Maple and Vine
Actors Theater of Louisville

Jordan Harrison's Maple and Vine (his Kid-Simple: a Radio Play in the Flesh was in the 2004 Humana Festival followed by his Act a Lady in the 2006 festival) offers an intriguing premise about New Yorkers with urban angst voluntarily joining a group living as a community emulating the Eisenhower-era lifestyle of 1955, dressing and interacting as people did back then when rigidity and repression ruled the way everyone was supposed to be.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Bob
Actors Theater of Louisville

Having read so much advance information about Bob, the picaresque comedy/drama about the title character's birth and abandonment in a White Castle restroom in Louisville, just down the street from Actors Theater, I eagerly anticipated seeing it. But, despite its dogged eagerness to please, the play falls short of expectations of a new take on the so-called American Dream.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Ten-Minute Plays (2011)
Actors Theater of Louisville

Laura Eason's Mr. Smitten, set in a veterinarian's office and directed by Kent Nicholson, is the best of the Humana Festival's three 10-minute plays this year. Though rather thin, it gets lots of laughs as Anna (Cassie Beck), waiting to hear about her old, ailing cat, finds potential romance with the sympathetic, prone-to-crying Dr. Loomis (Gerardo Rodriguez).

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Burn This
Mark Taper Forum

The Mark Taper Forum has revived the late Lanford Wilson's Burn This, giving the play (which it premiered back in 1987) a solid and satisfying production. Director Nicholas Martin, following in the footsteps of Marshall W. Mason, has put together an admirable cast, led by Adam Rothenberg as Pale and Zabryna Guevara as Anna. These two unlikely lovers, one an arty dancer, the other a loutish restaurant manager, are joined on stage by Ken Barnett as Burton, a cynical screenwriter, and by Brooks Ashmanskas as Larry, Anna's gay loft-mate.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Escort, The: An Explicit Play for Discriminating People
Geffen Playhouse

Jane Anderson's latest, The Escort, zeroes in on the life of an expensive call girl, Charlotte (the marvelous Maggie Siff) -- and by extension, the secret sex life of the U.S.A. Although most Americans call themselves practicing Christians and espouse family values, pornography and prostitution are thriving billion-dollar industries. The Escort shreds the hypocritical mask that America hides behind, revealing the true face of this sex-crazed nation.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Radiant, The
New Theater

Angelica Torn stars in South Florida as Marie Curie in the world premiere of The Radiant, part woman-in-a man's-world biography, part illicit romance and part tale of scientific discovery -- as befits the recipient of two Nobel prizes, one for physics, one for chemistry, both involving radium, the glows-in-the-dark thing that was heralded as a cure for cancer. The sciencephobic need not worry: the science is handled quickly and deftly in this play by Shirley Lauro as staged at New Theater in Coral Gables.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Deathtrap
Florida State University for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Deathtrap is a mystery-thriller about a play that's a mystery being written mysteriously, leading to mysterious turns of the play's plot. And, under Peter Amster's flawless direction, it's thrilling. Along with plenty of comic put-on, he's put it onstage not as a period piece but rather one of deadly intrigue at a definite time: 1978.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Tartuffe
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts

As my French professor husband (and other knowing attendees I talked to after this production) said, "I feel as though I didn't see Tartuffe." Here's a renowned satire on religious hypocrisy, written by a 17th century master of the French theater, in a unique European, 18th century court venue but with affinity to the earlier age. The play's subject matter and attitude caused a furor in its day (think about the riots over the pastor who burned a copy of Islam's holy book) and nearly made Moliere fall out of the king's grace and him out of favor by clergy.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Book of Mormon, The
Eugene O'Neill Theater

The Book of Mormon, by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone is a jolly, rollicking mocking, in song and dance, of the missionary obligation of young Mormon men in their white shirts and narrow ties as they go to the corners of the world to win converts. It's a fantastical trip with lots of tap dancing, on Scott Pask's imaginative set, costumed creatively by Ann Roth, that pushes the taste boundaries of stage possibility beyond belief in its use of scatological language and idea.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Catch Me if You Can
Neil Simon Theater

