Helen
Public Theater

 It was bound to happen. After a sterling year including the newly Pulitzer-awarded Topdog/Underdog, the interesting Keith David-Liev Schreiber Othello revival and Elaine Stritch at Liberty (probably the most rewarding and transporting production I've ever had the privilege of writing about theater), The Public Theater has finally laid an egg. And, my, how this egg is cracked.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!
Triad

 This musical review based on Allan Sherman's lyrical parodies set to familiar music, welded into a very entertaining pastiche by Rob Krausz and Douglas Bernstein, is now playing at the cabaret space Triad on West 72nd Street. With a lively cast, talented at both singing and comedy, great absurd costumes by Michael Louis and zany staging by Krausz, it's a fun-filled evening.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2001
Henry V
Mazer Theater

 A king that can do no wrong is favored with a stunning victory at Agincourt over French forces against impossible odds: The Life of King Henry the Fifth becomes Shakespeare's paean to the British monarchy. Director Laurie Wessely further focuses this production on the protagonist (played by Brad Raider) with judicious cuts to the text, enabling the actors to add generous space around their lines to ensure clarity, yet keep the running time under three hours. Raider's strong, clear voice help create a vivid stage presence, even though his movements are more geared to film and TV.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
October 1999
Her Song
Birdland

 Barry and Brenda Levitt's compilation show at Birdland, Her Song, celebrating women songwriters, gives us a top-notch musical ensemble of five first-class singers with four hues of hair: blonde (Emma Zaks), brown (Casey Erin Clark), black (Heidi Weyhmueller) and red (Kelly McCormick). All are terrific singers and personalities. Her Song also offers one large black woman (which every musical needs) as the heart (and soul) of the show -- the incomparable Broadway star Carol Woods.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2007
Here Lies Jenny
Zipper Theater

 Bebe Neuwirth is breathtaking in her Kurt Weill musical cabaret show, Here Lies Jenny, now at The Zipper Theater on West 37th Street. It's set in a deteriorated basement, and somehow the strung-together Weill songs, with lyrics by several writers (mostly Bertolt Brecht), as directed by Roger Rees, seems to make coherent dramatic sense.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2004
Hobson's Choice
Atlantic Theater

 Every now and then, the delightful 1953 film version of Harold Brighouse's 1915 comedy, Hobson's Choice (an early gem from director David Lean starring Charles Laughton, Brenda de Banzie and John Mills), shows up on Channel 13. A rare opportunity is offered by Off-Broadway's The Atlantic Theater to see the even-more-infrequently revived play in an exceptionally fine production.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Hobson's Choice
Atlantic Theater

 Hobson's Choice, Harold Brighouse's 1915 play about a bootmaker and his three unmarried daughters, is an enjoyable peek into the marriage customs of the time and seems to be an early voice for the value of a person for himself rather than for his position. And it can be viewed as an early feminist statement as Martha Plimpton runs the family and makes a man out of a mouse (David Aaron Baker) -- two fine performances. The entire cast is good, but the over-the-top Brian Murray, who performs rather than acts, is a jarring, unrealistic note, although often quite entertaining.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Homecoming
ArcLight Theater

 An adoptee searching for her birth-mother is far from a new topic, but Lauren Weedman's solo, Homecoming, is a cut above typical fare because she tackles the quest for identity not just from her own perspective but from those of her eccentric mom and loving but snotty sister. Painted, too, with a mildy caricaturing but still-believable brush, are her African-American boyfriend, a bearlike counselor and a courteous, control-freak adoption agency clerk.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Homecoming
Westside Theater

 You could say that Lauren Weedman's one-actor, multi-character, autobiographical, 90-minute play starring herself -- Homecoming - is about her identity crises as a teenager. Adopted as an infant, Lauren lets us know she is growing up rather uneventfully in your conventionally functional middle-American family. Except for grandmother harboring suspicions that she might have been dropped on her head as a newborn, and her condescending older sister Lisa reminding her that she has two moms, the real one and this one, Lauren is otherwise content with her family.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Las Horas De Belen
P.S. 122

