Invincible
59E59 Theaters

In Torben Betts’s play Invincible, presented by The Original Theater Company and Ghost Light Theater Productions at off-Broadway’s 59E59 Theaters (as part of their Brits Off Broadway series), a London couple named Oliver and Emily move to Northern England and experience culture shock. Specifically, they invite their neighbors, Alan and Dawn, over for a visit one evening and find that they have no mutual ground. Oliver and Emily are quintessential sophisticates, unmarried, progressive, slender, refined. Alan and Dawn are boors.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Not Water
3D Technology Center

(see articles/reviews under (Not) Water)

Napoli, Brooklyn
Laura Pels Theater

There is a definitive time — 1960 — and place — Brooklyn — and characters — an Italian family poised at the brim of a tumultuous decade that will shake up racial equality, gay rights, equal opportunities for women. Unfortunately, playwright Meghan Kennedy’s premiere of Napoli, Brooklyn at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theater tackles an intriguing era with a stereotyped cast and an unsatisfying text.

Under Gordon Edelstein’s deft direction with fine actors, Kennedy's play proceeds in short episodes, each focused on a member of the Muscolino family.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Jacques Brel's Lonesome Losers of the Night
No Exit Cafe

Playgoers attending Theo Ubique's musical anthology drawn from the canon of Jacques Brel are advised to set aside their memories of the 2008 premiere production, as well as those of the seriously flawed, 1970-vintage “Alive and Well” cabaret revue.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Late Company
Pride Arts Buena

Two sets of affluent parents meeting to discuss an incident involving their respective offspring is a premise inviting anticipation of a comedy of manners in the style of Yasmina Reza, where rational discourse quickly gives way to voices raised in angry protest, often to the exclusion of the subject initiating the dispute.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Night with Janis Joplin, A
Geary Theater

The psychedelic 1960s found a home in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district; so, where better than to celebrate the 50th anniversary of “The Summer of Love” than in the heart of San Francisco, seeing A Night with Janis Joplin?

This sizzling, soulful, high-energy creation – more concert than musical, actually – focuses on the brilliant-but-short life of Janis Joplin. As most of us know, Janis was a hard-drinking, drug-taking blues singer from Port Arthur, Texas.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Traveling Lady, The
Cherry Lane Theater

Initially, the calm of a small Texas town in 1950 shows little hint of the turbulence simmering beneath the surface. Returning to the New York stage, The Traveling Lady is a snapshot of Harrison, Texas, the community that playwright Horton Foote knew so well, and again, he draws the drama from the everyday comedy and heartbreak of ordinary people.

On an early summer morning, there is a funeral going on in town and we've already met crusty Mrs. Mavis, a saucy old gal who is always on the run from her daughter, Sister Mavis.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Twelfth Night
Festival Theater

Canada’s great Stratford Festival’s 63rd season also celebrates Canada’s 150th birthday. Its dazzling opening week of stunning productions this year consisted of seven major classic works; the later openings this season will feature new and experimental theater.

So Shakespeare’s beloved comedy Twelfth Night led off in a typically handsome production elegantly directed by the sovereign Martha Henry, beautifully designed in a somewhat updated period by John Pennoyer and cast with a non-traditional flavor featuring famed expert Shakespeare players.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
I am not a Comedian...I'm Lenny Bruce
Theater 68

Ronnie Marmo has been channeling the late Lenny Bruce for the past ten years in a one-man show which he wrote for himself. Previously called “Lenny Bruce is Back,” the show has returned to L.A. under the new–and much more cumbersome--title of I am not a Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce, directed by Joe Mantegna, for a five-week run at Theater 68.

It’s to be hoped that young people who might not even know who Bruce was will see this show and learn something about the man who revolutionized American comedy in the 1950s—and paid a tragic price for that accomplishment.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Equal To
City Garage

Almost Equal To, by Swedish playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri (translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles), is an all-out assault on capitalism. The play’s U.S. premiere at City Garage is directed by the company’s artistic director, Frederique Michel, always a friend to post-modern playwrights like Khemiri.