Based on the movie, Catch Me if You Can book by Terrence McNally, Music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Whittman and Marc Shaiman, is a showy, old-fashioned musical, right out of Ziegfeld, chorus girls and all, and for an ancient reviewer it is a pleasure to see these gorgeous, long-legged women dance, sing and create high-jinks. The fun costumes by William Ivey Long go from glamour to cartoon to feathered fans; the set by David Rockwell, feels like a Hollywood musical with the big band upstage, ramps and twirls.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Motherfucker with the Hat, The
Gerald Schoenfeld Theater

Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Motherfucker with the Hat, intensely directed like a runaway downhill sled by Anna D. Shapiro, gives us colorful, uneducated, working-class people hollering their street vernacular with throat-scraping intensity. Addicts, criminals, lots of sturm and drang. It's a fascinating anthropological study, as if behind glass, of another species, with genuine comic sparks.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Death of a Salesman
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

Milwaukee Repertory Theater closes its current season with a powerful production of the dramatic classic, Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is masterfully reborn under the direction of artistic director Mark Clements. In Clements' vision, Willy Loman isn't only a washed-up salesman, he also seems to be on the brink of dementia. His erratic outbursts and dazed wanderings make it painfully clear that Willy Loman has lost his place in the world. He also seems to have lost his ability to separate reality from past memories.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Al Hirschfeld Theater

How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, is an old-fashioned musical with new-fashioned flair in design (great multi-level set by Derek McLane), costumes (Catherine Zuber) and some of the most innovative choreography in town (by Rob Ashford who also directed).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Anything Goes
Stephen Sondheim Theater

Anything Goes, book by P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay & Russell Crouse, new book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman, with lovely song after lovely song by Cole Porter, gives us romantic folderol on an ocean liner among the (mostly) upper clahsses.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Innocents, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

The Innocents starts out as a narrative by Daniel about himself and close friend Edie and his one-night stand with Liron, a young Israeli he met at the airport. Then it shifts, with few exceptions, to dramatic scenes. In San Francisco, where Daniel and Edie are trying to have a baby, such a couple seems not to be unusual. Sutter, a young student who needs Prof. Edie's help to keep his scholarship, seeks her as a lover. Liron wants to stay with Daniel. Will Sutter and Liron conspire, or what?

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
High
Booth Theater

Matthew Lombardo's High is a messy and sordid contrivance about the psychotherapy of a 19-year-old gay junkie, the miscast and misdirected (by Rob Ruggiero) Evan Jonigkeit, who gives us a caricature rather than a character in an embarrassingly stereotypical performance with an almost Southern accent that comes and goes. Kathleen Turner stars as the straight-talking nun therapist, and although she starts out rather wooden, she picks up steam as the jokes and expletives emerge. She knows how to hit a punchline, and that sustains the play.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
War Horse
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

It was called "The Great War" and "The War to End all Wars," but World War I is now relatively ignored in the legacy of wars that followed. In War Horse at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater, World War I is the background for the most gripping theatrical event of this season. Co-directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, it is about a boy and a horse. It is also about how millions of horses were traditionally sent into battle until the use barbed wire, machine guns and heavy artillery signified the end of the cavalry. Technology had taken over.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Elemeno Pea
Actors Theater of Louisville

The Humana Festival certainly gives an elaborate staging to what is billed as Molly Smith Metzler's first major production. True, we are supposed to be in a very impressive guest house on an ocean-front estate on Martha's Vineyard, but, even so, when pretty young Simone shows Devon, her older sister, their weekend digs, we can understand their delighted squeals.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Wonderland
Marquis Theater

Like the theatrical hit about Dorothy in Oz, Wonderland is a Broadway musical based on a classic children's story, so comparisons are inevitable. Wicked opened to mixed reviews and became a mega-hit, so could Wonderland have as bright a future?

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Two Jews Walk into a War...
The Adrienne

Seth Rozin's two-man play, Two Jews Walk into a War…, is cleverly titled, signaling that it's a comedy while soft-pedaling serious aspects. But make no mistake, Rozin has written a thoughtful examination of faith and a yearning for tradition in a changing world.

