Clean House, The
Geva Theater - Mainstage

I have liked several plays by the brilliant young playwright Sarah Ruhl, and I was amused and entertained by The Clean House when I read it in manuscript several years ago. But I do not understand the great fuss over this play, even almost awarding it a Pulitzer Prize. Its funny, quirky plot strikes me as smotheringly whimsical, and I am never unaware of Ruhl's effort to surprise. Still, it is witty and fiercely good-natured and virtually guaranteed to provide its audience with a wry good time.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Superior Donuts
Music Box Theater

Watching Superior Donuts on Broadway is a little like sitting in front of your TV set watching a re-run of "Seinfeld." This is not necessarily a bad thing. There's a reason that sitcom went on and on for many years. It offered "authentic" characters that did everyday things. Same with Superior Donuts.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Bent
Diversionary Theater

Germany, the mid-30s, the rise of the Third Reich, the persecuted Jews and homosexuals are the elements of Martin Sherman's electrifying Bent.

The stage is draped in black. Only a three-step stair holding some potted plants and a divan grace the barren space. First we meet Max (Michael Zlotnik). Moments later, his roommate, Rudy (Chris Buess), enters. Finally, after a bit, Wolfe (Bobby Schiefer), who had come home with Max, enters nude.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Narcissa & Goldmund
Metropolitan Room

Micaela Leon and Adrienne Haan at The Metropolitan Room are billed as "Diabolical Weimar Wunderkinder" in Narcissa & Goldmund, a lively Teutonic musical review about 1920's Berlin with two tall, beautiful blonde singers with well-matched voices, enchanting us in songs with whimsical charm, blatant feminism and costumes (by Julia Jentzsch) that are provocative and glamorous. These are two commandingly heroic female personas dressed to the nines, filling the room with their glamorous presences.

This is also classy cabaret - entertaining beyond the ordinary.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2009
Bye Bye Birdie
Henry Miller's Thetaer

Broadway's not quiet anymore. The new season is off to a high-flying start. The newest revival, Bye, Bye, Birdie, at the new Henry Miller's, and the newest musical, Memphis, at the classic Shubert, have turn-up-the-heat choreography by, respectively, director Robert Longbottom and Sergio Trujillo. Birdie's Conrad B., as gyratingly and high-flyingly portrayed by former gymnast Nolan Gerard Funk, and the amazing Sweet Apple, Ohio, & and Memphis's breathlessly jiving ensemble are reason enough to catch the two shows.

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Memphis
Shubert Theater

Memphis, on Broadway via the La Jolla Playhouse and Seattle's 5th Avenue Theater, is a very fictionalized account of the roots of rock 'n roll as it emerged from unknown black boppers in "underground" clubs of the 50s along Memphis' Beale Street (there are no basement clubs, but storefront ones).

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Wishful Drinking
Studio 54

So you thought you came from a dysfunctional family? Think again. As you'll find out at the limited engagement of Roundabout's Wishful Drinking at Studio 54, your life has been a month at Disneyland compared to Carrie Fisher, daughter of a long-ago era's Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston: hitmaking recording artist Eddie Fisher and legendary movie star Debbie Reynolds.

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Tanguera: The Tango Musical
City Center

Tanguera: The Tango Musicalhas arrived on its world tour from Buenos Aires for a limited engagement stop at City Center through October 18, 2009. The choreography by dancer and top tangophile Mora Godoy is part tango, ballroom, ballet, contemporary, and acrobatic. Some of the tango choreography is quite classic, but there are very nice modern twists. Godoy's goal is to "extend the lines between dance and theater, in the same vein as did Moving Out and Contact.

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Memphis
Shubert Theater

Innovation demands risk takers, some of whom go unheralded. One of Rock and Roll's heroes was Dewey Phillips, a hillbilly from Tennessee who in the 1950's fell in love with the black music and played it on the radio. With Phillips as the inspiration, Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) created a book and lyrics to go with the music and lyrics written by David Bryan of Bon-Jovi to develop Memphis, an exciting new musical.

Elyse Trevers
Date Reviewed:
October 2009
Love, Loss and What I Wore
Westside Theater

Love, Loss and What I Wore, adapted by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron from the book by Ilene Beckerman, is a narrative, read and acted by five women about the foibles and interactions between girls and their mothers, their romances and passages in life, all tied to clothing. The stories are universal; the actresses are accomplished and charming. They have a rotating cast, and my night had Carol Kane Lucy DeVito, Katie Finneran, Capathia Jenkins and Natasha Lyonne -- all filled with sparks of life, all ringing true.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
Love, Loss and What I Wore
Westside Theater

For Proust, food might have triggered memories, but most women associate articles of clothing with significant events. A wedding gown, a deceased mother's dress and favorite shoes might conjure up relationships or memorable conversations.

