Sex with Strangers
Geva Theater - Fielding Studio

Sex with Strangers has been making the rounds. Developed through Steppenwolf Theater Company’s New Play Initiative, its world premiere was at Steppenwolf in Chicago, and its New York premiere was at Second Stage Theater New York in 2014. Geva’s production was originally staged at Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, NY March 12-April 2, 2017.

It’s a sexy, pleasant, entertaining play with pretentions that Laura Eason’s dialogue doesn’t quite live up to.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Chicago
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

The city of Milwaukee is a lot closer to Chicago than it is to Washington, D.C., but the musical Chicago is basically a next-door neighbor to the national capital in terms of what it takes to succeed. A solid production of Chicago recently played in Milwaukee as part of its regular Broadway series.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Dearly Departed
West Coast Black Theater

Where are both a death and its aftermath funny?  In a play that leads to a funeral of a Dearly Departed but is anything but funereal. It takes a strange path from a play about Southern rustics to a film in which all were also African Americans and to this stage version that mimics the film. Indeed, with its multitude of scenes, it seems overly long and complicated, though perhaps its best feature is The Joy of Life Singers bringing music into the darkness of scene shifts.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
War Paint
Nederlander Theater

It is no surprise that Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole two of Broadway’s most beloved Tony-winning performers, each with her own cadre of diehard followers, are filling the seats at Broadway’s Nederlander Theater. It is equally unsurprising that the audience goes over the moon after each Scott Frankel (music) and Michael Korie (lyrics) War Paint song that they sing. And there are some twenty of them.

Edward Rubin
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Hello, Dolly!
Shubert Theater

There’s always something so exhilarating about seeing a hit show, and Hello, Dolly! delivers that excitement in spades. This is a lavish production, and it warms my heart to see the money on the stage. Dolly! is a sold out smash, and people begin lining up early in the afternoon just for a chance of being able to buy a ticket, any ticket, for the next performance. And it ain’t cheap.

Does the show live up to the hype? Front and center is the Divine Miss M., Bette Midler.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Conspiracists, The
IRT Theater

“Every time they fire up The Large Hadron Collider, they open up a portal to a parallel universe,” a character in The Conspiracists points out. What’s more, “the collider was fired up 12 hours ago.” Quite promising for the first scene of a play. Or the second or third, for that matter. And indeed, we hear these lines in all three scenes of The Conspiracists, a clever play by Max Baker.

The three scenes all take place at 8:47 pm on November 1, 2016, in the same church basement.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Linda Vista
Steppenwolf Theater

It's been said of the United States that everything not fastened down eventually rolls westward to California, so it's unsurprising that we meet our AARP-aged protagonist adrift in San Diego, where cheap bachelor apartments come with two bedrooms, a swimming pool, cactus-fruit margaritas and a Vietnamese immigrant colony next door.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Groundhog Day
August Wilson Theater

Andy Karl gets a huge hand just for appearing on stage. The applause isn’t only for his reputation as a performer; in large part, the audience is applauding the guts he’s displayed by going on despite a potentially career-ending knee injury.

High hopes have been riding on Groundhog Day and its star. Both the show and the actor won the prestigious Olivier award, and backers are counting on high ticket sales and some Tonys, too. When Karl injured his knee leapfrogging over another actor onstage, all that was put in jeopardy.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Little Foxes, The
Samuel J. Friedman Theater

How our perception changes with time and circumstances. In The Little Foxes, Regina Giddens is routinely excoriated for being a cold, heartless woman who’ll do anything to get what she wants. In this day and age, that judgment is far from a foregone conclusion. Maybe in less skilled hands she’s be the female equivalent of the moustache-twirling villain, but Cynthia Nixon lets us see so much more. Regina is intelligent, ambitious, and shrewd; none of these qualities has been rewarded in the atmosphere of the deep South in the spring of 1900.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Exonerated, The
Florida Studio Theater - Keating

A decade ago, I reviewed The Exonerated positively for its power at presenting true cases of people of all kinds wrongly imprisoned. This drama fortunately retains all of its power. Unfortunately, its subject has also retained its currency. Lest we forget, in its strong presentation, we are moved to support efforts to seek justice for those wrongly accused of crimes and punished.

