Frankenstein
St. Luke's Theater

How many works have been based on Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein?” Wikipedia (for what it’s worth) lists 39 pages in its “Works based on Frankenstein category” - novels, films, comics, video games. Mary Shelley accessed an archetype in our collective unconscious like few other writers.

Needless to say, not all of these adaptations are masterpieces. But stage adaptations of the novel promise, at least, to be rewarding; there’s a real dramatic conflict between Dr. Frankenstein and the Creature. And the musical is particularly right for this epic, operatic story.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Mad Ones, The
59E59 Theaters

The Mad Ones, a musical by Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk appearing at 59E59 Theaters, takes its title from a line from Jack Kerouac’s book “On The Road”: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live…”. In fact, its central character, a young woman named Sam, carries a copy of the book around with her. She’s just graduated from high school. Her mother, Beverly, expects her to go to Harvard; her best friend, Kelly, expects her to go to a state college with her.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Black Glove, The
Gene Frankel Theater

August Strindberg wrote a children’s play? Strindberg? That great melancholic? So it would seem. August Strindberg Rep (Off-off-Broadway) has produced his final play, The Black Glove. It was written in 1909 and first produced in 1910. It was the fifth of his chamber plays but not usually included in collections of those plays. It’s rarely produced and was indeed written, purportedly, for children.

Strindberg’s best known for his expressionism, but this play is set in an apartment building - seven floors and 21 units with heat, electricity and telephones.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Mushroom Cure, The
80 St. Marks

The Mushroom Cure is an extended autobiographical monologue — 90 minutes — written and performed by Adam Strauss and directed by Jonathan Libman, currently playing at Theatre 80 St. Mark’s, Off-off-Broadway. It centers on Strauss’s attempts to treat his OCD through psychedelics, and his concurrent romance with a woman named Grace. The two stories are intertwined as Strauss explores psychedelics and the personal relationship. He meets Grace when he’s re-searching drugs, and she accompanies him to Martha’s Vineyard to take the magic mushrooms.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Parisian Woman, The
Hudson Theater

Despite the presence of sultry actress Uma Thurman in her Broadway debut, The Parisian Woman never heats up. Set in present-day Washington, the drama centers on Chloe (Thurman) and her husband Tom (Josh Lucas), a tax lawyer who is on the shortlist for a judgeship. The two have an open marriage, and she has lovers, two of whom we meet in the course of the play. When Tom learns that he won’t get the job, Chloe springs into action and uses her lovers to influence the appointment.

Elyse Trevers
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Cross that River
59E59 Theaters

It is not at all unusual for something special to be going on at one of New York’s most sophisticated theatrical venues, the 59E59 Theaters.

That tradition is beautifully continued with the current run of the brilliant Allan Harris musical, Cross that River, directed by Regge Life. Subtitled “A Tale of the Black West,” it weaves a cowboy tale that some may find surprising.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Miracle on South Division Street
Milwaukee Chamber Theater

Although playwright Tom Dudzick will never be the next Neil Simon, you can’t blame him for trying. With all the one-liners inserted into Miracle on South Division Street, it’s difficult not to imagine the clever dialogue for which the now 90-year-old Neil Simon is known.

Dudzick’s premise is that every family is as unique as its members. (This also applies to Neil Simon as well. The family in The Goodbye Girl is far different from the one in Brighton Beach Memoirs.) Dudzick has learned from the best, and he is only a bit short of the goal.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Once on this Island
Circle in the Square

It’s a mistake to take Once On This Island too literally. It’s a fable, a story passed down through generations, a part of the local culture. In this case, that means the French Antilles, where the rule of the day seems to be the lighter, the better, and it’s an unwritten law that the poor folks on one side of the island don’t mix with the wealthy inhabitants who live over the mountain. All this is disrupted when a special little girl is adopted by a big-hearted couple. They call her Ti Moune, and they soon discover that she’s not like everyone else.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Parisian Woman, The
Hudson Theater

The play I wish I’d seen: a dialogue built around the conflict of the politically ruthless Jeanette (Blair Brown) and her ambitious yet naïve daughter, Rebecca (Phillipa Soo). Every time Brown begins to talk in The Parisian Woman, the energy level on stage increases, and the rather pedestrian plot seems much more interesting. Soo is an actress still fresh, and to some degree, an unknown quantity.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
SpongeBob SquarePants
Palace Theatre

I came to SpongeBob SquarePants a virgin, having never seen the animated TV series on Nickelodeon. I have since been deflowered, but not fully seduced, by this over-the-top, splashy, nonstop musical. While the production values are stellar, and the cast outstanding, for those ignorant about the characters, the show can be confusing and more than a little overwhelming. It’s a brightly colored, very loud, hellzapoppin event.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Buttcracker, The: A Nutcracker Burlesque
Uptown Underground

