Embedded
Public Theater

Embedded wears it politics on its sleeve, on its face, and on its masks. Yet it's not a polemic. It is a parody, but it's also a serious look at war. Probably the most accurate description is that Embedded is a series of set pieces, some brilliant, some broad, some harrowing, some obvious, which add up to a moving piece of theater but which fall somewhat short if one considers them together as "a play."

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
April 2004
Raisin in the Sun, A
Royale Theater

Lorraine Hansberry's profound, funny, powerful play, A Raisin in the Sun,, now on Broadway, is as poignant and relevant today as it was in 1959 when it was first produced. This story of the struggles of a black family in Chicago in the 1950s to survive, to grow, to make it in a difficult, frustrating world, is a gripping domestic drama with a fine cast. Hansberry was a wonderful writer with a keen ear for the nuances of the flow of people's speech and deep insight into their inner workings.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 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
Michael Feinstein
Houston Symphony

The anticipation is building in Montgomery County as the Houston Symphony prepares to open its new season at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion later this month. But I got a wonderful sample of musical delights to come while attending this week’s opening of the Exxon Mobil Pops with Michael Feinstein. The orchestra has never sounded better, and energetic conductor, Andrews Sill, was every inch the equal of the fine musicians in his charge.

David Dow Bentley
Date Reviewed:
April 2004
Anchor Pectoris
La MaMa ETC

Gerald Thomas, who's worked internationally, has conceived, designed and directed Anchor Pectoris, was presented recently by La MaMa. Thomas' form is unique and exciting: two actors move downstage, one of them representing the playwright; the other a sort of conversational sounding board. There are several actors behind a scrim, and they represent -- with varying degrees of non-realism, but always referring to life -- the playwright's artistic and political concerns as he discusses them.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
After Ashley
Actors Theater of Louisville

Smart barbed exchanges about sex and marriage between a restless 35-year-old mother and her 14-year-old son make for an attention-grabbing start to Gina Gionfriddo's provocative and unexpectedly funny, After Ashley, the sixth and last full-length play in this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville.

As the uncomfortably personal scene ends between Ashley, the mother (Carla Harting), and Justin, the son (Jesse Hooker), who is home sick from school, the stage goes dark and attention gets another jolt.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
At the Vanishing Point
Actors Theater of Louisville

Playwright Naomi Iizuka's At the Vanishing Point, the fourth entry in this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, is an imaginatively and lovingly crafted paean to one of Louisville's most historic and fascinating neighborhoods -- the aptly-named Butchertown. This is the area where the stockyards and meatpacking plants shared space with homes of butchers, distillery workers, and others in collateral jobs.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
bridge and tunnel
45 Bleecker

In the extraordinary one woman show, Bridge & Tunnel, written and performed by Sarah Jones and playing at 45 Bleeker Street, Jones gives us a succession of immigrant characters, mostly living in Queens, whose lives and personas are explored with amazing sensitivity and skill as she, with minimal costume changes, switches from male to female, from old to young, and to accents from all over the world. Although the piece boasts lots of humor, it is basically an exploration of the hearts of the characters, and, as directed by Tony Taccone, Ms.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Bug
Barrow Street Theater

Bug by Tracy Letts, now at the Barrow Street Theater, is a naturalistic slice of motel life among working-class Oklahomans performed by actors with a sense of being seldom seen on the stage today. We are looking through the wall where a real life seems to be going on. Shannon Cochran, Michael Shannon, Amy Landecker, Michel Cullen and Reed Birney are a rare acting ensemble, directed with an enthralling sense of timing by Dexter Bullard. This is what "The Method" was about -- real people with genuine emotions.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Bells Are Ringing
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

In the 1950s, instead of voice mail, there were answering services. Callers gave messages to real people who conveyed them to subscribers. Comden and Green, inspired by such a woman handling their messages from a dingy brownstone basement, replicated her fictionally as Ella working for Susanswerphone. They tailored Ella to fit the talents of old friend Judy Holliday. Both star and situation rang true in the NYC of their day, accounting for a long Broadway success and subsequent transfer to film.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Book of Days
Martin Experimental Theater at Kentucky Center for the Arts

