Birthday Suite
OnStage Playhouse

Not only does Birthday Suite fit the classical definition of farce, but Robin Hawdon's newest play, direct from the UK and under the talented direction of Bob Christensen, is hilarious. (Hawdon's Don't Dress for Dinner was well received a few years back.)

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Captain Louie
Little Shubert Theater

Captain Louie is an inept kids show performed by kids who sing well but leave a lot to be desired in the acting department. But the play's the thing that sinks the project. Based on "The Trip" by Ezra Jack Keats, the book for the show, by Anthony Stein, is condescending, trite, saccharine, and basically at such a low level that my grandnephew, Mathew Sprague, who is nine, said, "It was kinda young for me." Scenes where Louis goes back to his old neighborhood are based on rejection without motivation and throw the whole mess further out of whack.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Bath House Cultural Center

WingSpan Theater Company opened Danny and the Deep Blue Sea on October 27, 2005 at the Bath House Cultural Center. It is a mediocre early effort by John Patrick Shanley who went on five years later to win the Oscar in 1988 for his original screenplay of "Moonstruck."

First performed as a staged reading in 1983 at the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center, the play received its professional debut in February 1984 at Actors Theater of Louisville and moved to Circle in the Square in New York on June 6, 1984.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Enchanted April
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Scenery, costumes and special effects figure almost as importantly in this production as does the plot. Enchanted April builds on the Come-to-Italy-and-Your-Life-Will-Change premise, used so often in modern movies (note the British film version of von Arnim's book.) Asolo Theater Company wins applause for the real rain pouring down outside windows in the opening London scenes. Clapping also greets a first view of the castle, its trellises overflowing with vines and flowers, overlooking a sunlit shore at San Salvatore.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Jersey Boys
August Wilson Theater

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons are alive and well at the August Wilson Theater on 52nd Street in Jersey Boys -- book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crew (except for the Golden Oldies the boys sing before Gaudio).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Sweeney Todd
Eugene O'Neill Theater

John Doyle has taken Sweeney Todd, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler, as adapted by Christopher Bond, and transformed it into a fully expressionistic, awe-inspiring production that may be the most exciting show now on Broadway. Doyle, who directed and designed the event, takes us, with marvelous stylization and amazing musical arrangements by Sarah Travis, into another dimension of theater.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Crowns
Dallas Theater Center

Crowns by Regina Taylor and directed by her at Dallas Theater Center is one of the most poorly crafted plays I've seen in a long time - a good premise gone awry. It tells of the importance of hats to African-American women and dates back to the time when the only place slaves could gather was at church; so that's where they went all out to dress in style, and hats were all important. The Bible says a woman's head must be covered; so they wore their finest hats to church.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Curse of the Starving Class
Cygnet Theater

Sam Shepard's 1977 Curse of the Starving Class is easily as strange as its setting. The set suggests quiet desperation; a sorta kitchen with a strange but near-empty fridge, a stove that barely works, a dining table that is used for many things, rarely dining, and a broken front door. One wall is red painted wood, another galvanized metal sheets reminiscent of roofs on dirt farms of yore, and more.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical
Fifty Foot Penguin Theater

What do you get when you take a porn classic, take out the nudity, and add music? Good campy fun.

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

What a journey Ethel Waters took in life! From a bastard black childhood in Philadelphia's Whores' Alley to stardom as a singer and actress of stage and screen, and finally to crusading with Billy Graham as a partner in faith, the trek exacted a toll. As if mirroring how hard Ethel Waters had it physically as well as emotionally, to embody her Jannie Jones alternates with another singer-actress.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Devil of Delancey Street, The
78th Street Theater Lab

Richard Nixon famously remarked, "I am not a crook!" Let me paraphrase that and say, "I am not a crank!" I don't go to the theatre looking for trouble, but like all critics, I do occasionally find it. Such was the case on a recent lovely autumn evening in Manhattan.