The setting is stark, with dramatic readers occupying well arranged chairs in and from which they speak.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Room Sings, The
La MaMa

Sitting in the audience of The Room Sings, I thought of Caliban’s marvelous speech in The Tempest:
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Carnival
Tenth Street Theater

Even as the Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus is packing its tents for good, one of Milwaukee’s pluckiest theater companies isn’t going to let the sun set on the big top — at least not yet. In Tandem Theatre is presenting the rarely staged musical, Carnival. And the bag of free popcorn you get when entering the performing space is only one of many treats in store.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Violet Hour, The
Studio Theater

There’s more than meets the eye in Richard Greenberg’s riveting The Violet Hour, in a production by Milwaukee’s Renaissance Theaterworks. The characters seem quite normal, as they come in and out of a publishing house in New York City in 1919. At the center of things is John Pace Seavering (Neil Brookshire), who’s just starting a publishing career after his recent graduation from Princeton. In his office, almost overrun by paper (mostly unsolicited manuscripts by would-be authors), Seavering has just enough of Daddy’s money to publish one book.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Come from Away
Gerald Schoenfeld Theater

The award for best ensemble on the New York stage should be handed out right now; the cast of Come from Away simply can’t be beat. Not coincidentally, this example of the best in theater is also an example of Canada at its best. On 9/11, 200 airplanes landed at the airport in Gander, Newfoundland, diverted and stranded there because American airports were shut down. Typically, the count was about a half dozen. Suddenly, the small town was faced with the challenge of accommodating 6,700 extra people.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
King of the Yees
Goodman Theater

Lauren Yee's play is a chronicle of San Francisco's Chinatown that refuses to turn a blind eye to its corrupt politicians and gangster warlords. It's also a tour of the district, with exotic xenophile-pleasing sights cited by names and addresses, in addition to cute parade lions, CGI action-movie violence and silly fortune-cookie games.

The dramatic universe of King of the Yees encompasses the theater we occupy, along with mythical realms associated with Joseph Campbell-styled odysseys (cf. Mary Zimmerman).

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Failure: A Love Story
Kirk Douglas Theater

The angel of death hovers over a preternaturally cheerful 1920s Chicago family in Failure: A Love Story, now playing at the Kirk Douglas. The play, which is a remount of Coeurage Theatre Company’s 2015 staging, is being presented by CTG as part of its new Block Party series (and its 50th anniversary season.)

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Oslo
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Oslo is definitely a thinking person’s play. The subject matter itself is thought provoking; is peace in the Middle East possible? How do you get people who hate and blame each other into the same room to discuss and resolve important issues? Norwegians Terje Rod-Larsen (Jefferson Mays) and his wife, Mona Juul (Jennifer Ehle), think they may have the answer.

Rather than take the usual route of seeing the inherent problems as a whole, and relying solely on diplomats, why not try a more personal approach? Why not conquer one issue at a time?

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Great Expectations
Milwaukee Chamber Theater - Cabot Theater

It’s nice to see another Dickens classic being revived besides A Christmas Carol, arguably his best-known story. Milwaukee Chamber Theater tackles Great Expectations with a vengeance. Like Dickens’s other books, Great Expectations has a large and varied cast of characters. Also, it floats from one location to another in the blink of an eye. And it carries the burden of delivering timeless themes about the nature of humanity. This is what great literature is all about.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Punk Rock
Odyssey Theater

Punk Rock, now in a Los Angeles premiere at the Odyssey, is a British play about a Columbine-like campus shooting. It is written by Simon Stephens, one of Britain’s finest and most controversial young playwrights—his Pornography shook up the staid London theater world in 2007.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Rare Birds
14th Street Y

Adam Szymkowicz’s play, Rare Birds, which has just been produced by The Red Fern Theater Company at the 14th Street Y (off-off-Broadway), is a study of high school bullying. I’m going to tell you the plot, so beware – I include a spoiler! I’m doing it because it needs to be discussed in detail.

Dylan and Mike bully Evan mercilessly. They beat him up at school and execute a cyberbullying scam that leads him to make a video that he thinks is going to Jenny, the girl he’s after. Actually, of course, it’s going to Dylan, who shows it to the school student body.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Rep Lab
Milwaukee Repertory - Stiemke Studio

Of all the shows offered this season by Milwaukee’s flagship theater, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the toughest ticket to get may be the Rep Lab. Consider this: the actors are all emerging artists (unfamiliar to audiences), and the names of these short plays aren’t announced before the programs are handed out when audience members walk into the theater.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Legend of Georgia McBride, The
Geffen Playhouse - Gil Cates Theater

A drag show with heart, The Legend of Georgia McBride tells the feel-good story of Casey (Andrew Burnap), an Elvis impersonator at Cleo’s, a Florida Panhandle dive, who discovers he can make bigger bucks by impersonating women. The play, first produced by Denver Center Theater in 2015 and now in its West Coast premiere at the Geffen, is a bawdy, raucous hoot, thanks to Matthew Lopez’s outrageously funny script, Mike Donahue’s expert direction, and to the dazzling work by Burnap and his four fellow actors (Matt McGrath, Nija Okoro, Larry Powell, and Nick Searcy).