In Love, Loss and What I Wore, an adaptation of Ilene Beckerman's book, Nora and Delia Ephron mine that concept, using clothing to tell a series of stories.

Elyse Trevers
Date Reviewed:
December 2009
As You Like It
Coronado Playhouse

Coronado Playhouse's latest production, under the able direction of Keith A. Anderson, is As You Like It. My program flopped open to a dense page titled, "Why A Modern-Language Text Of Shakespeare?" I was aghast that another director with some crazy idea thought he could possibly be better at prose than The Bard, the very man who added over 1700 words to the English language. NEVER!

Director Keith A. Anderson garnered nary a moment of wrath from me as he gently changed but a few words. It was either that or a glossary defining some obscure word's meaning.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2007
Is Life Worth Living?
Mint Theater

Director Jonathan Bank has done it again: his Mint Theater presentation of the 1933 Irish play, Is Life Worth Living?, by Lennox Robinson takes an antique from its obscure shelf and gives us a delightfully entertaining drama peopled by high-level actors, all of whom bring a depth of character and a reality to their roles, on a fine expansive set by Susan Zeeman Rogers with perfect period costumes by Martha Hally, an impressive soundscape by Jane Shaw, and excellent lighting by Jeff Nellis.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
September 2009
Short Wake, A
Manhattan Theater Source

A Short Wake by Derek Murphy, strongly directed and clearly staged by Ludovica Villar-Hauser, gives us two twisted brothers from a deteriorated gangster family, powerfully, believably played by Peter Bradbury and Brandon Williams, at the funeral of their father whom they hated. It's an imaginative conflict dipping into the past of a working gangster and his lawyer brother and their earlier life with their miserable, alcoholic father and angry drunk mother who died young.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
September 2009
After Luke / When I Was God
Irish Repertory Theater

Part of the 1st Irish Play Festival, After Luke and When I Was God, two colorful working-class dramas by Conal Creedon directed by Tim Ruddy, full of elemental conflict between brothers and between fathers and sons, is performed by three strong actors: Gary Gregg, Colin Lane and Michael Mellamphy. In the first, it's a Cain-and-Abel-style, powerful dynamic conflict, and in the second, it's sturm and drang between father and son revolving around sports. Basically, both are about miscommunication and the hope of parental love.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
September 2009
World Elsewhere!, A: Arias in the Key of Clown
Cherry Lane Theater

Ben Newman and Wide Eyed Productions have created an unusually exciting, seven-performer clown show, A World Elsewhere!: Arias in the Key of Clown. Led by the multi-talented Justin Ness, aided and abetted by Lucy McRae and a lively troupe, the separation and ultimate reuniting of two clowns takes us on an entertaining journey full of shtick, folderol and tomfoolery that doesn't let down for a moment.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
September 2009
En
Theater for the New City

En, a 90 minute show by the all female drum and tapdance troupe COBU, created by Yaka Miyamoto, features hot, perfectly coordinated.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
September 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
Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The
Swedenborg Hall

It will be difficult to see Kevin Six, Tom Hall, or Tyler Richards Hewes in a serious play without remembering that they crucified the works of The Bard in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), which can be seen Thursday thru Saturday at Swedenborg Hall thru August 29th. The show is produced by Lotus Theater Collective and Talent to aMuse. Writers Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield have reduced the body of The Bard's work to about 80 minutes. The result is often just a mention of a play's name.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Burn the Floor
Longacre Theater

Energy! Enthusiasm! Half-naked young dancers with superb bodies jiggling, juggling, jouncing -- they dazzle us with footwork in the dance show, Burn the Floor now on Broadway. There is one underlying theme: sexual innuendo and blatant flirtation. It's like a live TV show for people with short attention spans.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Joan Rivers
Laurie Beechman Theater

She's filthy as all get-out and drop-dead hilarious. I mean, really hilarious! She's dishing the type of shock and awe hilarity that has her packed-in-like-sardines audiences either howling, screaming or so shocked they're in somber silence.

Who can that be? The one, the only, the foul-mouthed, the funny comedienne Joan Rivers.

In her current stand at the Laurie Beechman Theater at the West Bank Cafe, the stand-up pro offends just about everyone – but but no one really gets too offended because they're rolling on the floor in laughter.

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Because of Cain
Community Actors Theater

Community Actors Theater's current production is Because of Cain by local playwright Earl Hamilton, Jr. Two old buddies, Peter (Joseph Georges) and Keith (Andrew Goularte), meet after an absence of thirty years. Just why is Peter visiting Keith? Do they have anything in common anymore?

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Around the World in 80 Days
Cabot Theatre - Broadway Theater Center

Somewhere between Monty Python and Groucho Marx, there is Around the World in 80 Days, Mark Brown's adaptation of the Jules Verne classic. It proves to be an excellent choice for beginning the Milwaukee Chamber Theater's current season (and its 35th anniversary).

