Humor Abuse
City Center - Stage II

 Lorenzo Pisoni was stunning as the major horse in the recent production of Equus. Now Manhattan Theater Club is presenting him in his one-man show, Humor Abuse, his life as a clown, starting at age 3, with his father in the Pickle Family Circus. So for over thirty years, this superb performer has been honing and perfecting his circus skills, which he tells us about and shows us in this captivating, marvelous show. He is handsome and charming, and his warm, unpretentious performance is dazzling in its complexity and his mastery of the genre.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Ameriville
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Four extraordinary actors performing as the Universes ensemble delivered a powerful inspirational opening for Actors Theater of Louisville's 33rd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays with their incisive, gripping ruminations called Ameriville.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Don't Dress for Dinner
Theater Three

 Marc Camoletti's French farce, Don't Dress for Dinner, is still regaling audiences 18 years after its March 20, 1991 opening at London's Apollo Theatre. Dallas' Theater Three opened a side-splitting production of this hilarious play in its theater-in-the-round on February 9, 2009, following a weekend of previews.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Slasher
Actors Theater of Louisville

 There's much to savor in Allison Moore's Slasher, a comedy about those cheesy horror films in which screaming girls cornered in old empty houses get massacred in various and sundry perverse ways.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Pride and Prejudice
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

Does the world really need another stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice? Probably not, but that doesn't prevent us from enjoying the wonderful adaptation by Milwaukee Repertory Theater Artistic Director Joe Hanreddy and noted stage director J.R, Sullivan.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Miss Julie
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

 Two terms ago, as director, Andrei Malaev-Babel turned an Henri Bergson drama, in the forefront of its time for establishing realism in France, into a 19th century melodrama with asides and exaggerated acting styles. Now he has taken a drama typifying August Strindberg's extension of realism into naturalism and, except for sexual matter dictated by the text, confused much of Miss Julie with its writer's later departures from representational drama.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Frost/Nixon
Ahmanson Theater

 History begins in tragedy and ends in satire, goes the saying. In playwright Peter Morgan's hands, though, history turns into sentimental mush.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Absalom
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Multi-talented Zoe Kazan's family drama, Absalom, a satisfyingly old-fashioned,
well-made play is the third work to open in this year's 33rd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Incident at Vichy
Beckett Theater

 If you want to see a perfectly directed (by Scott Alan Evans), beautifully acted play written by a master who knew how to construct a play in terms of content, dialogue and action better than almost any American writer of the last hundred years, don't miss Arthur Miller's brilliant 1964 work, Incident at Vichy. Set in a detention room in southern France as the Nazis are taking command and searching for Jews, men are sitting and talking and wondering in this dangerous situation. It is one of the most exciting theatrical experiences in town.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
33 Variations
Eugene O'Neill Theater

33 Variations by Moisés Kaufman, is a play that explores why Beethoven, at the height of his musical power, near the end of his life, chose to write this many variations on a simple melody that he didn't like. An intriguing idea, but this play is a conglomerate of inconsistencies: Jane Fonda is terrific as the scholar doing the investigating as she deteriorates from Lou Gehrig's Disease, and her performance has great depth as the character fights to finish her work before she dies.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Rooms
New World Stages

Want to see a show with smart writing, catchy melodies, wonderful performances on a clever efficient set (by Adam Koch), with great costumes (by Alejo Vietti) and two terrific performances, one of them a star? Check out off-Broadway's Rooms - a rock musical, with music and lyrics by Paul Scott Goodman and book by Goodman and Miriam Gordon.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
And L.A. is Burning!
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz Stage III

In a Seattle government agency, middle-aged conservative, white Haddie (Susan Greenhill), backward socially and on the job, newly shares a small office with younger, black, well-spoken and suited Alvin (Lelund Durond Thompson), a college graduate. In Los Angeles, the police who beat up Rodney King are on trial. Racism is the topic of the day. Haddie faces hers first when she meets a temporary new neighbor, Sylvia (Celeste Ciulla), a writer on sociology and economics.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Stitching
Lillian Theater

 Like a bratty kid mouthing profanities, Scottish playwright Anthony Neilson delights in trying to shock and enrage audiences. A case in point is his 2002 play , Stitching, which has come to Los Angeles after a stormy but successful run in New York. The two-character drama is a study in sadomasochistic sex tinged with love.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Hard Weather Boating Party, The
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Playwright Naomi Wallace's laudable intention to throw light upon the long-standing environmental degradation and human suffering caused by chemical industries in Louisville's Rubbertown neighborhood inspired. The Hard Weather Boating Party. This fourth play in the 33rd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville falls far short, alas, of its noble goal.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Incident at Vichy
Beckett Theater

 When Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy was first produced in 1964, it was not a popular success, although it had garnered at least one glowing critical review: by the then-New York Times theater critic. The play deals with an incident during the Holocaust, reputed to be factual. Perhaps audiences were not ready to deal with such issues at that time. Now The Actors Company Theater (TACT) is staging the play's first major New York revival since its premiere.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Good Negro, The
Public Theater

