Rivals, The
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

 Shift your consciousness back about 230 years, to a different, somewhat stilted style of writing, and soon the universality of the humor in this ancient soap opera begins to work, and the laughs emerge in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, now at Lincoln Center. Sheridan is a master of wordplay, and his Mrs. Malaprop's ridiculous inappropriateness in her use of words has become part of our common language. Mischief makers, fools, lovers -- Sheridan's trick is that here and there a hint of almost malapropism slips into everyone's speech.\

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2004
Rocky Horror Show, The
Circle in the Square

 I went to see The Rocky Horror Show as a virgin, and came out a fan. Soon after my initiation I went back to see it a second time, with some cast changes, and loved it even more. (As did my wife, who saw an earlier production in London.) Dick Cavett, as the emcee, asks at the start of each show, "How many of you are virgins?" The implication is that the show requires some inside knowledge, but that's not so. Neophytes are welcome and should have no problem understanding the spoof of horror movies from the 1950s or 60s.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
June 2001
Rocky Horror Show, The
Circle in the Square

 For those of us in the mid-curve of the Baby Boom generation, this show needs no introduction. The Rocky Horror Show is an indelible image in our past. Rocky, viewed two decades ago by high school and college students in movie theaters across the country, was our first taste of the erotically absurd. Although few of us would admit it, most of us could identify with Brad Majors, the nerdy hero, and his squeaky clean fiance, Janet Weiss. We hadn't met -- much less become -- the bizarre creatures they encounter on one cold and stormy night.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2001
Salome
Ethel Barrymore Theater

 The reading is a neglected and under-rated form; it's too often seen as a half-created production, as if it should be something it doesn't want to be. Now the form has been commercially elevated to Broadway in Salome: The Reading, with Al Pacino.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Salome
Ethel Barrymore Theater

 The only thing I remember about the previous Broadway go-`round for Al Pacino's pet project, Salome, was its camp star lisping "Dance for me, Salome!" in a manner so effeminate, one wondered whether Herod wouldn't rather have John the Baptist waltz for him instead. Well, Pacino's mugging madly again, this time without scenery but also, mercifully, without the swishiness. As such, his natural command of a stage fascinates, and we do stay awake to see how he'll deliver every line of Oscar Wilde's thuddingly repetitious script.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Saturday Night Fever
Broadway Theater

 There is no inoculation for Saturday Night Fever. The only thing that can alleviate the burning desire to return to the disco scene of the '70s, or cure those who still get the shakes thinking of the undulating John Travolta is to either rent the movie or go to the Broadway show. Setting the scene for that "Disco Inferno" called "2001" was apparently easy.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
October 1999
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

 It must be a thankless task for an actor to impersonate another performer. Yet Frank Gorshin has been doing it for years, imitating everybody from Ed Sullivan to Marlon Brando. And if you're unlucky, you may remember him as The Riddler in the Batman TV series. His latest work is the one-man show Say Goodnight, Gracie (subtitled, believe it or not, "The life, laughter, and love of George Burns") a monologue by Rupert Holmes, which I saw in previews.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

 Sweet, lightly amusing and ephemeral, Say Goodnight, Gracie brings George Burns - via the capable im-personage of Frank Gorshin - back to the stage one more time. Bracketed by a needlessly hokey set-up that catches Burns on the night before he goes to meet his maker (the "Oh God!" actor faces God himself; get it?), the rest is Burns telling his life story, interspersed with jokes, film clips, a passel of winning anecdotes, and a hats-off to Gracie Allen and Jack Benny that gives the evening just a little more emotional tug than a Vegas impression act.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

 If you want to see a show with a moving, heart-warming story, great jokes performed by a master comedian with the rare sense of timing only a few of the greatest have, a show without a moment that isn't entertaining, go see Say Goodnight, Gracie, written by Rupert Holmes and starring the incomparable Frank Gorshin. Aided by the wonderful Didi Conn as the voice of Gracie, this show, about 100 year old comedian George Burns and his adventures in romance and show business, directed by John Tillinger, is captivating, joyous, brilliant comedy. What more can I say?

