Gloria
Theater For The New City

Glory be to "Gloria" (Carrie Brewer), a beautiful sword-wielding princess who, thanks to her now deceased father, is well schooled in the art of dueling and sundry martial arts. It's lucky for Gloria that she has maintained her form and technique in daily workouts with Carmella (Judi Lewis), her close friend since childhood and soon to become a nun. Also keeping close watch over Gloria is her trusted nurse (Barbara J. Spence), who promised the dying king that she would keep the secret of Gloria's birth and the true identity of her mother.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
October 2000
Gorey Details, The
Century Theater

The fantastical illustrator and writer Edward Gorey's love of the macabre is so satisfyingly conceptualized and immortalized in print, it doesn't surprise me that most of the drolly dramatized skits compiled from the Gorey canon that make up the show The Gorey Details, left me cold rather than chilled. Peppered with songs by Peter Matz that curdle more than they creep, the "musicale," as it is billed, will, nevertheless be enjoyed by those who appreciate whimsy at its most capricious.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
October 2000
Wishes And Dreams
Shar Theater - Chaharsoo Hall

In this slice-of-life play, a documentary filmmaker offers the inhabitants of an apartment building a chance to tell their personal stories. Director Mehdi Hashemi developed the script for Wishes And Dreams via improvisation with the large cast. Each one hopes for a better life, and they are not afraid to share their dreams, even if they are big ones. (In this, Hashemi seemed to have them speak for many Iranians.)

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
October 2000
And Neither Have I Wings to Fly
Victory Gardens Theater

The 1995 premiere production of And Neither Have I Wings To Fly by the then-debuting Seanachai Theater Company was the sort of serendipitous treasure one happens on unawares. But Ann Noble's poignant tale of two Irish sisters in 1950 seeking their individual freedom and happiness after the loss of their mother is now just another script, relying for its fulfillment on the expertise of its interpreters.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Best Man, The
Virginia Theater

Seemingly designed only to coincide with this year's presidential race, this untouched revival of Gore Vidal's ahead-of-its time 1960 ode to political backbiting and scandal hasn't dated necessarily but still has the feel of being warmed-over. To be fair, the play has its share of acute exchanges and some very sharp performances. However, watching it, you get the feeling that even if you existed in 1960 (I didn't), the play would still feel stilted and vaguely forgettable. Vidal's structure holds up, but this production has a serious lack of actual urgency.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Boxing 2000
Present Company Theatorium

Leave it to the skewed sensibilities of downtown darling Richard Maxwell to fashion a play around amateur boxing—a sport that is equated with agility and speed and still bless it with his trademark deadpan dialogue. In his latest effort, Maxwell turns his attentions to two brothers, seemingly products of the street, Jo-Jo (Gary Wilmes) and Freddie (Robert Torres), who are prepping for a small-time fight.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Blast!
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

For those of us who could not attend the opening and closing ceremonies at the recent Olympics in Sydney, Blast! is a satisfying substitute. Its nonstop energy and innovative rhythms capture the exhilaration one would have expected to share as part of the festivities in Australia.

For no good reason other than to celebrate music and the full spectrum of the human spirit, the talents of Blast! put forth an electrifying spectacle.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Blue Room, The
Broadway Studio Theater

Oh, how the sexual landscape has changed in the past 100 years, when Arthur Schnitzler penned the original La Ronde. What shocked 19th-century audiences barely causes a murmur in today's updated version, even with nudity thrown in for good measure. Although this production of The Blue Room lacks the star power that attracted Broadway audiences (to see Nicole Kidman in the nude), it is witty, powerful and completely entertaining. Renaissance Theaterworks is an up-and-coming Milwaukee theater company that excels in presenting plays from a woman's point of view.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Death Of A Salesman
Ahmanson Theater

After successful runs in Chicago and New York, this production of the Arthur Miller classic comes to L.A. in taut, polished shape. The actors have invested themselves deeply in their roles and work with assurance, backed up by elaborate production values -- revolving stages, tricky lighting, cubistic set -- and a director working at full strength. Strength is probably the operative word in this contemporary interpretation of the play, with Brian Dennehy delivering a big, loud Willy and Elizabeth Franz a vigorous, angry Linda.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Evening Of Tennessee Williams, An
Rudyard Kipling