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Spek
TheaterLab

Linda Olthof's Spek, a half hour physical action performance piece, influenced by painter Francis Bacon, gives us the concept "Without an Accident We Cannot Play." It starts with what looks like the result of an accident: a car crash or an explosion, with the bent and broken bodies of dancers flung about and plastered on the walls and floor of the open set. The company consists of two women who dance rather nicely, one actor who moves a bit and breathily groans much anguish, and one Dancer, Evelien Riemens.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Our Town
Barrow Street Theater

Director David Cromer has put together a mostly exciting rendition of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, now playing at the Barrow Street Theater in Greenwich Village. With the action taking place in and around the audience, we become part of the life in the town of Grover's Corners in the early 1900's in this ultimate Americana play. It's the life of the ordinary, with no surprises. My friend who saw it with me, a lifelong New Yorker, said it was like an anthropological study.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Bible, The: The Complete Word of God (abridged)
Desi `n' Friends Bar

To get to the Black Kat Theater, one enters through Desi 'n' Friends neighborhood bar on Lytton Street. You pass the pool table, the bar, and finally reach the ticket desk. Then you go back even further to the theater space. On an excellent night, almost 40 people can pack sardine-like into the audience space. The fans turn, but it is still warm. This, of course, keeps Tammy Pearson very busy bringing libation from the bar. You can even have something to eat.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Shrunken Heads
Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Shrunken Heads, by M.Z. Ribalow, is a cute, cheery shot at farce with no reality as a shrink, his patient and family bring their conflicts to his country house.

Performances are quite good, full of jokes, verbal and physical, on an excellent set by Daniel Krause. In it course, the play mocks psychiatry, patients, marriages, New Age and youth, giving us some good laughs and a fun evening. A couple of martinis before the show would definitely add to the festivities.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2009
Revealed...
Under St. Marks

Burlesque is back! Revealed…, which plays the third Wednesday of each month at Under St. Marks, 94 St. Mark's place, is the real old stuff brought up to date. Now the strippers can go a couple of steps further than in the old days - no pasties, no G-string.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 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: The Comedy Magic of Rich Marotta and Twila 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
Don't Leave it All to Your Children
Actors Temple Theater

Don't Leave it All to Your Children is a comedy-and-song revue about old people and aging, performed by four old pros: Steve Rossi, Barbara Minkus, Marcia Rodd, and James Dybas. There are loads of geriatric jokes and songs, and most of the audience, being antique, can easily identify with the material.

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. It's played in contrasting modes: Richard Kent Green inhabits the character of the shy workman who loves music - he IS the man.

Richmond Shepard
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
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.

It is performed well, especially by Jamie Dunn whose emotions are just beneath the surface, and she is adept at dipping into a wide range of them convincingly. Eric T.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

If you like silly shows, done fast and with gusto, and if you feel so-so about Shakespeare, you are going to like what FST does with its revival of 36 truncated plays of Shakespeare, skewered. As a reviewer, I noted an enthusiastic audience among those who admitted not having read or seen some of the more obscure plays. Many reveled in several episodes of audience participation. With the latter, I wondered if I'd been time-warped into last summer's held-over Patsy Cline memento where onlookers were grabbed for a dance or solicited for yuk yuk yuks.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Lion King, The
Mandalay Bay

The opening scene of The Lion King at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas is so breathtaking that it brought tears to my eyes. Director Julie Taymor's amazing visual images of animals and vistas, the stylized masks and costumes she brilliantly designed, played on Richard Hudson's scenic design, with Garth Fagan's exciting choreography, augmented by thrilling rhythmical music and songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, all performed by an exceptionally strong cast, gives us a theatrical masterpiece.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
JokeLand on Broadway
Iridium Jazz Club

Jackie the Jokeman (aka Jackie Martling) performs every Wednesday at 9PM at the Iridium Jazz Club at Broadway and 51st St. He opens with a funny dirty song then plays guitar with a really good trio. And that sets the tone for the evening; there are a succession of very old, mostly bad, jokes, a great impression of Rodney Dangerfield, and some funny stories.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2009
Baby with the Bathwater
North Park Vaudeville

When one decides to see a play written by Christopher Durang, one must be prepared to be challenged. In Baby With The Bathwater all forms of logic must be suspended. You simply sit back to be bemused as the playwright twists and turns farce, satire and wackiness in a strange tale.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2009
Night Sky
Baruch Performing Arts Center - Rose Nagelberg Theater

Night Sky, a play by Susan Yankowitz, tells of an intellectual woman whose life comes to a crashing divergence with the onset of aphasia as a result of an accident. While the process the woman, brilliantly played by Jordan Baker, goes through is academically interesting, the writing is, in a way, naïve in terms of theater. There is quite ordinary familial interaction both before and after the accident as the main character goes through the slow, painful process of rehab.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2009

Pages