David Dow Bentley
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Five Course Love
Minetta Lane Theater

In Gregg Coffin's Five Course Love, now at the Minetta Lane Theater, three vastly talented singer/comedians, Heather Ayers, John Bolton and Jeff Gurner, broadly directed by Emma Griffin, sing their way through five ethnic restaurants.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Lips Together, Teeth Apart
Poway Performing Arts Company

What happens when four blatant heterosexuals spend the Fourth of July on Fire Island? They also bring their own problems to the festivities. Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart is a challenging work. On PowPAC's stage, under the direction of Jay Mower, the challenges are met.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
In My Life
Music Box Theater

Let's hear it for Tourettes Syndrome and for sweet sentimentality. Joe Brooks's new musical, In My Life (he wrote the book, the music, the lyrics and directed it) is about the romance of a guitarist/singer who suffers from the malady. It's like a circus of non sequiturs, but its cast of marvelous singers make it very entertaining nonsense. Lovely song after lovely song, mostly ballads, almost held together by an almost plot.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Naked Girl on the Appian Way, A
American Airlines Theater

A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, Richard Greenberg's play about a middle-aged couple's interaction with their three grown adopted children, is a low-level sitcom that tries hard to be funny but spends a long time bogged down in banal drivel. There are a few good jokes, but there are few ideas, little action, and mostly reminiscing for the first forty-five minutes. Richard Thomas is very busy acting, and the charming, talented Jill Clayburgh, who is capable of real humor and real drama, does her misdirected (by Doug Hughes) best to give some reality to her character.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Blue Rose: The Rosemary Clooney Story
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stackner Cabaret

The perfectly titled Blue Rose: The Rosemary Clooney Story is a valentine to one of the greatest vocal interpreters of the past 60 years. Clooney was indeed as lovely and fragile as a rose, with a silken, sophisticated voice that captured audiences worldwide. Her sunny smile, bobbed blond hair and trim figure were only part of her charm. Once she'd begin to sing, the audience would almost forget about the singer and get lost in the music.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2005
Crucible, The
OnStage Playhouse

Originally written in 1953 as a satire on the witch hunts of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), The Crucible stands out as one of Arthur Miller's greatest plays. He was convicted by HUAC of contempt, which was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. The play, well researched, fictionalizes the terrible time of 1692 in Salem.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2005
Elephant Man, The
American Heritage Center for the Arts

Richard Jay Simon seems to have a talent for mounting plays at his Mosaic Theater that demand a lot of actors and then of casting and directing actors and actresses that can do the job. He's done that again with The Elephant Man. Antonio Amadeo is exquisite as the title character, a man whose gross deformities, somehow affecting all of his body save his left arm and his mental and artistic acuity, made him a freak-show attraction and a medical curiosity - a higher class of freak show, some might conclude - in Victorian England.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
September 2005
Day After Yesterday, The
North Park Vaudeville

In physics we learn that the fourth dimension is time and that it is a constant linear function. In the works of Einstein we learn that it is relative. In quantum physics we learn it may not even be linear, what with the possibility of parallel universes. From playwright Kristina Meek, in her The Day After Yesterday, we learn the potential effect of non-linear, non-constant, parallel universe time on the life of one very perceptive young lady.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2005
Dedication, or the Stuff of Dreams
59E59 Theater

In Dedication, or The Stuff of Dreams, Terence McNally's thoughts about theater and the human condition, now at Primary Stages , are played out and soliloquized on the stage of a crumbled old theater. The incomparable Nathan Lane speaks for McNally, and his monologues work because it's Lane.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2005
Elements of Style
13th Street Theater

A play about Proofreading? Sure. Why not? I was once married to the entertainment editor of a daily newspaper, and her bible was a book called "Elements of Style," and that's the name of the terrific play Wendy Weiner wrote and performs. She plays a number of characters including the prim Chief, her hip-hop daughter, the vulgar fact-checker, an English features editor, a rural guy who works at magazines because he likes girls. This is a show about people involved with language, punctuation, etc., and all of Weiner's characterizations are clever, insightful, and fun.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2005
Lennon
Broadhurst Theater