Of the four one-act plays of Tennessee Williams that Coffee Cup Theater Company is presenting at the Rudyard Kipling, only The Dark Room has enough substance to be compelling. Natalie Reece is Mrs. Pocciotti, a care-laden Italian woman who, under persistent questioning by a social worker (Tracy Jones), gradually reveals the shocking truth about her teen-age daughter's six-month seclusion in a darkened room. Reece's accent and delivery go straight to the heart of her character.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Floyd Collins
Cabot Theater - Broadway Theater Center

One of Milwaukee's most respected theater companies has aimed high with a knock-out production of Floyd Collins. This extraordinarily challenging musical is based on the true story of Floyd Collins, a 38-year-old cave explorer who became trapped underground while searching for "gold" -- a cavern that could be turned into a popular tourist attraction. Ironically, little did Floyd realize that he would become the attraction, as the entire nation turned its attention to his rescue. Newspaper and radio reports detailed the successive attempts to free Floyd.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Forever Plaid
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

Enjoy the show or your money back, Golden Apple is offering. The confidence is not misplaced. With its mostly heavenly reenactment of the corny but cute singing guy groups of the 1950s-early 1960s, Forever Plaid is almost a guaranteed hit wherever it goes. It appeals naturally to nostalgic audiences and pleasantly shows younger ones a glimpse of kinder, gentler, if sillier pop entertainments. A bit of astro mumbo jumbo explains why the "held up" Plaids, who died in an accident en route to their first pro show in 1964, will finally give that performance.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Fully Committed
Coronet Theater

Here is a true slice-of-life play -- and not only because it's set in the basement of a trendy, up-market New York restaurant. What Fully Committed (trade euphemism for "all tables booked") does is encapsulate, through the vehicle of a one-man show, a big chunk of American life, the portion that is obsessed with money, power, ego and celebrity.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Artaud Le Momo
Collective Unconscious

This was the world premiere for Alexander Panas's look at seminal theater theorist Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). Committed to an insane asylum in Rodez, France, Artaud spent dearly a decade there undergoing regular shock treatments that completely destroyed his health. Panas shows a man with violent mood swings and uncontrolled libido but one who is also a victim of overzealous therapy and nonstop predatory sexual taunting.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Bacchae, The
La Plaza Cultural

In The Bacchae, Euripides shows the disastrous consequences of challenging a superior power.  Young Pentheus (Kenneth Garson), governor of Thebes, is alarmed by the appearance of a new religion, which promotes orgiastic revelries in the woods and especially corrupts his city's women.  His entire family, including grandfather Cadmus (Glenn B.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Cuban Operator Please
Teatro 309, Charas/El Bohio

Adrian Rodriguez paints a very personal picture of the Cuban exile community, a very different one from what filled our TV screens earlier this year. Father (Jose Antonio) has lived in Union City, Cuba's "northernmost province" since leaving his country. Now married with two sons, he has worked long hours in an embroidery factory to support his family. The transition to life in the U.S. has left him taciturn and unable to show emotion except when playing baseball, his passion.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Darker Face Of The Earth, The
American Renegade Theater

Rita Dove, who won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987, is a gutsy writer who is unafraid to tackle the Oedipus myth, slavery, miscegenation and folk song all in one fell swoop. Working on a big canvas -- an 1820s plantation replete with swamps, cotton fields and nineteen characters -- Dove struggles to bring her impassioned but flawed text under control.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Expecting Isabel
Mark Taper Forum

There's good news and bad news about Expecting Isabel. The good news is that Lisa Loomer, an ex-standup comic and sitcom writer, is a funny writer, someone who can find much humor in the trials and tribulations of a 40-something couple trying desperately for its first child. The bad news is she will stoop at nothing to get laughs: cartoon characters, cliche ethnic types, dubious one- liners. Loomer also stretches out her thin story to such inordinate length that it ends up wearing out its welcome.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Don Juan In Hell
Irish Repertory

I don't know about you, but to my mind, George Bernard Shaw's plays always seem like a philosophical dissertation in search of a drama. Characters talk and talk and talk, but the outcome always seems the same, no matter where the play would end during its run. That said, the Irish Rep's revival of Shaw's Don Juan In Hell seems more than ideal. Staged as a reading and starring four old-time pros, this is a sit-down production that truly lets you experience the words in every sense.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Gore More Years, or, Son of a Bush
Odyssey Theater Ensemble