The Nutcracker has figured in the repertoire of family-friendly Yuletide-season relics ever since its premiere in 1892. The boldness of Tom Boi Theatricals’ gender-fluid casting can thus be said to represent a significant break from gilded-age protocol, as does its staging at the speakeasy-district Uptown Underground Cabaret. Oh, and if that isn't enough to alert holiday playgoers not to arrive expecting toe-shoes-and-tutus, the word "burlesque" appended to its title should provide sufficient warning.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Dickens Carol, A
Madison Street Theater

"Dickens was dead, to begin with," proclaims the conductor employed by London's South Eastern Railway—and yes, you heard that correctly.

It's said that drowning victims see their lives flash before their eyes, so when, at 9:39 p.m. on Christmas Eve in 1842, a faulty bridge-crossing signal sends the train plummeting into the icy depths of the Kent River and pinning Charles Dickens beneath a steel grate, his concussion triggers a series of disturbing visions.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Motown Christmas, A
West Coast Black Theater Troupe

A glorious gift to WBBT’s devoted fans, A Motown Christmas repeats earlier years’ special holiday revues with pleasing additions. Creator Nate Jacobs’s research turned up “seldom-heard Motown Christmas treasures” by Smokey Robinson (at least three), Stevie Wonder (“It’s Christmas Time”), and Marvin Gaye (“I Want to Come Home for Christmas”). But no favorite Motown or traditional songs are omitted from a show that lasts longer than usual but doesn’t leave audiences sated.

Motown melodies occupy most of the longer first half.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Cross that River
59E59 Theaters

Cross that River is a journey well worth taking for all theater lovers. It’s a rare and precious experience to find a play which is both thoroughly entertaining and thoughtfully enlightening.

At the center of the show is Blue, a former slave turned cowboy, who wants nothing more than to be free to live and love as he chooses. Allan Harris is a renowned singer, musician, composer, and as evidenced here, an actor who is by turns smart, engaging, and downright sexy.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Heart of Robin Hood, The
Wallis Annenberg Center

“There is no evidence for Robin Hood as a historical character, or for any attempt to set him up as such within at least three centuries of his alleged lifetime,” wrote Lord Raglan in his authoritative book, “The Hero—A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama.” But even Lord Raglan would have had the time of his life at The Heart of Robin Hood, the Anglo-Icelandic hoot of a show which just opened at The Wallis for a two-week run.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
bled for the household truth
Rogue Machine at The Met Theater

Bled for the household truth introduces us to the work of a gutsy new playwright, the Welsh-born Ruth Fowler (presently residing in L.A.) Her play, now in a world premiere production at Rogue Machine, looks at the weird, kinky relationship between Keith (Benjamin Burdick), an emotionally frozen man, and Pen (Alexandra Hellquist), a woman who is his complete opposite in behavior. A wealthy stockbroker living in a luxury East Village apartment (ingenious set by John Iacovelli), Keith advertises for a roommate who will be paid to stroll around his pad in her underwear.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Pride and Prejudice
Cherry Lane Theater

Jane Austen’s classic novel “Pride and Prejudice” has taken many forms, from lush romantic movies featuring actors such as Colin Firth to absurd sci-fi versions such as “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” Now in the hands of clever playwright-actress Kate Hamill, it’s become a comedy. Pride and Prejudice at Primary Stages features eight talented performers, most of whom play several parts.

With few changes, (the dropping of some minor characters) the story remains the same. Hamill plays Lizzie Bennet, one of several daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett.

Elyse Trevers
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Blue Suede Shoes
Florida Studio Theater - Goldstein Cabaret

From “Rock Around the Clock” to “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” both performers and audience at Florida Studio Theater’s Goldstein Cabaret are reacting with a beat to the predominant music of 1950s and 1960s. The Blue Suede Shoes revue goes musically and historically speaking from rock and roll’s birth to a multifaceted maturity. Personalities dominate throughout along with the heftiest hits.

The three dynamic male singer-musicians narrate “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and then “Rock the Joint” telling how the first rock song was actually “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
I Saw My Neighbor on the Train and I Didn't Even Say Hello
Redtwist Theater

It's been said that unhappy families are unique in their afflictions, so what could be unhappier than a middle-class, middle-America, mostly-middle-aged clan so undistinguished that their author doesn't even deem them worthy of a surname? Is it any wonder that they look to strangers for affirmation of their existence?

