pass on pedophilia
By Lucy Komisar
Of all the plays I’ve seen this season, “The History Boys” has been the most controversial, the most likely to provoke debate.
On the one hand, the rotund, erudite, slightly overweening sixtiesh professor, Hector (excellently portrayed by Richard Griffiths) propounds a philosophy of education we’d […]
“Sweeny Todd” is delectable Sondheim
Food for spirit and thought, but don’t eat the pies
By Lucy Komisar
“His voice was soft, his manner mild
He seldom laughed but he often smiled
He’d seen how civilized men behave
He never forgot and he never forgave
Not Sweeney
Not Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street…”
John Doyle’s production of “Sweeney Todd” is a thrilling artistic achievement. The Stephen […]
BCCI and the Bushes
Lucy Komisar writes about the criminal offshore bank BCCI and the way it connected the Bushes, the Saudis, Saddam and Osama bin Laden 
in her chapter, “BCCI’s Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad,” in ”A Game As Old As Empire.”
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