Lennon, book, misconception and misdirection by Don Scardino (at least he's boldly willing to take all the blame) tries hard but misses badly. Sure, there are some great voices on the stage (Will Chase, Chuck Cooper, Julie Danao-Salkin, Marcy Harriell - the whole cast can really sing), but basically what is missing is John Lennon - his gentleness, his essence, his soul, except for one moment at the end when the real item appears on a screen. "Imagine" gets me. This show doesn't.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2005
Golf
Sofia's

Golf: The Musical by Michael Roberts, now playing Wednesday matinees and evenings at Sofia's on West 46th Street, is not only for golfers. Yes, it's full of golf jokes and inside references, but give performers as talented as the five in this show anything, and it would be entertaining. Add material like "The Lord is my caddy; I shall not slice," a Tiger Woods gospel song, Iraq - "Let's Bring Golf to the Gulf," Florida in summer, and, high point: Bob Hope (Joel Blum) and Bing Crosby (Christopher Sutton) on the road to heaven, and you've got fun for anyone.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2005
Amy's View
North Coast Repertory Theater

David Hare's Amy's View contains much more than her statement, "You have to give love without any conditions at all. Just give it. And one day you will be rewarded. One day you will get it back." The play is about conflict. Resolutions are rare, as are harmonies.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Beads, Bangles and Baggy Pants: A Tribute to the Golden Age of Burlesque
Adams Avenue of the Arts

Burlesque: a humorous and provocative stage show feature slapstick humor, comic skits, bawdy songs, striptease acts, and a scantily clad female chorus. Center Stage Players delivers just that in their new production, Beads, Bangles and Baggy Pants. What they don't deliver is a show ready for an audience. If this type of production interests you, wait a few weeks, closer to the end of the run, which is August 21, 2005.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Confessions of a Mormon Boy
Diversionary Theater

He's white, good-looking, dressed in a suit and tie. He carries The Book of Mormon. Most of us have seen his counterparts at our door or have heard of the ministry they are required to do. They travel the world wide preaching the Mormon brand of religion. Steven Fales, who wrote and performs Confessions of a Mormon Boy, lived the Mormon ideal. He went to Brigham Young University and married a beautiful young Mormon woman. They settled down to raise a good Mormon family and soon had a boy and a girl.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief
Main Street Playhouse

Here, through the imagination of playwright Paula Vogel, is what Shakespeare didn't show us in Othello: Desdemona, the doomed wife of the Moor general; Emilia, the equally doomed wife of the lethally conniving Iago; and Bianca, the courtesan with a thing for the pawn Cassio, dishing and dissing the men in their lives. In this telling, they've had way more men than Shakespeare ever let on. Here, though, the deceit and treachery the women visit on each other are center stage.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Eat Your Heart Out
Lamplighters Community Theater

There is a New York cliche that all the waitpersons are aspiring actors, which is probably 60 percent true. Nick Hall's Eat Your Hear Out follows Charlie (Christopher Buess) works in five different restaurants from Fall `78 through Spring '79. Charlie also narrates this simple story of desperation as he traipses from agent to agent and audition to audition. Also, though, it is the story of some of the folks he serves.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Evening of Christopher Durang II, An
Park Vaudeville

Christopher Durang consistently provides us with an oblique look at life and relationships. Through his eyes we see and hear a different reality. North Park Vaudeville offers up six examples of Durang's strange look at life.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Evita
Civic Theater

Che Guevara never could give up his revolutionary ways and, at 39, was executed in Bolivia, after a career fomenting guerrilla warfare in Cuba and throughout South America. An Argentinian by birth and education, he took part in riots against Juan Peron. In Webber-Rice's Evita he is the commentator/storyteller. We see Eva Duarte rise from an illegitimate birth, to struggling actress, to the most powerful woman in Argentina as Eva Peron. She was 33 when she died.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Fault Line - Four One-Acts
Fault Line Theater