 There are many stories floating around concerning Martin Luther King, Jr., and the various events of the early Civil Rights days. Although King's name is never mentioned in The Good Negro, it is obvious that playwright Tracey Scott Wilson has utilized information, some factual some fictional, to present an involving work dealing with King and that intense period in the 60s.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Under Construction
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Playwright Charles L. Mee is a master at writing stageworthy replications of works by American artists. For two previous Humana Festivals of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville he put forth incisive examinations of Robert Rauschenberg and Joseph Cornell. He's back at the 33rd annual festival with a double-edged look at two other artists: Norman Rockwell, with his indelible Saturday Evening Post images of small-town America; and Jason Rhodes, whose controversial, three-dimensional, sex-drenched installations have been characterized as orgies of narrative art that ran amok.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Posthumously Speaking
Westminster Theater

 Posthumously Speaking is receiving its world premiere at Westminster Theatre under the direction of Susan Murphy. The work is penned by Robert I. Landis. It opens with a monologue by Gabriel (Tom Haine). Yes! That Gabriel! He is, of course, in a white suit with white accessories and a dash of almost invisible sparkles.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Guys And Dolls
Nederlander Theater

 Guys and Dolls, one of the great musicals, with unforgettable songs by Frank Loesser (they don't write songs like this for musicals anymore) and a still-snappy book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, opens with super style in an inventive set (by Robert Brill), spectacular costumes (by Paul Tazewell), super choreography (by Sergio Trujillo) and period tone with a mime show of New York gangsters and gamblers in action in the 1930's.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Southern Gothic Novel
Stage Left Studio

 In Southern Gothic Novel, written and performed by Frank Blocker, he really captures the caricatured essence of many Southern men and women in voice, posture and attitude: a June Bug girl, her mother, a black lady, a Chinese woman, and a redneck molester, and many more. Blocker has great vocal and physical expressiveness, his creation of the imaginary objects around his characters is clean and clear, and the show, a country melodrama, nicely directed by Cheryl King, is an entertaining visit, filled with laughs, to a subculture that is exotic and interesting to us citybillies.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Who Murdered Love?
Theater for the New City

 Lissa Moira's surreal creation, Who Murdered Love? is a strange, Chandleresque, film-noir musical filled with jokes, puns, and dreams in music and stylized action. A little Fellini, a little Midsummer Night's Dream, a DaDa extravaganza with elves, sprites, a detective (Nathan Wirmer), his beautiful, sexy client (Jennifer Guest) and a secretary who loves him (Anne Elyse Chambers).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Facing East
Diversionary Theater

Carol Lynn Pearson's facing east explores Ruth (Dana Hooley) and Alex McCormick's (John Polak) son Andrew's suicide. The action takes place at a cemetery in Salt Lake City. At the burial site, they meet their son's partner, Marcus (Scott Stiegel).

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Impressionism
Gerald Schoenfeld Theater

Impressionism, by Michael Jacobs, a romantic comedy now on Broadway, has an all-star cast in an interesting but odd and somewhat confusing play.

In this exploration of Art, coffee and broken relationships, the entire cast is excellent, and both Jeremy Irons as a photographer and Joan Allen as an art gallery owner are totally engaging, and Andre De Shields is magnetic. His old man interpreting a painting is a gem and should get him a Tony nomination.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Bronx Tale, A
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

 Chazz Palminteri received a warm welcome in Wisconsin when he arrived with his one-man, semi-autobiographical show, A Bronx Tale. It's safe to say most audience members had NO idea of who the performer was, nor had they ever visited the Bronx. They probably didn't spend their childhoods running up and down a fire escape ladder, either. And the Mob didn't control the community. But that didn't stop Milwaukeeans from marveling at Palminteri's wonderful storytelling.

March 2009
Date Reviewed:
Anne Siegel
Barney and Bee
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

 How's this for a twist? Board members of Milwaukee's Renaissance Theaterworks see a new comedy in Chicago. The playwright is Michael Frayn (Noises Off). The group loves the play but hates the title, Chinamen, which they felt would be offensive and really has nothing to do with the plot. So they contact Frayn and ask if it would be okay to change the title. He agrees, and so Renaissance Theaterworks now presents Barney & Bee. This title makes sense, because Barney and Bee are two of the play's main characters. They are a long-married – but now separated – couple.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
West Side Story
Palace Theater

West Side Story is a dance show, and right from the opening number. the awesome acrobatic dancers performing Jerome Robbins' brilliantly spectacular choreography as reproduced by Joey McKneely is thrilling to watch as played out on the marvelous, powerful set by James Youmans.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
God of Carnage
Bernard B. Jacobs