Grandmother Daphne is never without her quart-sized flask of whiskey, her electronic cigarettes, and an unending stream of pessimistic diatribes.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Wild Boar
Chicago Temple

Every dictatorship boasts of the peace and stability enjoyed by its subjects, compared with the dissent-fueled unrest prevalent in unruly democracies.

After violent upheavals of foreign invasions and internal strife, what person wouldn't willingly sacrifice a few individual rights in exchange for the protection of firmly established leaders? As recently as 1997, when the British colonial city of Hong Kong ceded its sovereignty to mainland China, the first task of the new regime was to eradicate evidence of its predecessors.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
December 2017
Latin History for Morons
Studio 54

John Leguizamo’s play, Latin History for Morons, has a niche audience, but Leguizamo’s talent and charm appeals to almost everyone. That’s why the show that played to sell-out audience at The Public Theater recently moved to Studio 54. The performer treats the audience like a slow class and, as the teacher, he must teach us about the illustrious world history and contributions of Latinos.

He first sets to learn the history himself and is astounded when he learns about the contributions that Latinos made over the years.

Elyse Trevers
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
M. Butterfly
Cort Theater

Playwright David Henry Hwang made an auspicious Broadway debut in 1988 with M. Butterfly. The play and its original two stars — John Lithgow and B.D. Wong — received deserved awards and accolades. Almost thirty years later, the play remains overflowing with ideas and enigmas. The plot cannot help but grip an audience with its strange and thoroughly engrossing fictionalized account of a true newspaper story about a French diplomat, convicted of passing top secrets to a spy over a period of 20 years.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Tiny Beautiful Things
Public Theater - Newman Theater

Sincere but why? That is how I responded to the dramatic form given to a stream of popular inter-active on-line advice columns originally written by Cheryl Strayed, a non-professional known to her network of help-seekers as “Dear Sugar.” Some of these have been adapted from her book for the stage by writer/actress Nia Vardalos (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) who stands in for Strayed.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Oedipus El Rey
Public Theater

Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus El Rey is one of the more exciting of the new plays to open Off Broadway so far this season. A collaboration between The Sol Project and the Public Theater, it is a strikingly new approach to Sophocles’s classic tragedy, Oedipus Rex. Alfaro, making his New York theater debut, has twisted and turned the famous plot just a bit and transported the original’s horrific romantics from ancient Greece to contemporary South Central Los Angeles. That the old story resonates quite remarkably for us today is due, of course, to the playwright’s skill.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Secret Mask, The
Next Act Theater

Milwaukee’s Next Act Theater sometimes presents a holiday show that looks like anything but a warm-hearted testament to the love and joy of Christmas (and related holidays, such as Hanukah, etc.). Not so fast. Although it would be easy to brush off the U.S. premiere of Rick Chafe’s The Secret Mask as an anti-holiday show, that would be short-changing this excellent production.

Two grown men – a father and son – come to know each other after the 70-something father suffers a stroke in the Canadian city of Vancouver.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Office Hour
Public Theater

Bang! Bang! Bang! You’d better get used to that sound if you plan to experience Office Hour at the Public. There’s not much gunfire in the beginning, but just wait. It’s there.

The production begins with three college teachers in a room with three pendant lights above. David (Greg Keller) and Genevieve (Adeola Role) are warning Gina (Sue Jean Kim) about a student named Dennis (Ki Hong Lee). Dennis is clearly not quite right, to put it mildly.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Little Prince, The
freeFall Theater

One of the most popular books ever written, The Little Prince has been adapted into every medium. The version at freeFall is a fine stage example and translation from the original French, appropriate for audiences from children to adults. That’s important for a story about an adult Aviator who crashes and meets on a planetary desert a young boy Prince with whom he’ll learn about life, love, and responsibility.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Something Rotten!
Ahmanson Theater

Something Rotten is the funniest, most entertaining musical Los Angeles has seen in many a year. Developed by Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater, a hit on Broadway two years ago, Something Rotten! got a standing ovation (for its road company) on its opening night at the Ahmanson—not at the at the conclusion of the show but during its second musical number!

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
School of Rock
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

The School of Rock is making a noisy debut in Milwaukee. The musical’s first national tour arrives on the heels of a relatively brief stay in Chicago (a town where some musicals settle in literally for years). This means Milwaukee had an opportunity to see first-rate performers, many with Broadway and West End credits. Too bad the sound system went so haywire on opening night (more on this later).

Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones liked the lead (Bob Colletti) a lot.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Chasing Mem'ries
Gil Cates Theater

Tyne Daly stars in Chasing Mem’ries, a tear-jerking mock-musical now in a world premiere run at the Geffen, written and directed by Josh (Wishful Drinking) Ravetch. Daly plays Victoria, a salty, irreverent woman who, after 57 years of marriage, is trying to cope with her beloved husband Franklin’s death,

The story unfolds in the attic of Victoria’s Connecticut house (overstuffed set by Tony Fanning) on the day of Franklin’s memorial.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Second City: Dream Freaks Fall from Space
Second City

Parochialism always makes for easy humor. Fixed social divisions (like those found in Shakespeare's England) permit the gentry—in the company of their peers—to jeer at commoners, who then affirm their own camaraderie by mocking the higher-ups, while in our democracy, city and country dwellers delight in ridiculing each other.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White
The Artistic Home

The year of our story's setting is 1918, in a sleepy small town on the coast of South Carolina, where Miss Fannie Johnson serves as landlady to Mrs. Lula Green and adopted grown son Nelson, and to Miss Mattie and young daughter Teeta. The United States is at war—Nelson is enlisted in the army and Mattie's husband in the Merchant Marine; in their absence, the womenfolk are left to eke out a cottage-industry living.

A newcomer to this all-female community is the reclusive Miss Julia Augustine, affianced to a tradesman for a decade, their marriage prohibited by law.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Breath, Boom
Athenaeum

Once upon a time, there were four sisters — bound, not by birth, but by the sororal affiliations of York City's South Bronx.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Fade
Biograph

During the 1980s and '90s, it often seemed as if every playwright venturing west of Phoenix or south of Fresno eventually wrote a scathing diatribe of show business practices in California's motion-picture capital. Cautionary tales in this genre usually revolved around an idealistic young artist confronted by corporate philistines caring nothing for art and everything for money. Sometimes the newcomer's ethics remained steadfast, sometimes not, but never were we in doubt as to who were the good guys and who weren't.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Holmes and Watson
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse

Unlike those mysteries which focus on the exploits of famous detective Sherlock Holmes, Holmes and Watson switches things around a bit. In the US premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s new play, it is Dr. Watson who takes center stage for nearly the entire production. Holmes, you see, is presumed dead after a battle with his arch nemesis, Moriarty. Neither the loyal Watson nor the audience is aware of what happened at Reichenbach Falls. Who went over the brink? Was it Holmes, Moriarty, or both? Three years have elapsed, and neither man has been reliably identified.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Band's Visit, The
Ethel Barrymore Theater

I knew I had to attend the show. The American Theater Critics Association’s mini-conference had splendid panels with this gorgeous musical’s creators and performers.

In my 4th row seat I saw the sold-out matinee and tried not to disturb with my fast-growing lung infection. Then I left Manhattan and flew home. The Broadway opening didn’t occur until five days later. My angry doctor didn’t let me get out of bed, but by then my writing about this haunting, heart-lifting artwork was important only to me.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Evita
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

“Staging Our World”—Asolo Rep’s new project after five years of exploring the American Character—begins by focusing on Evita. Engaging a largely Latino main cast, Eva Peron’s story has a mixed emphasis on her personal and public persona, as well as her good and bad effects on Argentina and its people. Some is true; some invented. But for certain, everything narrative pales within the production’s colorful technical explosion.

Yet the atmosphere is always dark.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Spamilton
Kirk Douglas Theater

Spamilton pokes more fun at Hamilton’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, than it does at Hamilton itself. Leaving the politics and the American revolution out makes for somewhat toothless satire, but that’s pretty much Gerard Alessandrini’s specialty, as evidenced by his various Forbidden Broadway revues. Showbiz and personalities are his targets, his large and easy targets. That said, Spamilton is still pretty funny, though for me it wore out its welcome at about the one hour mark, owing to the sameness and shallowness of its rap lyrics.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Junk
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Money, money, money, money. Junk brilliantly explores what happens when money becomes the entire focus of existence. Set in 1985, the story of the brokers who touted debt as being a source of wealth is totally relevant today. Cleverly, author Ayad Akhtar frames the piece with the journey of investigative reporter Judy Chen, played by the gorgeous Teresa Avia Lim. She’s gung ho to write a book exposing the financial crisis being perpetrated by sleazy market traders.

At the top of this ever-expanding heap is Robert Merkin.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
November 2017
Wake
City Garage

Director Frederique Michel and her husband, producer/designer Charles A. Duncombe, continue with their mission of presenting truly alternative theatre in L.A. Working out of their small space in Bergamot Station, they steadily and fearlessly mount works by 21st-century avant-garde playwrights, the latest being sci-fi specialist Gordon Dahlquist.

In Wake, Dahlquist, author of “The Glass Eaters” trilogy, paints a portrait of a future world dominated by artificial intelligence.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
November 2017

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