Washington DC-based comedy troupe Gross National Product has gone bi-coastal in order to ride the wave of public attention whipped up by the DNC. Politics and politicians are fair game for GNP's satirists, with not only Gore and Bush being ribbed, but Hillary and Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Jane Seymour, Charlton Heston, Ariana Huffington and William Buckley as well. Utilizing a sketch format sprinkled with songs and improv, Gore More Years or Son Of A Bush is more likable than memorable, with the humor rarely drawing blood.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Godspell
Theater at St. Peter's - Citicorp Center

I think it might be safe to say that never in my life before have I encountered two tasteless, punishing religious rock musicals in one theatergoing year.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Man Who Came To Dinner, The
American Airlines Theater

The inaugural production in the Roundabout Theater's new Broadway home, the unfortunately- titled American Airlines Theater (formerly the Selwyn Theater), is The Man Who Came To Dinner, a revival of the 1939 Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman comedy about a pompous, enraging critic who wreaks havoc on a decent, upstanding family when he takes a tumble on their property. The great news is that the critic is played by Nathan Lane, a treasure of the Broadway stage.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Habitos Oscuros
Teatro Armando Perez, Charas/El Bohio

Appearances can be deceiving. What goes on inside the Convent of the Humiliated Redeemers may be shocking to anyone who doesn't know their Almodovar. Coke-snorting nuns that pen porn on the side are just the tip of the iceberg. When divine providence leads an egregious sinner in the guise of pop singer Yolanda (Lorena Arriagada) to the sisters, a massive show of hospitality ensues. The only problem is that Jolanda wants to go straight, an impossible goal among these perverted religionists.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Die Ungarische Medea
Teatro Armando Perez, Charas/El Bohio

What if your husband were about to leave you for a young blonde? What if your son turned against you? What if a few moments later he died in a car crash? Like her mythological antecedent, this "Hungarian Medea" picks an extreme solution. Playwright Arpad Goncz (former President of Hungary) sees Medea's predicament as a spiritual quest: when Mada concludes life has no more meaning, her decisive nature allows only suicide as a response. Goncz's reference to the Medea is ironic, because modern times don't permit triumphant revenge.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Habladores
Present Company Theatorium

My high school Spanish teacher always suspected that the English verb "to blabber " came from "hablaba," Spanish for "he was speaking." She must have been thinking about Habladores, by Golden Age Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616). Most noted as the author of "Don Quixote de la Mancha," Cervantes also wrote over a dozen intermedios, brief plays to fill the space between acts of a tragedy or other more serious stage work.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Brothers And Sisters - Part I: Meetings and Partings
John Jay College Theater

This is the first time New York audiences have seen Lev Dodin's well-traveled production of Brothers and Sisters, which dates from the precise beginning of perestroika in 1985. Russians would be in a better position to grasp the irony in this adaptation of Fyodor Abramov's trilogy of novels about village life in Russia's Far North at the close of WWII.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Brothers And Sisters - Part II: Roads And Crossroads
John Jay College Theater

Part of Lincoln Center Festival 2000, this stage adaptation of Fyodor Abramov's trilogy of life in Russia's Far North continues over a second evening to show the same village five years after the end of WWII.

In this more somber Part II, the villagers' mood is temporarily lifted by a film clip of smiling peasants harvesting wheat -- until it is announced that the state grain requirement will be doubled. This effectively condemns them to another year of near famine; forced "loans" to the Party district committee further bled them.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Big: The Musical
Ritz Theater

This is a smaller Big and a delightful one.  It's a new production, using a script that's been adapted by director Art McKenzie.  The story of a kid whose wish to be grown-up is granted, for a while, was a wonderful film with Tom Hanks in 1988.  Then a lavish and costly musical version ran six months on Broadway in 1996.  FAO Schwartz put big bucks into the show, and director Mike Ockrent made it into a virtual commercial for the toy store.  After Big, The Musical closed, author John Weidman, songwriters David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Dance Like a Man
Tribeca Performing Arts Theater 2

A long-overdue Festival of Indian Theater brought U.S. premieres for works by two of India's most popular playwrights to the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. The one reviewed here, Mahesh Dattani's Dance Like a Man, asks whether a performer should have special rights within an upper-middle-class, traditional family.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Gift, The
Tiffany Theater