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Say Goodnight Gracie
Helen Hayes Theater

 Frank Gorshin has an impressive arsenal at his disposal as he engagingly recounts the century-long odyssey of George Burns, who rose to stardom from humble beginnings as Nathan Birnbaum in the Lower East Side. There are antique photos of the hood projected behind Gorshin onstage, followed by authentic movie and TV clips. Simulations of old Burns & Allen radio shows, recorded with Didi Conn, seem to emanate on cue from an ancient Philco.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Scarlet Pimpernel, The
Minskoff Theater

The Scarlet Pimpernel, Frank (Jekyll And Hyde) Wildhorn's lush, romantic swashbuckler is an epic production, with absolutely no expense spared. This show has it all -- colorful sets, dynamic lighting, lavish costumes, powerful orchestrations, and even crystal chandeliers -- but what really makes this musical worthwhile is the stunning performances of Christine Andreas.

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
November 1997
Seascape
Booth Theater

 In Edward Albee's Seascape, an old couple played by Frances Sternhagen and George Grizzard chit chat on the beach (a magnificent set by Michael Yeargan), about what is more important at this stage of life: to live or to rest. She's lively, he's depressed. Both are totally convincing, engaging actors.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Seascape
Booth Theater

Spoiler alert: a mini-synopsis follows:

A vacationing older couple bicker, mostly genially, about how to live the rest of their lives when two giant lizards appear on the beach (virtuosically rendered in highly realistic costumes).

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Seascape
Booth Theater

 Edward Albee's Seascape is currently at Lincoln Center Theater in a charming and poignant revival. The original production ran in New York in 1974, starred Deborah Kerr and Barry Nelson, and won The Pulitzer Prize.

Richard S. Horowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2005
Seven Hundred Sundays
Broadhurst Theater

 To say that Billy Crystal has become this season's Hugh Jackman is something of an understatement. Crystal is likely to follow in the screen Wolverine's paw steps and devour a Tony Award in his Broadway debut -- while succeeding Jackman at the podium hosting the ceremonies in June. But Mr. Mahvelous' one-man show, chronicling his Long Island childhood with a heartfelt personal tribute to his dad, is currently bringing in more cash per performance than Boy from Oz did a year ago.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2005
700 Sundays

 (see all listings under "Seven Hundred Sundays")

Sexaholix...a love story
Royale Theater

 In this sequel of sorts to his wonderful Freak, John Leguizamo gets his freak on, recalling his sexcapades and relationships with women from childhood to his own recent parenthood. Leguizamo never moves across the stage in the same way twice; he could do the show with laryngitis and still be a riveting stage presence.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2001
Shining City
Biltmore Theater

Domestic angst in Dublin. In Shining City by Conor McPherson, directed by Robert Falls, the actors (Brian F. O'Byrne, Oliver Platt, Martha Plimpton, Peter Scanavino) are all excellent, the set by Santo Loquasto, Christopher Akerlind's lighting, costumes by Kaye Voyce and the choice of music are all quite good, and they do properly fulfill the piece. But the play didn't engage me because of the ordinariness of its lengthy expositional passages. It's basically a long psychotherapy for Platt's character, in which he goes on and on in not-fascinating stories.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2006
Side Man
John Golden Theater

 I'm happy to report that revisiting Side Man is a pleasant experience, still impressive in its intimacy and elegance, supported by the estimable direction by Michael Mayer. The cast has changed a little, but the finely-tuned ensemble is still very strong. This is a great night on Broadway, grown-up theater for people who admire plays and the power they can have.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
October 1999
Side Man
John Golden Theater

 The first half of the pallid 1998-99 Broadway season clogged the stages with such negligible entertainments as Getting and Spending and The Blue Room. Part two offered a slew of revivals and British plays.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 1999
Sight Unseen
Biltmore Theater

 What a pleasure it is to be in the presence of writing by a smart playwright. Donald Margulies' Sight Unseen, about love, ambition, and the twists and turns in the life of a popular artist, is clever, bright, incisive, with an excellent cast, all perfectly timed and tuned by director Daniel Sullivan. Laura Linney has blossomed into one of the finest actors on the New York stage -- she seems to be the character she plays, with the subtle changes in her emotions delicately shown with infinite depth, clarity and power.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2004
Sly Fox
Ethel Barrymore Theater

 Sly Fox by Larry Gelbart by way of Ben Jonson, is a splendid farce, with the entire cast made up of star farceurs. They don't make better than the comic master Bob Dishy, whose takes reveal hilariously what he is thinking, as he delivers Gelbart's priceless lines.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2004
Smell of the Kill, The
Helen Hayes Theater