With its compelling theme and striking presentation, this Mabou Mines production became an instant experimental classic when it opened in finished form in May 1999. Framed within the structure of hourly devotional prayer in use since medieval times, the story of the unwed mothers, prostitutes and other undesirables that inhabited the refuge/prison is told with words, song and mime. Once admitted to Belen (the Spanish equivalent of Bethlehem, in an ironic name choice) established in 17th-century Mexico City, the women could never escape their strictly-regimented existence.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
March 2000
Hotel Suite
Gramercy Theater

 Neil Simon's new pastiche of his one-act, hotel-based plays of old, now newly dressed up and called Hotel Suite, is truly the first theatrical experience that I can recall that is both remarkable and stunningly awful. The four tales represented are all by Mr. Simon and have varying degrees of success as plays.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
House Arrest
Joseph Papp Public Theater

 As a work of tenacity and dramaturgy, Anna Deavere Smith's latest one-woman show, House Arrest, is pretty arresting, but as thoughtful theater, it registers far below expectations. Using the presidency, past and present, as her focal point, Smith employs her usual tactics: she interviewed close to 300(!) public figures, ranging from politicians and Washington insiders to TV personalities and authors. In addition to her usual copious research, she composed a show using verbatim excerpts from her findings.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2000
How I Learned To Drive
Century Center Theater

 Paula Vogel is a playwright who doesn't shrink from issues, as is quite evident in her Off-Broadway hit, How I Learned To Drive, now in an open-ended run at the new Century Theatre in New York City. The much acclaimed work, which among other honors took the 1997 Drama Desk Award for Best Play, is a politically incorrect -- as well as sexually-themed and controversial -- comedy. The much underrated Bruce Davison, who through the years has proven as at home on-stage as he is on-screen, shines as Peck.

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
October 1997
How The Bitch Stole Christmas
Fez

 Another wonderful night will be had at Jackie Beat's Christmas special, confirming that in the acidic drag-queen sweepstakes, Jackie certainly is the one to beat. Dressed to the holiday hilt, Jackie still continues to shed her special brand of holiday joy in the guise of her razor-sharp wit and unmatchable bitchiness. A few segments of How The Bitch Stole Christmas sag, notably her reading of a poem from a fed-up housewife fan that recounts her evil revenge on a lout hubby.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
December 1999
How To Turn Distress Into Success
Theater For The New City

 December wouldn't be complete without Bread & Puppet Theater's annual show at Theater for the New City. Inevitably this year's themes are war and global capitalism. How To Turn Distress Into Success also highlights the role of spin in transforming the worst of man-made disasters, like the war on Iraq, into triumphs of human intellect.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Hungarian Medea
Teatro Armando Perez, Charas/El Bohio

 (see Criticopia off-Broadway review(s) under "Die Ungarische Medea")

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Hurlyburly
37 Arts Theater

 I don't know if the original production of Hurlyburly was a comedy. The film - over an hour shorter than the play - has bitterly funny scenes but plays as tragedy. As such, it's very effective. All the more curious, then, that this production is an extremely funny black comedy. The irony is that the three main leads - Ethan Hawke as Eddie, Josh Hamilton as Mickey and Bobby Cannavale as Phil - all seem to be doing impressions of their counterparts from the movie (Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey and Chaz Palminteri).