Michel does an excellent job of making coherent Khemiri’s complicated, multi-sided story in which the actors play two or three different characters and the action jumps back and forth in time.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Jersey Tenors, The
Florida Studio Theater - Court Cabaret

When they descend from staircase to stage, the Jersey Boys in red-jacketed tuxes look like the combo of nightclub and operatic concert artists they are. As they start the second half of their program, their grungy outfits tell that they’re going to be rockers. Somehow they transition back to singers well suited with white-jacketed tux and the kind of send-off songs that soar. All well planned and executed.

Because they’ve just returned from a tour of Europe, they recapitulate their tuneful travels.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
As You Like It
Cal Shakes - Bruns Amphitheater

As part of the American Theater Critics Association visit to San Francisco, we were conveyed by vans to the stunning campus of Cal Shakes. It features an al fresco amphitheater for its productions, in this case, As You Like It. We were warned to bring layers as during evenings temperatures are known to plummet. But it proved to be an unusually hot June day that resulted in a balmy evening under the stars. It was a delight to hear the occasional bird chirping.

This delightful evening of comedy was brilliantly and succinctly directed by Desdemona Chiang.

Charles Giuliano
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Legend of Georgia McBride, The
Marin Theater Company

As part of the American Theater Critics Association’s recent conference in San Francisco, a small group of board members took in a performance of Marin Theater Company’s The Legend of Georgia McBride. It was, to tell the gosh-darn honest truth, a mixed blessing.

In fact, commuting back to Frisco, we had a lively discussion with colleagues commenting on productions of Georgia McBride in their own regions of the nation. For example, there are, by now, some well-vetted arguments primarily about casting for this play.

Charles Giuliano
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Tychyna, Zhadan, and the Dogs
La MaMa

Tychyna, Zhadan, and The Dogs is a production conceived and directed by Virlana Tkacz and presented by La MaMa and Yara Arts Group. It combines Ukrainian poetry with Ukrainian rock music. The poetry was written by Pavlo Tychyna just after World War One, and by contemporary poet Serhiy Zhadan (with additional verse by Bob Holman of the Yara Arts Group). Mr. Zhadan is the lead singer for the rock group, Zhadan and the Dogs.

The opening of the show takes place in the lobby of the theater, creating a nice transition from life to art.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Death Comes for the War Poets
Sheen Center

At The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, off off Broadway, Blackfriars Repertory Theater and Storm Theater Company are presenting Death Comes for the War Poets. It calls itself “a dramatic verse tapestry,” and the phrase describes the piece well. It is composed of the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, with additional verse by Joseph Pearce. It’s wonderful to see a show almost entirely in verse.

Three characters populate this play. Sassoon and Owen, of course, and the third character is Death herself.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Graduate, The
Lucie Stern Theater

There’s a fresh breeze blowing through Palo Alto in the form of a play calledThe Graduate. While many audiences are familiar with the ground-breaking 1967 film, there is still much to explore in this coming-of-age play.

But first, the film that started it all. It featured Mike Nichols as director and had a dream-team cast: Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin, a disillusioned college graduate; Mrs. Robinson, an older woman and neighbor, played by the late Anne Bancroft; and her daughter, Elaine (Katherine Ross).

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Night with Janis Joplin, A
American Conservatory Theater - Geary Theater

What could be more appropriate to help kick off San Francisco’s Summer of Love than a musical devoted to the life and performances of Janis Joplin?  At A.C.T., the house gets as full and animated as at Woodstock and other concerts back in the day.  If you love Joplin’s brand of music, you can have a treat.  But that’s not all.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Bette Davis ain't for Sissies
Athenaeum Theater

It was a blunder to be remembered throughout cinema history. On the night of the 1939 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards presentations, the evening edition of the Los Angeles Times published the names of the winners in defiance of the embargo prohibiting revelation thereof until after the ceremonies.

Nominees and guests had already arrived at the Cocoanut Grove auditorium, some remaining to stoically face their imminent defeat, but Bette Davis shrugged off social protocol and left.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Native Gardens
Biograph

History provides ample testimony to wars arising over initially trivial differences, so we shouldn't be surprised when our own citizens amplify petty squabbles into full-out conflicts requiring vast investments of time, expense and even violence to resolve. The two couples in Karen Zacarias's minimalist fable, Native Gardens, have their counterparts in spheres as limited as teenagers defending a street corner and as far-reaching as politicians disputing election returns.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Her Majesty's Will
Lifeline Theater

