“Into the Woods” enormously clever deconstructed Grimm’s fairy tales for adults

This is the back story of Grimms‘ fairy tales, for adults. It‘s a deconstructed Grimms.

The show, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine, was a brilliant conception when it was first produced in 1986.

Grimms‘ fairy tales were morality tales. Having the fairy tale characters intersect with their stories, Sondheim and Lapine turn the events in the woods into a metaphor for the challenges of life. The message is that the woods are full of dangers; be careful what you wish for. It‘s also about community.

In “A Delicate Balance” Albee skewers women

Edward Albee, who is gay, has made a fine dramatic career skewing the gloomy relationships of heterosexual couples and establishing the women as villains. (This may have started because he hated his adoptive mother.) His 1962 “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” made his reputation.

This 1966 play continues the theme a few years later. The partners of the two married couples don‘t sleep with each other, and the daughter of one of them has just left her fourth husband. Most of the blame is on the distaff side. Yes, I know that the director is a woman, Pam MacKinnon. And with her taught direction, the actors are superb.

“The Last Night of Ballyhoo” criticizes assimilated Jews in 1930s Atlanta

Red Barn director Joy Hawkins brings Key West a pitch-perfect staging of Alfred Uhry‘s funny, political and subtly biting play about an assimilated 1939 Atlanta Jewish family whose status-conscious matriarch rejects their heritage. Uhry wrote from childhood memories.

Boo (Beulah) Levy (given a sharp, tough portrayal by Karen Grant), criticizes her daughter Lala (played nicely as a bit ditsy by Lisa Elena Monda) for putting a star atop their decorated Christmas tree. Excuse me, Chanukah bush. Boo says the tree is fine without the star, which makes it Christian. Lala doesn‘t see the distinction. (Neither does Uhry.)

Her main concern, however, is getting her daughter into society and married. There are limitations. It has to be German Jewish society. Boo looks down at those who came from “east of the Elbe,” the river that runs between Germany and Czechoslovakia. She boasts that their house is on a block filled with Christians, though their neighbors of course don‘t accept them.

 “Noises Off” gets rousing comic staging at Key West‘s Waterfront Playhouse

Here‘s a case in which it helps to pay attention to the playbill. Michael Frayn‘s 1982 classic play within a play, or in this case, a farce within a farce, gets a first rate production by Key West‘s Waterfront Playhouse under the deft hand of artistic director Danny Weathers.

Even if you don‘t know the script, the opening play called “Nothing On” seems an odd disaster. Roger Tramplemain (Brandon Beach), a real estate agent is taking his girlfriend Vicki (a very good screaming- red-head Erin Mckenna) for a few days at a country house he is supposed to be renting out. The property owners Philip and Flavia Brent (David Black and Susannah Wells) are conveniently in Spain to clock resident days in order to cheat on British taxes. Vicki, who is always angularly posing, has the opportunity to prance around in her underwear. (Non-salacious attire is by Carmen Rodriguez).

In “The Last Ship,” Sting‘s worker rebellion opts for symbolism instead of change

The problem with “The Last Ship,” a recitative musical written by John Logan and Brian Yorkey, with music and lyrics by pop artist Sting, is politics. In a play about workers‘ response to the closing of their shipyard, there really isn‘t any. The play is a feel-good story about workers taking over the shipyard to build one last ship to sail around the world. And then what? How does that challenge or even explain the forces that closed their shipyard?

The story begins when the young man, Gideon Fletcher (Michael Esper), rejects his father‘s wish – symbolically represented by a gift of his work boots – that he follow him as a shipyard worker in Newcastle. Instead, Gideon leaves home and girlfriend, Meg Dawson (Rachel Tucker), to see the world and make his fortune.

“The Elephant Man” a stunning play about cruelty and morality in 19th-century England

A mix of cruelty and humanity, a bit of voyeurism, and some fascination at an indomitable human spirit are the stuff of Bernard Pomerance‘s play “The Elephant Man,” in a moving revival directed by Scott Ellis.

The play, staged first in 1977 in London, imagines the trials and unusual accomplishments of Joseph Merrick, who lived in Europe in the late 1800s, afflicted by a disease so appalling – misshapen body, face distorted by a fungus that grew massively on his head, skin like an elephant‘s hide – that his unfeeling Belgian mother shipped him to a carnival freak show.