Lanford Wilson's Book of Days, written in 1999, opens in a style reminiscent of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, with citizens of a small Missouri Bible-Belt community spotlighted inside a circle of chairs as they take turns enumerating the place's assets and good points. But when Walt Bates (an excellent Larry Singer), the town's rich and respected "feudal lord," who owns the local cheese factory, is murdered during a tornado, the civilized veneer that masks the evil buried in hearts and minds of nearly everyone gradually crumbles.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Burkie
OnStage Playhouse

It's a four-letter word with five letters. We don't want to talk about it. We are afraid of it, but we can't avoid it. I've witnessed it twice. One from afar (as does Burkie's Jess) and once very close-up and personal (as does Jon). The word—dying.

Why would anybody want to see a play about dying? Possibly to understand the process of watching it happen? To prepare ourselves for the inevitable? And, in the case of OnStage Playhouse's Burkie, to experience excellence in theater.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Diary Of Anne Frank, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

There are four versions of Anne Frank's diary. The last incorporates extra notes along with the original, one she edited herself for publication, and one her father Otto edited and made it his life's work to disseminate. His forms the basis for the Hacket couple's script. Writer Cynthia Ozick has been right to question the sentimentality, the toning down of what must have been grittier reality than what appears onstage here. All you see of the Dutch are two brave former employees who help sustain the Franks.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf, An
Studio Theater

Like a memorable meal, the play An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf makes one eager for more. Each course is such a delight that one scarcely knows where to begin. In the first place, it's astonishing that a company such as Bialystock and Bloom could be capable of creating this fragile souffle of a play.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Fiddler On The Roof
Minskoff Theater

Yes, it's good to have this wonderful show back on Broadway. On the other hand (to use Tevye's expression), there are serious casting flaws.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Embedded
Public Theater

In Embedded, written and directed by Tim Robbins, we learn that the media lies to the public and that the government controls the media. Gosh! I never knew that. We also learn that Tim Robbins is a better director than writer. The most interesting part of his show is the projections of dazzling old war films and splay of lights during the scene changes. The rest is simplistic Agit-prop polemic diatribe, mostly declaimed in a Brechtian manner, including masks for Bush's cabinet, but without Brecht's innovative theatrical tangents and delights.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
From Door To Door
Westside Theater - Downstairs

Few themes in playwriting are as reliable as that of parents passing their fears, traits, customs and traditions down to their children. In capable hands, the opportunities for nostalgia and recriminations can be inexhaustible. James Sherman, who showed a sweet knack for Jewish family comedy with his Beau Jest, mines a slightly darker vein in this tale of three women and the choices they made.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Anna in the Tropics
Royale

Anna in The Tropics is about Cuban workers (most of them are also the owners, actually) in a Tampa cigar factory in 1929. A new lector is hired from Cuba, and his job is to read to the workers while they work. His choice of material: "Anna Karenina." Passages from the novel are woven into the play as he reads, and we study the book's effect on the other characters. Of course, life reflects art, and the lector takes up with one of the married women.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
84 Charing Cross Road
Studio Theater

On the eve of St. Valentine's Day, Milwaukee's Chamber Theater dishes up a delightful helping of English trifle in the form of 84, Charing Cross Road. The play is based on the real-life writings of New York scriptwriter Helene Hanff. Its title is based on the address of a London bookseller's shop (more about this below). Charing Cross is something of a signature piece for the company, as it was first performed in 1982. Chamber Theater has revived it several times over the years, always with the same two actors portraying the main characters.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Angels of Lemnos, The
Venice Little Theater - Stage II

Stage II of Venice Little Theater is known for its gutsy attempts to stage contemporary, even controversial plays, and for winning national community theater awards doing so. The Angels of Lemnos, for instance, requires a Greek chorus (however truncated in size and message), complete with masks (here worn on the backs of actors' hoods when they have to go swiftly to "normal" conversation).

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Bad Date Theater
Adams Avenue of the Arts

Misfit Productions presents "Bad Date Theater" at the Adams with five short plays: two Christopher Durangs, two Shel Silversteins, and a John Guare. All the plays offer a different look at our celebration of Valentines Day. Excepting the Guare, the productions are directed by Misfit's artistic director, Fred Tracey.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Bully Pulpit, The
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage / Gompertz (2005)

How well Theodore Roosevelt's ornate but warm, comfortable Sagamore Hill home reflects the man!