Some say it all began in 1973 with the novel, “The Princess Bride,” some in 1998 with “Shakespeare in Love,” and yet others attribute the revival of the sword-and-cloak literary genre to theatrical combat designers weary of applying their skills to the same few plays. Whatever the source, consumers of historical fiction in 2017 can find Elizabethan superstars William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe starring in whodunits, bodice-rippers, glam-camp farces, graphic novels and even cookbooks.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Pride, The
Lovelace Studio Theater

Michael Arden, Artist-in-Residence at the Wallis, has directed a favorite play of his, The Pride, written by his fellow-Brit, Alexi Kaye Campbell, back in 2008. Its gay theme has resonated with audiences ever since then, with productions taking place in London, New York, and other major cities. Now it’s L.A.’s turn to experience the play, in a homegrown version featuring mostly local actors. And what actors they are.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Naked Boys Singing!
Theater Wit

The six males referenced in the title of this musical revue sing—quite capably, too. It's likewise true that the ensemble of physically diverse players—lissome or cuddlesome, bear-hairy or baby-bottom bald, tattooed and tabula rasa—appear totally unclothed for all but perhaps 14 out of the 85 minutes required for the duration of the performance. To be sure, that same description could be applied to a rush-week fraternity party or a post-game locker-room revel, but this 1998 vaudeville promising "No crudity/Just gratuitous nudity" delivers much, much more.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Constellations
Geffen Playhouse

Fiendishly clever are the first words that came to mind after the conclusion of Constellations, the play by British playwright Nick Payne which is now having its West Coast premiere at the Geffen, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. The much-sought-after play (which has been a hit in London and New York) is a star vehicle for its two actors, in this case Ginnifer Goodwin and Allen Leech.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Bella: An American Tale
Playwrights Horizons - Mainstage Theater

For all avid theater lovers who lament that there’s nothing original in theater nowadays, rejoice! Bella has come to town with a terrifically talented cast, memorable music, and a wholly unique premise. We expect no less from the consistently visionary Playwrights Horizons. Equally exciting, Ashley D. Kelley in the title role, is poised for stardom in the musical pantheon of performers who grab our attention from the beginning, and delight us for years to come.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Naming True
Urbanite Theater

Amy, a transgender young adult from Seattle, enters out of a tumultuous rainstorm into a Florida motel room to get a memoir from Nell, a black woman, about her growing up in Detroit. Nell’s lost her family, been chronically homeless, and wants her manuscript published before she kills herself (or maybe her liver disease does). Because Nell intends suicide, more or less immediate to celebrate publication, Amy tries both to get the manuscript and to keep Nell alive.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Florida Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

As Jules Verne did in his novel, two Canadians‘ multimedia/virtual reality-filled version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea brings a union of fiction and science to explore adventures involving the state of our oceans. It is aimed at everyone from third graders to their grandparents and other adults, but after the multimedia novelties wear off, its the kids who’ll want to stick with the rest.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Hunger Artist, A
Connelly Theater

A Hunger Artist is one of Franz Kafka’s most difficult stories. The writer’s concern in here is the nature of the artist, his relationship to his public, his motivations. Kafka’s not dealing here with the ordinary guy, the Everyman that he writes about in so many of his other stories.

The title character is a performer whose art is simply to fast. He would fast for up to 40 days, sitting in a cage in public, but that’s the maximum length of time that his impresario would allow.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Night Season, The
Factory

"Earth, receive an honored guest/William Yeats is laid to rest" — don't you believe it! Ireland's most lauded export may have died nearly 80 years, but all it takes is the mention of his name to make a household mired down in gloomy resignation embark on reckless ventures involving romance, risks, and maybe a fresh start on life (or at least a satisfying end thereto).

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
King Liz
Windy City Playhouse

From the moment that Fernanda Coppel's morality fable opens to reveal a sumptuous office in the corporate headquarters of Candy Agencies, where "It's-good-to-be-king" African-American sports agent Liz Rico and her much-abused assistant, Gabby, are simultaneously issuing orders via Bluetooth, we know that these are powerful people and that big bucks are at stake.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Interference, The
Met Theater

Close on the heels of Actually, Anna Ziegler’s drama about campus date rape (which is still running at the Geffen), comes The Interference, a play on the same subject.