Fault Line is one of the few theaters in town that give aspiring actors and playwrights their first exposure. In fact, scripts come all the way from an agent in New York for production and feedback to his clients. Most of their productions are multi-scene plays running around 30 minutes. It's an interesting form, allowing a full-length story to be told usually by short scenes - some, mere snippets - in the time period. It can also be disconcerting if scenes are too short.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Fault Line - June One-Acts
Fault Line Theater

This small, storefront theater, though a black box, adds new and flexible set pieces with each new run. Some of the young actors are in more than one production, giving us a chance to see their ability to take on new roles.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy
East 13th Street Theater

One supposes we are now in the era where dramatic films from twenty years ago are fair game for broad spoofing, and I guess with its overheated tale of an adulterous affair gone mental, Adrian Lyne's 1987 hit, "Fatal Attraction," is as good a choice as any. In their re-examination of the movie as a sexist manifesto, writers Alana McNair and Kate Wilkinson (who also star in the two lead female roles) employ a Greek chorus as a means to explore the potboiler.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
After the Night and the Music
Biltmore

Elaine May's three one acts under the heading After the Night and the Music provides an evening of light entertainment with a strong, sparkling cast, headed by the incomparable Jeannie Berlin whose behavior nuances, quirks and comic timing are fascinating, funny and unique. The rest of the cast includes some of the best in town, including J.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2005
Actors Alliance Festival 2005 - Program 5
Lyceum Space

American Cheese is produced, written and directed by Sandra Ruiz with Monique Fleming and Jay Jones in the cast. The questions posed are: "Can a high-school quarterback be an actor?" Can a freaky costumer actually have a non-violent relationship with such a person?

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2005
Actors Alliance Festival 2005 - Program 2
Lyceum Space

Oh Dear! is written and produced by George Soete, directed by Terry Scheidt and stars Peg Humphrey and George Soete. Soete plays a bitter, angry old man who has alienated everyone, even his wife at times, with his antagonistic attitude. She puts up with him, almost. Thus, they are never invited out and nobody ever calls or stops by. At least that is what we are led to believe. Humphrey and Soete bring us a convincing performance.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2005
Actors Alliance Festival 2005 - Program 4
Lyceum Space

Kids Fest - what a fun time! Is your child interested in theater? This is a fine opportunity to see kids in action for on five bucks.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2005
Actors Alliance Festival 2005 - Program 7
Lyceum Space

Seven days, seven wonderful days of plays -- and now it is almost over. There will be the best of the best on Sunday, so try not to miss it. Program Seven went international, an interesting mix and take on happiness and tragedy in our times.

Nigerian Bookends is written and produced by Cuauhtemoc Q. Kish. It is directed by Antonio "TJ" Johnson with, Monique Gaffney and Jason Mallory starring. With the varied beat of Rhys Green's drum upstage, Hijara (Gaffney) and Hijaro (Mallory) stand before a Nigerian court pleading their case. The charges: sexual misconduct.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2005
Beauty And The Beast
Fireside, The

As the show begins, young audience members squeal in recognition as their favorite cartoon film characters come to life. Leah Berry as "Belle" gives us an attractive character with spunk and spice. Her beastly suitor looks sufficiently hideous (but not too hideous to scare the youngsters). As the Beast, Stephen Mitchell Brown displays a wide range of emotions from beneath that furry exterior. Brown has a fine singing voice, too. He soars in the first act finale, "If I Can't Love Her." The supporting cast delivers uniformly polished performances as well.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
June 2005
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
Cygnet Theater

Is the term "perfect" presumptuous? Not for Cygnet's production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Every element is exactly right. Sean Murray's casting and direction absolutely nailed Tennessee Williams' bitter, rarely sweet, tale. The designers complement every aspect of the production. Finally, the actors define each of their roles exactingly.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2005

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