Only two elderly Jews are left in a bombed-out synagogue in Afghanistan's capital of Kabul during the current war. Ishaq is religiously observant, Zeblyan more secular, and they have never liked each other, but now they're thrown together in shared isolation.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Burn the Floor
Pantages Theater

Burn the Floor is aptly titled. Eighteen dancers, split between men and women, make fire with their feet as they interpret in virtuosic fashion such ballroom dances as the foxtrot, quickstep, swing, samba, salsa, rumba, tango, paso doble and Viennese waltz. Each of the dancers is a world-class performer, collectively having won more than a hundred dance titles in such countries as USA, Moldova, Australia, UK, Slovenia and Venezuela.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
Ghost-Writer
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

The setting is New York City in the early 1900s. The conceit is that we have come to the study of the late Franklin Woolsey, a famous novelist, at the instigation of his widow. We are investigating his secretary Myra Babbage. She claims that, after he died while dictating, she's continued to receive his words. Vivian Woolsey suspects Myra's relationship to her husband and his novels.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2011
What the Public Wants
Mint Theater

Jonathan Bank's Mint Theatre Company gives us another gem, a fascinating antique of a play, first performed in 1909: What the Public Wants, about a newspaperman and a giant publishing company. The struggle, art vs. commerce, is still on today, and the comtemporary resonances are clear.

As usual with The Mint, all of the elements are top level: acting, directing (by Matthew Arbour), design (Roger Hanna), costumes (Erin Murphy), lighting (Marcus Doshi) -- for this totally engaging production.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Spy Garbo
3LD

Spy Garbo by Sheila Schwartz is a flashback to the 30's and 40's with Franco of Spain (Steven Rattazzi), the British triple agent Kim Philby (Chad Hoeppner), and Wilhelm Canaris (Steven Hauck) the German officer who opposed Hitler, all in a kind of suspended limbo as their own pasts and the past events of the world are projected on an immense curved background.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Pretty & Papi
Under St. Marks

Pretty & Papi, created and performed by Leah James Abel, Rebecca Houlihan & Olivia Hallie Lehrman, is a lively, surreal, very entertaining Performance-Art pastiche on dating performed by three talented comediennes, two of them, Lehrman and Abel, with advanced circus/gymnastic skills. Starting with a silent comedy of old people dating, the versatile performers give us scenes of lives, high and lowdown, some spoken, some in gibberish, some with full-blown absurdity as they transform into dogs, babies, gymnasts, and interact improvisationally with the audience.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Year of the Slut
The Red Room

Year of the Slut is written and performed by the lively, talented Jennifer Lieberman, who has a strong persona and a gift for playing many characters, male and female, of different accents, physicalities and ages as she takes us through the saga of her sexual adventures. Dance, showing her physical grace, and poetry float in and out in this humor-sprinkled performance as we recognize universality in her stories. Well paced by director Louis B.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Kind Kind Man, A
Under St. Marks Theater

A Kind Kind Man by Catherine Weingarten, directed by Zach Stasz, gives us an odd encounter between a fourteen-year-old girl (Tali Custer) selling toothpaste door to door (for $50 a tube - an immediate reality-bender) and a middle-aged neurotic man (Jeffrey Coyne) which segues into a surreal bondage event ultimately involving his wife (Victoria Guthrie). he acting is all quite good, and Weingarten is a very creative, imaginative young writer with signs of wit and originality poking through.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Good People
Samuel J. Friedman Theater

There isn't much luck of the Irish for the Boston Southies in David Lindsay-Abaire's excellent new play, Good People. Portrayed by a six-person ensemble led by Frances McDormand, the desperation of the working class is tough stuff leavened with gritty humor. Blame it on the economy, blame it on bad breaks, blame it on their own lack of ambition or talent, but life is a struggle. Their hope seems to ride on some stroke of luck, either landing a menial job or scoring at the bingo table.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
That Championship Season
Bernard B. Jacobs Theater

The revival of Jason Miller's That Championship Season, nicely directed by Gregory Mosher, is an interesting flashback to another time, 1972, with its priorities, prejudices, politics and views of society by a group of 38-year-old who won a basketball tournament twenty years earlier. That was the high point of their lives. The play does engage us from start to finish as these losers try to recapture lost glory.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Trapped
Theater for the New City