 Michele Lowe's The Smell of the Kill, a zippy but glib dark comedy about three upscale wives debating whether to let their annoying husbands freeze to death in a meat locker, gets two important things right. First, the characters are strongly thought out and, except for a predictable last-minute switcheroo by the most domesticated of the trio (Claudia Shear), stay true to their backgrounds and motivations. Second, the fast-paced-to-the- point-of-shrill production boasts three able actresses, most notably Jessica Stone, whose Goldie Hawnlike goofiness grabs some big laughs.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Smell of the Kill, The
Helen Hayes Theater

 Want to spend a dollar a minute to see a cute little sitcom? It's Broadway; it's $70 a seat; it's 70 minutes long: The Smell of the Kill by Michele Lowe. The boorish, idiotic husbands of three well-to-do women are trapped in the meat freezer in the basement. Should the wives let them out? That's the play. And it does start cute. Then it gets dumb; then it segues into real stupidity, with a sprinkling of good sitcomish jokes. It's all really one joke, though. It tries to be a black comedy but doesn't have the bite of an Orton, a Pinter (or anybody).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Smokey Joe's Café
Virginia Theater

 There's an idea behind Smokey Joe's Cafe - do as many Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller rock and roll songs as you possibly can in two hours - but there isn't really a concept. That's why director Jerry Zaks and choreographer Joey McKneely will give some numbers a theatrical "story," while the rest of the time they'll drop any pretense of an overall style and just let the talented cast step out and sing. This can be frustrating; when a fully staged sequence works, we start to wonder what the non-choreographed numbers might have been if someone had begun thinking more creatively.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
March 1995
Restoration
La Jolla Playhouse - Mandell Weiss Forum

It was love at first sight when Giulia Alfani (Claudia Shear) saw David for the first time. It was at the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence in 2004, 500 years after a 26-year-old Michelangelo finished the work in two years. The was statue started by Agostino de Duccio in 1464, who quit. He was followed by Antonio Rosselino, whose contract was soon terminated. Eventually, the completed statue was placed at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1873 it was moved to the Accademia Gallery in Florence to protect it from further deterioration.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Perfect Wedding
Bleecker Street Theater

 Perfect Wedding by Robin Hawdon is a perfect play for community theater: it is an attempt at a Feydeau farce about hanky-panky and lovers' mish-mash as a wedding is
about to take place. With simplistic writing, lots of doors opening and closing and forced overacting by most of the cast, a lot of the idiocy that takes place is fun, and it gets funnier in Act 2 as it reaches a Shakespearean ending. All's well, isn't it? Dayna Grayber shines in the cast as a housekeeper - she is totally believable in the midst of the chaos ensuing.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Magic and Zone
Snapple Theater Center

 In Magic & Zone: Comedy Magic of Rich Marotta and Twila Zone, Marotta is an
accomplished magician with a friendly, underplayed presentation style and first-class
tricks. Zone, his orange-haired assistant is quite cute (as she should be). On the bill with them is the very funny Master Juggler Will Shaw – lots of balls, a hat, surprises. This is a world-class performer whose mastery and innovation is rare.

The show is clean, family oriented and is playing right in Times Square at The Snapple Center, 50th & Broadway, Saturdays at 5 PM. Fun for all.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Seal Songs
Jewel Box Theater

 Seal Songs, two well-written one acts involving seals by Jennifer Fell Hayes, directed by Kathy Gail MacGowan, gives us some interesting contrasts in style. The first, "Seal Songs," is a sweet, charming, realistic, almost romantic piece about two middle-aged singles in England, both of whom have suffered losses: a spinster who loves to watch seals and a handyman, who tiptoe around full communication.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
It Girl, The
Coronado Playhouse

 Wow!!! A cast of 11 in 27 roles singing and dancing happily through the music of Paul McKibbins and the lyrics by BT McNicholl in Michael Small and McNicholl's The IT Girl. director Thomas Fitzpatrick, musical director Rick Shafer and choreographer Alisa Williams, with their talented cast, have created a production with great audience appeal.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
See How They Run
PowPAC

 Philip King wrote See How They Run in 1942 and 1943; it opened in London as Christmas entertainment on December 21, 1944. Two weeks later, it moved to the Comedy Theatre in the West End to rave reviews. Opening night, three V-1 flying bombs exploded nearby.

