Evie's Waltz
Geva Theater - Nextstage

Carter Lewis's small-scaled exploration of the currently terrifying generation gap at first seems conventional and correctible discord, but with surprising inexorability it becomes an explosion of heartbreaking hopelessness. We know that Gloria (Annie Fitzpatrick) is trying to convince herself more than to convince her husband Clay (Skip Greer) that she feels only anger at her son Danny, still uncommunicative upstairs as the couple prepare a meal on the patio. Danny has evidently produced a gun in school and been sent home.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Mechanical, The
Theater for the New City

Bond Street Theater's The Mechanical, written and directed by Michael McGuigan, is a stylized fairy tale for adults woven around Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" - a disassembling and reassembling of the original, with references to other mechanical creations like Pinocchio, and the titular Mechanical -a chess-playing machine from the 1800's.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Mary Stuart
Broadhurst Theater

At last we are in for a piece of shining, highly theatrical theater! Mary Stuart has arrived, its two glowing stars, Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter, direct from London's noted Donmar Warehouse and London's West End, and joined here by 11 supporting actors.

Originally written by Friedrich Schiller, this new version by Peter Oswald is fluid and easy, not at all smacking of the stilted "classic" tone. One is immediately swept up by the vivid rivalry between two major historical figures, Mary, Queen of Scots, cousin of Elizabeth I, Queen of England.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Brooklyn Boy
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

Milwaukee is a long way from Brooklyn, New York, but the universal themes in Donald Margulies' Brooklyn Boy can make a Midwestern audience feel right at home. The Milwaukee Chamber Theater pulls out all the stops in this production. For starters, it offers the best casting choices in recent memory. James DeVita is the story's protagonist, a middle-aged Jewish writer who finally has made The New York Times bestseller list with his latest novel. Titled "Brooklyn Boy," it is a semi-autobiographical tale of a kid who grows up and leaves Brooklyn forever. Or so he thinks.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Bobs, The
Metropolitan Room

It's shocking to discover a musical group that is brilliant, possesses a huge cult following, and is (until now) completely unknown to oneself! The Bobs, appearing at the Metropolitan Room, filled me with pleasure, leaving me astounded and wondering where here have I been all my life, and where have The Bobs been all my life? This is a highly talented, intelligent, deeply original, humor-and-jazz-quartet that captivates us with charming, family-friendly, superb entertainment. They invent sounds and rhythms that put us into a whole new world of musical expression.

Nicholas Wolfson
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Bobs, The
Metropolitan Room

The Bobs is a lively, exciting a cappella group who do all the orchestral sounds with their mouths as they sing. It's a fun throwback for me, and probably a new experience for most of you, but this is a hot, entertaining gang in top-level, world-class performance. Who needs instruments? They are the instruments, and their songs range from amusing to amazing. I haven't had so much fun since I stood in a stairwell At Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and do-wopped with two math majors and a chicklet.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Cody Rivers Show, The
Kraine Theater

The Cody Rivers Show impresses as powerfully and uniquely as Blue Man Group did when it first appeared years ago: original brilliance. Two men, Andrew Connor and Mike Mathieu, wearing brightly-colored satin wrestlers' costumes, perform perfectly synchronized, mostly abstract movements and dance while telling stories and reciting punchlines. And their verbal riffs tickle the mind as they fix a car using foreign words to describe auto parts, as they do an interview in Greenland, as they do a romance between two chairs, and perform a sketch on "Opposite Night."

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
Dinner and Delusion
The Cell

The Center for Contemporary Opera's production of Dinner & Delusion, with libretto by Nancy Manocherian and music by Michael Sahl, gives us a company of accomplished singers in an opera about a Jewish family reality, and a boy's fantasy of romance as he grows from early teens to old age. It's an engaging, entertaining work with humor, good voices and a quirky story including a handsome fairy godfather (Christopher Herbert), a taste of the Hippie era, a female trio with a hookah, and a dream of mother's chicken.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2009
August: Osage County
Music Box Theater

I took another look at Tracy Letts' powerful, award-winning play, August: Osage County to experience this year's cast with Estelle Parsons now playing the mother. It is still a shattering three-and-a-half-hour piece of rural drama. The intricate family melodies in contrapuntal dysfunctional clashings at this family get-together in Oklahoma, make for a wonderfully directed (by Anna D. Shapiro) slice of twisted life with a super ensemble cast.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Coming Aphrodite!
La MaMa E.T.C.