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Chicago
Music Hall at Fair Park

The touring company of Chicago that played the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas February 24-29, 2004 did not measure up to the 1999 touring production. It wasn't bad;  it just didn't have the sparkle or electricity of the previous mounting. With a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse,  music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, Chicago is a blockbuster musical with all the razz-ma-tazz of the flapper era -- at least it is when it delivers -- this show didn't.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Drowning Crow
Biltmore Theater

Regina Taylor's Drowning Crow is a mess based on Chekhov's The Seagull. Set on South Carolina's Gullah Islands, with a black cast, it's a good idea gone blooey. Two things are necessary in theater: communicate and entertain. Poor direction by Marion McClinton undercuts the simple communication of the content -- jumping around while talking breaks our empathy with the characters, especially in the case of the very handsome Anthony Mackie playing a troubled writer, whose histrionic antics distance us from the story.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Doll's House, A
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

This gripping production of Ibsen's classic, A Doll's House, is sure to keep Milwaukee Repertory Theater audiences enthralled during its month-long run. Stunningly staged by famed Hungarian director Laszlo Marton, this staging keeps most of the play's familiar elements intact. It rarely deviates from Ibsen's original lines, its Victorian timeframe or its famous characters. (One of the play's minor characters, a nanny, is scaled down in this adaptation.) In clever and subtle ways, Marton allows the play to resonate with contemporary flavor.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Expiration Date
La MaMa ETC - First Floor

One by one, three eccentric actresses strut onto the stage at La MaMa's First Floor Theater to wait to audition. They flaunt creatively outlandish costumes by Denise Greber and director Abla Khoury, with a common theme of bright red patent-leather shoes or boots. And waiting is about all they get to do, unless you count the impromptu monologues done for an ominous-looking camera on tripod that otherwise mostly spills artsy time sequences of the women onto a screen at the rear.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
February 2004
Between Men and Cattle
Off-Broadway Theater

Wisconsin-based playwright Richard Kalinoski explores the racial divide between black and white in Between Men and Cattle. The premise of this oddly titled play is an intriguing one, involving an articulate black boy and an eager white reporter who is dazzled by the boy's sensitivity. However, for a number of reasons, the play fails to get off the ground. This does not reflect on the talents of director David Cecsarini nor the excellent cast.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
January 2004
Brave Smiles: Another Lesbian Tragedy
Diversionary Theater

What happens when you mix one of the top directors in San Diego (Kirsten Brandt, Artistic Director of Sledgehammer Theatre), an extremely talented cast (Wendy Waddell, Allison Riley, Robin Christ, Jeannine Marquie, Melissa Fernandes), and a brilliantly comedic script by the Five Lesbian Brothers (Manhattan based Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey & Lisa Kron)? You get a highly entertaining evening at Diversionary Theater with Brave Smiles . . . Another Lesbian Tragedy.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2004
By The Sea, By The Sea, By The Beautiful Sea
Adams Avenue of the Arts

A common theme and a single set make for an interesting evening at Adams Avenue of the Arts. By The See By The Sea By The Beautiful Sea, include Dawn by Joe Pintauro, Day by Lanford Wilson, and Dusk by Terrence McNally. The setting is a sandy beach with a backdrop of ocean and sky. Dawn features Kathy Song as Pat the wife of Quentin, played by Robert Jenkins and friend of Quentin's sister, Veronica (Hilary White).

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2004
Little Shop of Horrors
Virginia Theater

If you don't want to have a lot of fun, if you don't want to laugh and smile for two hours and walk out humming, don't go to Little Shop of Horrors. The clever old lyrics by Howard Ashman and lively tunes by Alan Menken tickle more that ever, and the sterling performances by the beautiful Kerry Butler, the always vulnerable Hunter Foster, Rob Bartlett (as close as you can get to Zero) and the amazing, dazzling Douglas Sills, all make this the best Little Shop ever.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2004
Taboo
Plymouth Theater