 Yasmina Reza's dramedy, God of Carnage, is the funniest farce seen on Broadway since Lend Me A Tenor. Two couples meet to figure out what to do -- the son of one couple hit the son of the other couple in the mouth with a stick. Two great farceurs, Hope Davis, whose takes and reactions are subtle and brilliantly hilarious, and Marcia Gay Harden, who can leap from gentility to hyper-fury in a split second, fuel the conflict that develops, and Jeff Daniels' cell phone-obsessed manipulator is a gem.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Wild Blessings
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Wild Blessings: A Celebration of Wendell Berry, the sixth and final full-length work in this year's 33rd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, is a gorgeously conceived tribute to the Kentucky farmer/poet/novelist/essayist renowned, as well, for his environmental concerns.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Romeo and Juliet
Met Theater

 "There are no experts in Shakespeare. All of us, if we read intelligently and without fear, have the right to our own Shakespeare, whether we love him, loathe him, are bored by his plays, or believe them to be the most compelling expression of genius ever written. There is no authority that can place the seal of authenticity on Shakespeare. Each of the many institutions and individuals -- myself included -- who produce, edit, and play Shakespeare offer only an interpretation of a constantly challenging and changing text."

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Exit the King
Barrymore Theater

Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King, beautifully directed by Neil Armfield, is a vivid example of "Theater of the Absurd." This production is absurd from start to finish in all aspects: set and costumes by Dale Ferguson, lighting by Damien Cooper, soundscape by Russell Goldsmith, action by the splendid cast.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Hair
Al Hirschfeld Theater

 In the wake of sorely disappointing revivals of West Side Story and Guys and Dolls, I'm thrilled that Hair is a triumph in its transfer from Central Park's Delacorte Theater to Broadway, where it deserves to run for at least 10 years. The energy on display at the Hirschfeld is so tremendous that it's hard to imagine how the cast can keep it up for eight performances a week; but, on the other hand, most of them are really young!

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Blithe Spirit
Shubert Theater

On the worthy revival front, it's gratifying that the legendary Angela Lansbury is back on the boards in Blithe Spirit -- not only because she's giving a delightful performance as Madame Arcati in an excellent production directed by Michael Blakemore, but also because this endeavor helps obliterate memories of Lansbury's most recent Broadway outing in Deuce, a deservedly reviled play by Terrence McNally. Moral: When in doubt, stick with Noël Coward!

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
God of Carnage
Bernard B. Jacobs

The current Broadway season is notable for the number of plays (as opposed to musicals) that are opening, and God of Carnage is the best I've seen thus far, both in terms of Yasmina Reza's keenly perceptive script (translated by Christopher Hampton) and the pitch-perfect production at the Jacobs. Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden kill as two sets of parents who vainly attempt to remain civil in discussing a violent incident that occurred between their children.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Exit the King
Ethel Barrymore Theater

Exit the King is commendable mostly for Geoffrey Rush's wonderfully theatrical performance as an out-of touch, moribund monarch, but there is also fine work from the rest of the cast, especially Andrea Martin and Lauren Ambrose.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
33 Variations
Eugene O'Neill Theater

Although many of the critics who praised Jane Fonda's performance in 33 Variations had reservations about Moisés Kaufman's script, I was engrossed by this play about a terminally ill woman's attempt to solve one of music history's greatest puzzles.

Michael Portantiere
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Blithe Spirit
Shubert Theater

The current Broadway production of Noel Coward's antic comedy of marital relations beyond the grave, Blithe Spirit, directed by the master-of-timing and comic business Michael Blakemore, with the brilliant, zany, powerful actress/comedienne Angela Lansbury as the medium who connects with the "other" world, is one of the most entertaining theatrical evenings in town. For me, there is a flaw, though. The fast-talking Rupert Everett is tall, handsome and sometimes incoherent, and Coward's wit is blurred by the speed of some of his delivery and his dropping of final consonants.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Irena's Vow
Walter Kerr Theater

 Dan Gordon's play, Irena's Vow, about a Polish Catholic woman who hid and saved twelve Jews during World War II, starring one of Broadway's greatest actresses, Tovah Feldshuh, in a wonderful, heartbreaking, thrilling performance, is a great history lesson, and, in part, a tough show for an old Jew to watch. It's a ripper. But ultimately it's totally uplifting, and Feldshuh, with great craft, and even humor, hits her lines and moments with great craft, skill and heart.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
West Side Story
Palace Theater

 This revival of one of the great musicals palpably hits the mark. Directed by Arthur Laurents, who wrote the original book, West Side Story thrills and moves one. As is well known, this remake of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" contains the same emotional highs and lows of the original; however, it has been transplanted to contemporary New York's Upper West Side.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Pavilion, The
Off-Broadway Theater

 Playwright Craig Wright demands something slightly different from the audience in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, The Pavilion. Instead of allowing us to get completely wrapped up in the play's two main characters, Wright demands that the audience examines its own lives – right then, right there in the theater. Therefore, The Pavilion can wind up being a somewhat unsettling experience. Its unusual approach may not satisfy in the same way a more traditional treatment might do.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Mauritius
Pasadena Playhouse

 A tough, smart and cynical take on American morality, Mauritius is one of the best productions to be seen in Los Angeles in many a day. Originally produced in Boston, then honed in New York at the Manhattan Theater Club in 2007, the play deals with five people vying for control of two of the most valuable stamps on the philatelic market today.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2009

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