“On The Town” a gorgeous 40s fable revived with sexist veneer

Here‘s a remake of the classic 1944 play and more famous 1949 movie of three sailors on a weekend pass in New York who leave the ship determined to find romance. Or at least women. The brassy Bernstein music is wonderful, the actors are terrific, with a couple of voices a touch above what you often get on Broadway, and the staging is fine, if unexceptional, but hey, this is New York, where, as Chip says,

“The famous places to visit are so many,
or so the guidebooks say.
I promised daddy I wouldn‘t miss on any,
and we have just one day.

Gotta see the whole town
right from Yonkers on down to the bay…”

“Disgraced” a confused play about conflict between Muslims and Jews

“Disgraced” a confused play about conflict between Muslims and Jews

We‘re in a gorgeous Upper East Side apartment with floor to ceiling windows. Amir (Hari Dhillon) is a lawyer and wife Emily (Gretchen Mol) a painter. The first bizarre thing is that she is painting him while he is dressed in a proper business suit above the waist but only boxer shorts below. What is that about? Playwright Ayad Akhtar never makes that clear, and it‘s not the only conundrum.

“Café Society Swing” is glorious jazz and troubling history

“Café Society Swing” is glorious jazz and troubling history

It‘s 1948, the tenth birthday of Café Society, where great jazz and cabaret in a corner of Greenwich Village clashed with the worst know-nothings of the McCarthy era. But we‘re over that now, so come to this musical memoir to enjoy the delicious sounds of the 30s and 40s. And recall how evil the thought police of that era were. The club became a target of slimy columnists such as Dorothy Kilgallen, who called it a “Moscow-line nightclub.” It was the only place that welcomed whites and blacks, certainly enough to make Mme Kilgallen call it subversive.

Indeed, Barney Josephson was a lefty. So? He put money into integrated housing. He used to joke that the Café was “the wrong place for the right people.” Even Eleanor Roosevelt showed up.

“The Invisible Hand”: Islamic militants turn West‘s capital markets into their weapon

If only the radical Islamists were just like the people who run the West, capitalists! If you think that‘s the answer, be careful what you wish for. Ayad Akhtar‘s clever, ironic, compelling play shows what could happen when a Wall Streeter, kidnapped for ransom, persuades his captors that he is more valuable to them by showing how to manipulate the West‘s financial system – especially the stock and currency markets.

It‘s presented off Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop. One wishes it had a broader reach.

“Tail! Spin!” a funny sick joke about some jerks who served in Congress

What better way to spend election night than with prominent politicians, Democrat Anthony I Was Hacked Weiner, Republican Mark Appalachian Trail Sanford, Republican Larry Wide Stance Craig, and Republican Mark Underage Page Foley.

In the back of my mind was the thought that some of the bozos being elected might appear in the play‘s second edition. Because of course, there will be more.

“Tamburlaine” by Marlowe is exciting 16th-century take on modern military state

Is this yet another depiction of the brutality and cruelty of rulers who, so full of themselves, wreak havoc on anyone who doesn‘t bow down? Not quite. It‘s an early anti-war play. Plus ça change.
Except, when John Douglas Thompson is the evil guy, you are drawn by his brilliant performance as well as fascination at what makes this real 14th-century character tick and why those around him succumb. (The play was inspired by the life of Central Asian emperor, Timur the lame. Or Tamerlane. But plenty of others followed.) And at the fact that Christopher Marlow wrote this in the 16th century. Not much progress in half a millennium.

“The Real Thing” is Stoppard‘s cynical take on the disaster of modern marriage

A major problem with this production of British playwright Tom Stoppard’s play about infidelity is that the unfaithful pair don‘t seem very hot, at least not with each other. Annie, an actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal), is married to Max, an actor (Josh Hamilton). Henry, a playwright (Ewen McGregor), is married to Charlotte, an actress (Cynthia Nixon). Henry is obviously a stand-in for Stoppard.
Max/Hamilton and Charlotte/Nixon are both rather bland. Lots of talk and no sparks. Nixon is cool, hard-faced, flat. But then, so are Annie/Gyllenhaal and Henry/McGregor when they get together. Gyllenhaal as Annie is hot, but she makes no connection to her paramour.

“Father Comes Home From the Wars” a powerful feminist take on black liberation

Whatever playwright Susan-Lori Parks turns her hand to is bound to be surprising and memorable. Her latest work, the first of three parts, is a brave Brechtian drama about slaves during the time of the Civil War. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem. It‘s a commentary about blacks today who sell out their people for, what? (Can we put Clarence Thomas in this equation?) And a powerful feminist commentary.