Backed by Hollywood and recording-industry money, it's obvious that The Gift has its sights set on a commercial triumph far exceeding its Equity-waiver origins. The producers have assembled a top notch cast, many of whom worked with the show's director on his previous outing, the camp musical Reefer Madness whose local success is taking it to New York this fall. But with everything it has going for it, The Gift has some major problems which might just keep it from becoming another Reefer.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Good Doctor, The
Pasadena Playhouse

Light summer fare is the best way to sum up this mixed bag of short comic playlets set in Chekhov's time but given an American gloss by Simon, who even contributes a sketch of his own which has nothing to do with Chekhov ("The Arrangement," about a father introducing his virginal young son to a prostitute). Simon frames the evening by introducing a Chekhov-like character called The Writer (the estimable Harry Groener) whose narration links the action.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Filao
Damrosch Park Tent

Inspired by Italo Calvino's magical-realist novel "The Baron in the Trees," this "new circus" event is called Filao, a clever contraction of the French word for high wire. Now, after having toured Europe and America since 1997, Filao comes to Lincoln Center Festival 2000, its second-to-last venue.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Annie
Iroquois Amphitheater

Crusty old Harold Gray, who wrote and drew the Little Orphan Annie comic strip from 1924 until his death in 1968, once famously defended the strip's emphasis on violence with this retort: "Sweetness and light -- who the hell wants it? What's news in the newspapers? Murder, rape, and arson. That's what stories are made of."

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Rosemary Clooney
Regency Hotel

Rosie's back with a new beat, a Bossa Nova beat. It's not that the incomparable Rosemary Clooney was ever afraid of taking on a challenge during her amazing 55-year career as a professional "girl singer." Opening a two-week engagement at Feinstein's At The Regency to launch the release of "Brazil," her new Concord album, Clooney demonstrated on opening night that her heart, if not her soul, was on the beat that has proved daunting to many a popular American singer.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Current Events
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage II

Politics is always a tricky subject for a playwright to tackle; either you're preaching to the converted or talking to a brick wall. People don't come to the theater to be lectured; they want to be entertained. I'm happy to report that David Marshall Grant's Current Events emerges victorious on both fronts.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Far East
Florida Studio Theater - mainstage

Culturally, East -- specifically Japan -- is as far as can be from the "normal," Midwest country club world of Lt."Sparky" Watts. Having fallen in love with a young Japanese who waits tables at his newly-assigned base, 1954, he's trying to "Orient" himself. Enthusiastic Jason Kuykendall gentles a bit the brash WASP whose military stint began as an entrance qualification for Harvard Business School.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Giulio Cesare
Rich Forum

Now in its fifth year, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas is spread over three Connecticut cities this time. Artistic Director Paul Collard picks from far and wide to bring together presentations ranging from the popular to the challenging, just as the festival's title promises. The lone Italian entry comes from the Societas Raffaello Sanzio, an experimental theater group based in Cesena, near the Adriatic coast south of Venice. Romeo Castellucci presents a combination deconstruction and sensual exploration of the Julius Caesar theme.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Glass Menagerie, The
Cap 21

Set in St. Louis on the eve of World War II, The Glass Menagerie is a family tale of hope, despair and deception. Mississippi transplant Amanda lives with her two adult children in a modest apartment with shabby furnishings -- a far cry from how she hoped to end up. Her husband abandoned them years before to turn Amanda into a single mother, a status that commanded none of the respect but all of the drawbacks that we have with us sixty years later. Son Tom, who doubles as narrator in the play, works in a warehouse for a piddling salary.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Hotel Suite
Gramercy Theater

Neil Simon's new pastiche of his one-act, hotel-based plays of old, now newly dressed up and called Hotel Suite, is truly the first theatrical experience that I can recall that is both remarkable and stunningly awful. The four tales represented are all by Mr. Simon and have varying degrees of success as plays.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
June 2000
Blind Alley
Puerto Rican Traveling Theater

This is a trio of one-acts, each with realistic female characters in a contemporary urban setting. Hopscotch shows teenagers Haydee (Monica Read) and Dee (Mariana Carreno) dickering over how to spend Christmas. With a mother doing time, Haydee has "graduated" from school dropout population to petty crime, so Dee's more stable situation of separated, inimical parents makes her seem a bastion of stability. Add to that Dee's vestigial moral schema, and she is on her way to escape from the squalid life depicted. Maybe.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
May 2000

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