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Hurrah At Last
Gramercy Theater

 Rather like a planet circling the sun is the appropriately titled Roundabout Theater Company, which, not because it wanted to, has been forced to move its location twice this decade. While awaiting the completion of its new theater on 42nd Street, the Roundabout production of Richard Greenberg's Hurrah at Last is currently at the Gramercy Theater on 23rd Street. McCarter Theater audiences had a sample of Greenberg's use of dramatic irony when his dark and disturbing play, Safe As Houses, had its world premiere there in March, 1998.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
Hypatia
Soho Rep

 All right, I'm going to confess something. I'm not one of those critics who feels it necessary to go into long, windy plot synopses just to prove how crafty I am at understanding narrative. I happen to find that it robs readers of their sense of discovery, and I like to leave them with a little something to feel out for themselves. Well, in the case of Mac Wellman's new play Hypatia, you're totally on your own folks.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
May 2000
Producers, The
Broadway Theater Center

 Milwaukee recently scored a coup when The Skylight became the first Midwest regional theater to acquire rights to The Producers, the madcap, slapstick comedy by Mel Brooks. (This is pure speculation, but one suspects the decision might have been based on the Skylight's recent musical successes, including last season's miraculous, pre-Broadway run of White Christmas.)

With The Producers, the Skylight scores another bulls-eye. Shadows of Broadway's Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick fade away in the glory of this big-budget production.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2008
Seafarer, The
American Heritage Center for the Arts


 As the audience settles in before the start of The Seafarer at Mosaic Theater in South Florida, a ghost-gray light marks the set's window near where a Christmas tree later will glow subtly with multicolored bulbs. But for now, that ghostly light doesn't seem to enter the small home near Dublin as much as it just hovers there, outside, as if waiting to make an entrance.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
November 2008
La Cage aux Folles
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 What fun! Never before have I seen this musical so at home -- due to pastel scenery and lighting -- on the French Riviera. New to me, too, in the costumes at the nightclub of the title: the individuality of colors, styles, textures in the clothing of Les Cagelles' introductory number.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2008
Two Rooms
Nova Southeastern University - Mailman Hollywood Center Auditorium

 Two Rooms was written in 1988, when news from the Middle East was of Americans and other Westerners being kidnapped in Beirut by terrorists whose motives and next moves seemed unfathomable and unpredictable. Rather than lose currency, Lee

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
October 2006
Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes, The
HERE Arts Center

 I rarely see, anywhere, the high level of ensemble work now playing in NACL's The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes at HERE Arts Center in SoHo. You can only achieve what they do by working together daily for years - and that is what North American Cultural Laboratory does in their upstate theater center.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
White Christmas
Marriott Marquis Theater

 White Christmas, with songs by Irving Berlin and book by David Ives and Paul Blake and a sharp Broadway cast, is an entertainment full of holiday cheer with familiar songs well performed. Everything is bubbly clean: the dancers, the costumes by Carrie Robbins, the imaginative, flexible sets by Anna Louizos.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Daly News, The
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

 Milwaukee Chamber Theater ends the year with a world premiere of The Daly News, a musical written by local actor and playwright Jonathan Gillard Daly. The tuner is based on the Daly family's real-life experiences during World War II. Daly's grandfather, a man who died before Jon was born, carefully chronicled the events at home and abroad during the war in a weekly family letter he called, "The Daly News." Each "edition" updated family members on the lives of four Daly boys, all of whom served their country during World War II.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2008
Christmas Carol, A
Cygnet Theater

 How many times have you or I seen a production of A Christmas Carol? We have seen traditional productions. We have seen strange interpretations. Some good, some bad, but rarely a production to rave about. Cygnet Theater Company's mounting, under the direction of Sean Murray, is the best production I've seen in recent years.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Garden of Earthly Delights
Minetta Lane Theater

 Martha Clarke's Garden of Earthly Delights, based on a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, is a masterpiece of Performance Art. It has images and utilizations of the human body you've never seen before - anywhere, even in the painting.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
This Wonderful Life
Asolo Theater

 Consider: This Wonderful Life is based on a perennially popular classic film, based on a heartwarming short story, and that the film has been adapted into a radio play, a regular stage play and a two-hander, and a musical comedy. Conclusion: As a one-man tour de force theater piece, it's a sure-fire audience pleaser. With a story of the power of family, friendship and good works, it brings true holiday warmth to the charming old Asolo.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Tuna Christmas, A
Compass Theater