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” glows in reclusive brilliant mind

The star of this mesmerizing production is director Marianne Elliott. Her co-star is video designer Finn Ross. Of course, Alexander Sharp is superb as the intense, erratic, edgy, wound-up Christopher, the 15-year-old autistic youth whose mind works like a machine but who can’t get personal connections in gear. He is literal, as precise as math. “Where is heaven?” he asks the pastor. He speaks in great detail but doesn‘t like metaphors, because they obscure reality. When a cop says, “Park yourself,” he goes “beep! beep!” and moves backwards.

“You Can‘t Take it With You” is a near-80-year-old sitcom

If you thought television invented sitcoms, with nutty family members and their wacky friends, you are wrong. Just go back to 1936, when George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart presented “You Can‘t Take it With You.”

Maybe Americans liked it, because it took their minds off the Depression. The Pulitzer jury gave it a prize, which I think was stretching. It‘s occasionally a cute and quirky play, but never a great play. Makes one wonder why director Scott Ellis wanted to revive it. Other than to show where sitcoms came from.

Wit gets erased from Tom Stoppard‘s “Indian Ink”

India ink may be indelible, but this Tom Stoppard play fades from memory. The 1995 work, based on a 1991 radio drama, is a confused, flat attempt to deal with the confluence of cultures in a colonial era, this one the British rule over India.

“Love Letters” has luminous Mia Farrow as neurotic female confronting perfect male

“Love Letters” is a charmer, but also rather sexist. A.R. Gurney‘s play, which premiered in 1988, emphasizes the woman character as flaky, neurotic, self-absorbed and the man as solid, intelligent, all patience and understanding. All but perfect. You wonder why the female character is swaddled in flaws while the man has nary a one.

Mia Farrow plays Melissa Gardner, daughter of a very rich but somewhat dysfunctional family. Not much parental love from a distant divorced father and alcoholic mother.

Peter Brook‘s “The Valley of Astonishment” is good science, bad theater

This play about synesthesia, the mixing of senses (sound and color; taste and shape) was inspired by director Peter Brook‘s reading “The Man Who Mistaked His Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sachs. Case studies about brain imaging.
Alas, the production by Brook and his longtime collaborator, Marie-Hélène Estienne, might be interesting as a presentation to a medical convention, but it doesn‘t make it as a play. More‘s the pity that it wastes the talent of the extraordinary Kathryn Hunter, who has performed in other Brook-Estienne productions, most memorably and brilliantly in “Kafka‘s Monkey.”

“Embers” is deadly vision of Beckett play

Can a director and a set designer destroy a play? The production of Samuel Beckett‘s “Embers” at BAM provides a strong argument.

A huge skull sits in the center stage. Inside are two actors (Andrew Bennett and Áine Ní Mhuiri) who read the lines of the various male and female characters of Beckett‘s play. I thought the production was dreadful. And I thought that maybe the play was also dreadful.

But then I read the script. I realized the play is much better than this production would have you believe. Beckett‘s play is about a man, an unsuccessful writer, who is thinking over his life and relation with his father, who may have committed suicide by walking into the sea. His father had told him that he was a “washout,” a failure.

A soundscape/vision of “Finnegan‘s Wake”

Plays usually depend upon dialogue. In ˜riverrun,‘ adapted from James Joyce‘s 1939 novel Finnegan‘s Wake, Irish actor Olwen Fouéré is the river Liffey. Fouéré’s text is inspired and adapted by the final section of Joyce‘s “book of the night.” However, the dialogue is mostly impenetrable, which of course is typically Joycean.

“A Gentleman‘s Guide to Love and Murder” is a smashing way to deal with aristocrats

This is Jefferson Mays‘ show from start to finish, and he is brilliant in it. It‘s a smart clever musical with definite anti-aristocratic politics. A fantasy moment when so many of us are trying to figure out how to get rid of the bad guys.

The story was told in the 1949 British film “Kind Hearts and Coronets” starring Alec Guinness. That was based on the 1907 novel “Israel Rank: the Autobiography of a Criminal” by Roy Horniman.

“Cabaret” still an intense, chilling lesson about how ordinary people deal with evil

Take a trip back to Berlin circa 1930. Inside a cabaret, red lamps light round black tables, a waiter brings wine and food for you, and scantily clad musicians play jazzy music. It‘s a charming evening for a sophisticated audience – or is it?

The decadence is represented by the master of ceremonies (Alan Cumming), who is in-your-face crude, sexual, raunchy, almost elegantly so with his white faced, glinty eyes and red lips, white suspenders pulled over a nude chest and twisted around his crotch, nipples colored red. He has a German accent.

1 13 14 15 16 17 28