Fortunately no explosions were heard at PowPAC last week when we viewed the current production. Raylene J. Wall directs an experienced cast in the farce, which, despite much dated language, still elicits laughs.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Cooking With Elvis
Tron Theater

 The humor is as broad as the Glaswegian accents in Cooking with Elvis, the revival of Lee (Billy Eliott) Hall's 1988 comedy at the Tron Theatre. Originally set in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Cooking has been transposed to Scotland by director Andy Arnold, who has also pumped up the action with outrageous and bawdy bits of comedy that might make even Benny Hill blush.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
You Can't Take It With You
OnStage Playhouse

You Can't Take it with You garnered a Pulitzer in 1936. It was the longest-running work (837 performances) of playwrights George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart (their third collaboration). The '38 film version won an Oscar for best picture. It has had two (1965 and 1983) highly successful Broadway revivals, and it established a formula in which a loveable but chaotic family overcome obstacles, resolve all their problems, and everybody lives happily ever after. Now doesn't that sound like today's sitcoms on television? OnStage Playhouse went back 72 years for this classic.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
That's Showbiz!
June Havoc Theater

That's Showbiz! is a mildly amusing show-business satire by Colin Chaston and Tony Clout with a rather good cast, directed by Marc Eardley. There's a rude, smarmy reality-show host (the very strong Patrick Ryan Sullivan), battling singing Divas (Abigail Hardin and the outstanding Karen Culp), a bevy of good-lookin' dancing chorus girls (including the dazzling, beautiful Natalie Loftin Bell) who move well to Bell's (and Andy J. Frye's) choreography, a floor manager with a fine voice (Jeremy Zoma), good costumes by Izzy Fields, and an excellent musical ensemble.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
I Take This Man
Patio Playhouse

Gideon (Miranda Porter), Giddy for short, is tired of the single life and ready to settle down with Mr. Right. Could it be a collapsed Boston Marathon runner, who has lost his memory? A cop, Jud (Steven A. Rich), has carried the runner up to her apartment. Since he couldn't remember the runner's name name, she calls him Antonio (Frank Guttiere) and claims he is a plumber and her husband. For her roommate Charlene (PJ Anbey) and Charlene's fiancée, Dex (Steve Stetak), she creates another set of lies.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Sweet Storm
Kirk Theater

Sweet Storm by Scott Hudson features two rather simple country people, one of them disabled and unable to walk, in a tree house outside of Lithia Springs, Florida on their wedding night. It is not a sophisticated, intellectual play. Neither Ruthie, played brilliantly by Jamie Dunn, nor Bo, well-acted by Eric T. Miller, have anything particularly complicated to say to each other.

Nick Wolfson
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Sweet Storm
Kirk Theater

Sweet Storm by Scott Hudson -- Interesting: A young preacher carries his bride up into a treehouse he has built for their honeymoon. She's crippled (perhaps from polio) and might have a touch of asthma. Not interesting: their basically boring, inane verbal ramblings. These are primitive, uneducated people: he's a moron with religious underpinnings, and she's a hysteric.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Phantom of the Opera, The
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts: Todd Wehr Theater

Few musicals pack the dramatic punch of The Phantom of the Opera, one of the top-selling entertainments of the 20th Century. There's the spectacle, the huge cast, the costumes and the slightly scary (thought sometimes romantic) plot. So it's no wonder that Phantom returns to Milwaukee for its third run. Happily, this engagement welcomes the show's national tour. In every respect, this Phantom is the "A" team. There's the crashing chandelier and the blink-of-an-eye escapes and the boat rides through a candle-filled lake.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage


Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
City of Angels
Patio Playhouse

Disclaimer: City of Angels is one of my favorite musicals, and Patio Playhouse has brought San Diego audiences a well-done rendition. City of Angels is a play within a play divided into two sections, "Hollywood" and "Movie." In Hollywood we are presented with the filmmakers, from producer/director Buddy Fidler to the cast and crew. In "Movie" we are inside the lives of the characters. Since the film is based on the filmmakers, many of the roles are played by the same actor. (It is more confusing to write about than it is to see.)

Robert Hitchcock
Date Reviewed:
August 2009

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