 First there was Greater Tuna, then A Tuna Christmas, followed by Red, White and Tuna and, most recently, Tuna Does Vegas. Lucky San Diegans will get to see the second one starring Fred Harlow and Don Loper. These two are a dream team for this play, portraying 22 characters in less than two hours.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Shrek
Broadway Theater

If you're a gay parent or uncle and you want to take in a new (or newish) Broadway show that will entertain the kids without boring you to tears, your options are limited. Disney's The Little Mermaid and Mary Poppins are huge disappointments, and the recently opened White Christmas is, as a friend of mine would say, from hunger.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Oh, Those Beautiful Weimar Girls
CSV Cultural Center

 Oh, Those Beautiful Weimar Girls, written by Idiko Nemeth and Mark Altman and directed by Nemeth, with the sexiest choreography in town by Julie Atlas Muz and Peter Schmitz, terrific costumes by Javier Bone-Carbone, stylish lighting by Federico Restrepo, and a lively soundscape by Jon Gilbert Leavitt, is a visit to the depravity in Berlin from 1921 to '32 centered about the super-Bohemian dancer, Anita Berber. She depraved herself into an early grave, but had a great time along the way.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Shrek
Broadway Theater

 Shrek, the musical based on William Steig's book, with clever book and lyrics by the rascally David Lindsay-Abaire and lively music by Jeanine Tesori, is a brilliantly designed (inspired set and outrageous costumes by Tim Hatley) children's fantasy extravaganza with enough anachronisms and references to the fairy tales we all know to also amuse the grown-ups in the audience.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Pal Joey
Studio 54

 The delayed opening of this long-awaited revival of the 1940 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical was unavoidable. It was, however, almost ironically beset with the same troubles that affected the 1976 Broadway revival. Just a few weeks ago during previews of Pal Joey, understudy Matthew Risch replaced the injured Christian Hoff as the lead. In the 1976 revival Edward Villella was replaced during previews by Christopher Chadwick in the obviously precarious title role.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Nutcracker: Rated R
Theater For The New City

 Nutcracker: Rated R is a dazzling full-length ballet set to the music of Tchaikovsky, choreographed and directed by the brilliant Angela Harriell, who could be the next Susan Stroman. It's all Broadway-level work.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Puppetolio
Santa Monica Puppet and Magic center

 Steve Meltzer has the world on a string. The gifted puppeteer not only has put together his own one-man show but performs it in a theater he built himself, doing comic turns with a series of raffish puppets and marionettes of his own design.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Marvelous Wonderettes, The
Westside Theater

 The Marvelous Wonderettes, written and directed by Roger Bean, is a cute pastiche of well-known romantic songs from the 50's and 60's performed by four terrific Broadway singers, and for we older folks, it's a lot of fun hearing hits from our past sung so well. Act One is the High School Prom in 1958, and Act Two is ten years later.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2008
Imaginary Invalid, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 "Over the top," said my companion as well as those we heard in the lobby afterward. No surprise: comic cartoon figures cover the proscenium arch. The curtain opens on a parlor askew, like a technicolor "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" encasing hypochondriac Argan (Douglas Jones, worthy of Moliere). Before his own cabinet full of potions and devices, he analyzes his farts and jollies over the possibility of ending voluminous medical bills by having an in-house doctor. Free. Argan just needs to wed daughter Angelique (sweet but spunky Elizabeth Ahrens) to about-to-be medico Claude (David Yearta).

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2009
Happy Days
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

 For fans of the old "Happy Days" TV series, which began a decade-long run in 1974, Happy Days, A New Musical should bring back plenty of memories.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2009
Pal Joey
Studio 54

 What a pleasure to see a musical with great songs. With music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, Pal Joey, just like in olden times, sends you out of the theater humming its unforgettable songs like, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," which is given a brilliant, stunning rendition by one of our finest actresses: Stockard Channing.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2009

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