Taboo is closing. But it's a really good, completely entertaining show with marvelous performances and some of the best songs in town. The latter are by Boy George -- the ones that made him a star and others. But I guess Rock Freaks are not the cup of tea for visitors from Iowa. Taboo's an unapologetically, unabashedly gay show, and it seems the tourists are not ready for it.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2004
Anna in the Tropics
Royale

Anna in the Tropics won a Pulitzer Prize based on its script, before it ever was staged, and it comes to Broadway with high expectations. The play provides good entertainment but has flaws that keep it from being fully satisfying. The faults include a cheap and contrived denouement and gaps in plot. For example, the eldest member of the cast, owner of a cigar factory, is shown to be a gambler and a drinker who has no money. But in Act Two, he is suddenly sober and sensible and pulls out a wad of bills saying that he got a loan.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Agnes of God
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

Having seen the original Broadway production, I must admit that Agnes of God lacked, on this viewing, the impact it once had. I'd like to think that's because the suspense wasn't there for me, whereas the play's mystery is gripping as a first experience. Many in the audience with me obviously had just that. I wish I'd been able to share it, but the answers to the mystery seemed just too obvious this time. I refer to how, in a contemplative order of nuns, young, unworldly Sister Agnes became pregnant -- and is she guilty of killing her baby?

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Arsenic and Old Lace
Theater Three

'Tis the season for candy canes, popcorn balls and chestnuts. But the tastiest chestnut of the season is Theater Three's production of Joseph Kesselring's 1941 classic, Arsenic and Old Lace. Originally produced at the Fulton Theater in New York on August 18, 1941 by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (Life With Father) and starring Josephine Hull as Abby Brewster and Boris Karloff as her evil nephew, Jonathon, Arsenic and Old Lace is a comic murder mystery and a delightful send-up of theater critics.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Chicago
Civic Theater

Chicago" the movie was based on Chicago, the Broadway musical created by Bob Fosse. Chicago the road show is a re-creation of the original musical, in which Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly separately dispose of problems in there lives, through murder. Billy Flynn, a glib lawyer, defends both. What goes on between murders and trials is the grist of Chicago, which has fun music though proves short on plot.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Henry IV
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Jack O'Brien, whose fluid, almost dreamlike direction of Stoppard's The Invention of Love nearly shook that drama out of its ivory-tower lethargy brings the same sense of style to Shakespeare - and here he even gets to have battle scenes, hold-ups, tavern carousing and a coronation. For all the legitimate excitement of the production, it should be noted that not much really happens in the first two hours(!), and that fine as the work by adapter Dakin Matthews is (he cobbled the two Henry plays into one), the piece does feel every bit of its 230 minutes.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
I Am My Own Wife
Lyceum Theater

I Am My Own Wife, by Doug Wright, is an amazing show. Based on 1992-93 interviews with a German transvestite who built, kept and guarded a collection of phonographs, clocks, and furniture through the Nazi and the Communist regimes, the piece is gripping, fascinating, vastly entertaining, and reaches down into the human spirit more that anything I have seen recently.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
I Am My Own Wife
Lyceum Theater

If I Am My Own Wife were merely a fascinating story, compellingly told, it would be worth attending and strongly applauding. But this tale of a man, living as a woman and curating a veritable museum of Weimar era-history, not only during the Nazi period but throughout the Communist years in East Berlin, has a second-act twist that keeps us guessing long after the show's over. Think of it as the equivalent of Golda's Balcony, only here we're not sure if Golda might really be Yasser Arafat.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Jackie Mason: Laughing Room Only
Brooks Atkinson Theater

One can't blame Jackie Mason for trying something different after six one-man shows since his 1986, career-resuscitating classic, The World According to Me. His schtick was getting a little too familiar, his new material sounding too much like the old material.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
Jackie Mason: Laughing Room Only
Brooks Atkinson Theater

Jackie Mason's Laughing Room Only is two shows: one is Jackie doing his usual conversational schtick with the audience, in his subdued tone with physical absurdities sprinkled in; the second is bright, entertaining musical numbers by the sparkling Doug Katsaros, performed by a first-rate Broadway quintet of singer-dancers. Only one number integrates the two, and that is the high point of the show: "Tea Time," wherein Jackie plays a waiter overhearing and misunderstanding a conversation between two women in a tea room. That's the show.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2003

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