Coming Aphrodite!, a musical adaptation of Willa Cather's novella, written and directed by Mary Fulham, with music by Mark Ettinger and lyrics by Paul Foglino, is a charming musical about a handsome young artist (Greg Henits), his neighbor, an aspiring actress/dancer (Liz Kimball), his dog (Clayton Dean Smith), and a landlady (Anne Gaynor- a terrific singer who also plays a sexy performer).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Savannah Disputation, The
Playwrights Horizons

Here's the setup for Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation at Playwrights Horizons: two sisters, one acerbic (Dana Ivey), one simple, sweet and quirky (Marylouise Burke), both Catholic, are visited by a young, spunky Born-Again Christian (Kellie Overbey) who wants to convert them. The sisters invite her and their priest (Reed Birney) to dinner.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Aristocrats
Irish Repertory Theater

Brian Friel's Aristocrats, at the Irish Rep, is an odd dish to swallow. It starts with long exposition by a family in a crumbling large manor house in Donegal, Ireland, as they talk legend and perhaps some fact to an American writing a piece about Irish past and personalities - while intrusive piano music dampens comprehension. As it goes on we see the play is a view of Irish "Aristocrats" as very ordinary and not very interesting people. A couple of possibilities for action are not pursued. At intermission, I asked several people what they thought the play is about.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
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
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: A Rock Romance
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
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.

Charles Whaley
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.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2009
Gates of Gold
59E59 Theaters

As an Irish theater buff (fifteen years as reviewer for "Irish Voice" newspaper), I was looking forward to seeing Frank McGuinness's Gates of Gold, which advance publicity had advertised would be the story of the founding of the famed Gate Theatre in Dublin.

Diana Barth
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).

Pearson wrote the book "Goodbye, I Love You." It is the story of her life with her gay husband, their 12-year Mormon temple marriage, their four children, divorce, friendship, and his death from AIDS in her home, where she cared for him.

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.

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
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

First produced in 1967 downtown at the Public Theater, this "American Tribal Love-Rock Musical" packed a powerful punch. Hair hit the mark at a time when many were protesting the Vietnam War, as were the anti-establishment "hippies" in the show.

Diana Barth
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
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
Freshwater
Julia Miles Theater

Virginia Wolfe wrote one play, Freshwater,.to be performed one time by her friends and family for "a laughing evening." The brilliant, innovative director Anne Bogart has now staged it for the rest of us. Since I wasn't onstage myself having a good time, or part of a family in-group watching friends be foolish, it didn't quite work for me.

They try for farce, but the actors mock the characters they are playing, so all gestures are broad, all words recited. To be truly funny, one has to be real in odd situations.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Lansky
St. Luke's Theater

In Lansky, by Richard Krevolin and Joseph Bologna, the charismatic and fascinating actor Mike Burstyn gives us an odd portrait of a Jewish gangster, Meyer Lansky, who was the brains, the money-manipulator, behind a lot of Mafia activities during prohibition.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Speed-the-Plow
Ethel Barrymore Theater

Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet-- what a trip! Mamet's scathing denunciation/exposition of the workings of the Hollywood jungle, where everyone is a whore and access is all, as performed by Raul Esparza, William H. Macy and Elisabeth Moss, is a gripping piece of theatricality. The snappy dialogue as twisted people fence for position in a depraved, insulated world of hypergreed is magnetic, and director Neil Pepe's sense of timing is thrilling.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Ruined
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage I

It won't come as a surprise to learn that women and children are the ones who most regrettably suffer the consequences of wars that men make. That they are the most vulnerable victims of outrage and sexual brutality seems to be endemic. But if we do not meaningfully act in response to this horrifying aspect of life during war, civil or otherwise, especially in such places as the Democratic Republic of Congo, it won't be because playwright Lynn Nottage hasn't stirred our hearts and minds.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
February 2009
Battle Hymn
Inside the Ford

Jim Leonard, author of such previous plays as The Diviners and Crow and Weasel, has built his new work around a kind of American Mother Courage, a young woman named Martha (the superb Suzy Jane Hunt). Unlike Brecht's tough, cynical heroine, Martha is idealistic, hopeful and ever-despairing of mankind's follies and inhumanity -- to such an extent that, after having become pregnant during the Civil War, she won't give birth until the world becomes a better, kinder place.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
February 2009

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