Now premiering at the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival (gaining in strength and importance every year, by the way), The Interference was written two years ago by Scottish playwright Lynda Radley while on a fellowship at Pepperdine, an L.A. university which has ties to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Six Degrees of Separation
Ethel Barrymore Theater

Six Degrees of Separation took off after a newspaper account in 1983 about a wealthy Upper East Side couple conned by a needy grifter. The situation is not funny, but John Guare, in this revival of his razor-edged cynical drama at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, again shows his ear for witty dialogue within a blistering undercurrent of loneliness, racial polarization, and human separation. The question is if the original show, a 1990 major Broadway hit, holds up over the passage of time.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2017
Nicky
Greenway Theater

It must have seemed like a good idea to playwright Boni B. Alvarez: doing an updated, gay-oriented version of Chekhov’s Ivanov. His radical adaptation of the play, now called Nicky, found favor with the Coeurage (sic) Theater Company, which has backed the drama with a lavish production at the Greenway Theater (impressive set, large cast, costumes galore).

Unfortunately, the evening comes off as a great big mess.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Burt & Me
Florida Studio Theater

Do you think a love story set to music is a good way to start a summer season of theater? That's what the folks at Florida Studio Theater decided, and the audience of which I was a part certainly agreed. In this instance, the music is by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David and how they enriched the life of a Pennsylvania guy who's a fictional representative of Bacharach fan and author Larry McKenna.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2017
Present Laughter
St. James Theater

Noel Coward’s comedy of mannerisms, Present Laugher, is primed with, or rather saved by, the brilliance of one actor whose talent and instincts catapult him beyond the deficiencies and inefficiencies that otherwise define this mostly insufferable revival. Bravo over and over again to Kevin Kline who avoids the excesses that marred the last revival about Garry Essendine the idolized, incredulously narcissistic middle-aged matinee idol.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
May 2017
Six Degrees of Separation
Ethel Barrymore Theater

John Guare’s 1990 play, which he based on the real-life scam of a man who posed as the son of Sidney Poitier and managed to worm his way into an elitist circle of New York society, is back in a splendidly acted and handsome production (stunningly designed by Mark Wendland) directed by Trip Cullman.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
May 2017
Hello, Dolly!
Shubert Theater

With Bette Midler playing Dolly Gallagher Levi on Broadway, it is safe to say there isn’t a whiff of the Irish left in the role that is the centerpiece in the beloved musical, Hello Dolly. Not that there ever was much of a Gallic glint invested in the role, although I respectfully refer back to Tovah Feldshuh who added a slight brogue to her portrayal at the Paper Mill Playhouse a decade ago.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
May 2017
Building the Wall
New World Stages

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Robert Schenkkan (The Kentucky Cycle), said about his current play, Building the Wall, “I wrote this in a white-hot fury. We no longer live in a world that is business as usual — Trump has made that very clear — and if theater is going to remain relevant, we must become faster to respond."

Schenkkan took seven days to write the play and, in one way, he was right.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2017
Present Laughter
St. James Theater

Kevin Kline returns to Broadway after ten years to take a role he can dine on with relish. This is Noel Coward, after all, and Kline's charmingly supercilious role as fading matinee idol, Garry Essendine, is tailor-made for swanning around his London digs, lording it over his entourage, an ex-wife, nubile wannabe actress, housekeeper, snippy manager, and sycophantic playwright. Who wouldn't have fun with such a captivating witty and complex character—one who is satirically based, some say, on the playwright himself? And few can do it better.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2017
Glass Menagerie, The
Belasco Theater

It seems like as soon as the curtain comes down on one production of The Glass Menagerie, another revival out there is working its way to Broadway. Maybe it's because there was a decisive revival of Tennessee Williams's haunting play on Broadway with Cherry Jones, Zachary Quinto, and Celia Keenan-Bogden just four years ago, and two productions before that since 2005. Now, however, at the Belasco Theater, director Sam Gold has a minimalistic slant on the poetic memory play.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2017
Doll's House, Part 2, A
John Golden Theater

What happened after Nora slammed the door? We get one possibility in A Doll's House Part 2, Lucas Hnath's vibrant sequel to Henrik Ibsen's landmark 1879 play.

The new work opens 15 years after Nora had been stifled enough in her marriage and walked out the door. A four-hander, Hnath's conceit presents the aftermath with challenging questions and crisp dialogue but at the end, there are no concrete answers.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2017

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