Trapped offers two one-acts: The Invisible Miss Whitney, by Darlene Troiana, and As Directed, written and performed by Dawn Sofia. In Miss Whitney, a madwoman in confinement muses on her being invisible. It is well-performed by the dynamic, very attractive Patricia Dodd who lends a "Chaillot" tone to the monologue.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Mother of God!
Richmond Shepard Theater

Michele A. Miller's Mother of God is a work in progress- a fanciful cartoon version of the Nativity story with Three-Stooges sound effects: beeps and rimshots, that can offend anyone without a sense of humor, Jews or Christians. Well staged, with lots of zip and action by Melody Brooks, the settings, designed by Meganne George with slides and video shot by Rafael Jordan, which are projected on a cyclorama, are terrific, and create a changing atmosphere that enhances everything.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Wonder Woman: A How To Guide for Little Jewish Girls
Red Room

Wonder Woman, written and performed by Cyndi Freeman, well directed by David Drake, is a charming piece about her lifelong relationship with the comic-book character. It's filled with autobiographical stories about her adventures with her family and about the life of her breasts. Freeman has a vivid comedic personality, and her story is absolutely delightful, including her segue into burlesque, with a final super strip to the skimpiest Wonder Woman costume on earth. She's a fearless, charismatic real entertainer with a twinkle in her eye.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Before God was Invented
Theater for the New City

Before God was Invented, written and directed by Lissa Moira, with music by Richard West and lyrics by Moira, is a far-out, ritualistic piece in action and sound. It's also often incomprehensible due to assumed accents and invented language -- words like, "omma tamma alla tomma" and phrases like, "We all time make with ears him to hear." I felt I was watching a spectacle in a foreign country.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Ghetto Klown
Lyceum Theater

Ghetto Klown, written and performed by John Leguizamo, is a simple yet very complex piece of first-rate theater. It's his Latin coming of age story -- both in life and show business -- the growth and development of an actor. And he pops like popcorn all over the stage.

He walks, he talks, he dances he flips, he flops, he prances as he shows us dozens of characters and skewers egotistical showbiz celebs he has worked with. His impressions are spot on.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Palace Theater

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, with book by Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott, based on the movie, is a spectacular entertainment that uses familiar songs from Madonna, Willie Nelson and others as its simple plot unfolds: a drag queen (Will Swensen) wants to visit his biological son in the middle of Australia. The cross-dresser is accompanied by two of his compatriots- the marvelous, totally womanly Tony Sheldon and his dynamite sidekick and jumping jack, Nick Adams.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Arcadia
Ethel Barrymore Theater

I was asked to review Arcadia by Tom Stoppard and went to a performance. Now, I love Stoppard; I starred in his Travesties for a sizable run in Los Angeles in 1984 and found new, sometimes profound inferences each week. I saw and loved
the first production of Arcadia when I was the theater critic for WNEW radio.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Ghetto Klown
Lyceum Theater

You can take this to the bank -- John Leguizamo is truly a multi-faceted performer. In his new one-man show, Ghetto Klown, he is a fireball igniting the stage with kinetically nonstop physical movement, dancing, singing, impressions, hilarious anecdotes. Through it all, he builds to a truth that brings warmth and heartache to a story that is crazed with obscenities, frustration and rage. At the same time, it is comic and tender and much of it is in rapid fire Spanish. Surprisingly, you get the gist of it.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Bearded Lover, A
Nova Southeastern University - Black Box Theater

Sisterly squabbles, family tragedy and political history share the stage with three actresses in A Bearded Lover, a play getting a worthy world premiere at The Promethean Theater in South Florida.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Baby It's You!
Broadhurst Theater

Baby It's You! is a cheery, happy rock-and-roll musical about the creation of the four-woman singing group, the Shirelles, by a New Jersey housewife, Florence Greenberg (powerfully acted and beautiful sung by Beth Leavel) in 1958. We follow their subsequent musical adventures and Florence's romantic one with her partner played by strong, handsome Allan Louis.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2011
Break of Noon, The
Geffen Playhouse

Fresh from a recent off-Broadway run, Break of Noon comes to L.A. in a smart, snappy production that features excellent acting and directing. The only questionable element is the play itself. Written by Neil LaBute, one of America's best, most prolific (and controversial) playwrights, Break of Noon focuses on John Smith (Kevin Anderson), a sinner who finds God.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
February 2011

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