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Present Laughter
St. James Theater

First reaction upon seeing Kevin Kline: Damn, he’s handsome. Perfect casting for the vain, egocentric actor Garry Essendine, the renowned lover whose greatest love is his own reflection. This is definitely a fine figure of a man; it’s easy to see why silly girls gush over him and mature women lust for him. Even when we first see him, coming down the stairs disheveled and hung over, he’s still dishy. Once again, Garry has had quite a night, and the melodramatic debutante ensconced in the spare bedroom has fallen for his line and reaped the reward.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
War Paint
Nederlander Theater

This show should come with a subtitle: Dueling Divas. It’s the story of two giants of the world of makeup, the Polish-Jewish Helena Rubinstein (Patti LuPone) and the cooler Canadian Wasp, Elizabeth Arden (Christine Ebersole). The scene is New York City, and the time shifts from 1935 through 1964. In the beginning of their reign, “nice” women didn’t wear makeup, and they certainly didn’t fixate on it. So, the job of convincing them that they needed as much artifice as possible was a relentless battle.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Play That Goes Wrong, The
Lyceum Theater

Odds are that the Mischief Theatre Company's production of The Play That Goes Wrong at the Lyceum Theater is the most accident-prone production on Broadway — and you'll love every minute of mayhem.

Outrageous with collapsing props, melodramatic acting, and missed cues, this Olivier Award-winning play-within-a-play ropes you in as soon as you take your seat. Cast members dash on and off the stage confronting audience members, criticizing their dress, fiddling with props that won't work.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Midsummer Night's Dream, A
Marie Selby Botanical Garden - Outdoors

To thematically unite the four plots of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, director Jonathan Epstein has chosen change. FSU/Asolo Conservatory itself changes its venue to a beautiful outdoor setting with an inlet of water and isle of forest in back of a four-columned square of an inner stage. An expanse of grass between a tree with a bower on one side and bunches of bushes on the other complete the playing area, well lit by moonlight and all sorts of man-made lighting, including neon colors on costumes, even gloves.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Bloomsday
Next Act Theater

There’s nothing more compelling – or painful – to watch than an unrequited romance. Most of us can recall “the one who got away,” and perhaps even keeps you wondering, “what if?” In Bloomsday, by Steven Dietz, one of these romances plays out in a charming and touching way.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Beyond Caring
Water Works

If you think scrubbing out your own bathroom and kitchen is a chore, imagine applying your janitoral skills to the residue of a meat-processing plant. Would you rather be paid less than $50 a day for picking up spilled ramen noodles from the floor of the staff break-room with bare hands, or for swabbing disinfectant on bloody machines littered with scraps of raw animal flesh?

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Mother of Smoke
Pride Arts Broadway

When confronted with a multiplicity of sensory stimuli, human beings tend to perceive motion first, then sound and, after that, sight. Further down the list comes verbal recognition and later, literary comprehension. Since most of this "collage" created by the Red Tape and Walkabout Theater companies presents these elements to its audience simultaneously, playgoers are advised to consult their syllabus, uh, playbill notes before the performance of Mother of Smoke commences.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Rich Girl
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz Theater

Henry James started all this with his short novel, “Washington Square.” Ruth and Augustus Goetz make it into a hit play, The Heiress, which was made into a hit movie. It’s back onstage, updated a century, with a similar heroine, a Rich Girl who’s very inhibited and not very attractive. This time it’s her mother (not father) who’s cowed her. Except for the mother’s well made-up looks, she’s not attractive either. Neither is Victoria Stewart’s overlong and under-absorbing melodrama.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

No ordinary production, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity takes place in an arena surrounded by audience. They’re in turn surrounded by giant moving projections of what happens on center stage, a metaphoric boxing ring that, also in turn, becomes an actual one. With lights flashing and rap and hip-hop blaring throughout actors’ and audience spaces, the show offers a central monologue together with environmental and interactive theater. To what purpose?

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Tao Marayao
La MaMa ETC

Tao Marayao (The Good Person) is a dance/movement piece about the Samal Balangingi, a maritime tribe from an island in the Southern Philippines. It’s part myth, part cultural history, presented through traditional Samal dance and narrative movement. Its story concerns the Spanish Conquest, from the arrival of the conquistadors to a sort of Samal diaspora in America.

Tao Marayao is presented by La MaMa, in association with Kinding Sindaw, an organization with the mission of preserving indigenous Philippine culture.

Steve Capra
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Dreamgirls
Hobby Center

When I first saw the musical, Dreamgirls, back in 1982, the Broadway blockbuster was at the beginning of what would become a four-year run on The Great White Way. With the often-thrilling music of Henry Krieger, complemented by Tom Eyen’s story-telling skill for the book & lyrics, all that was needed was a stellar group of fine actors with powerful voices. That latter requirement was nicely filled with a talented original cast headed up by legendary vocal powerhouse, Jennifer Holliday.

David Dow Bentley
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Sweat
Studio 54 Theater

Painfully in-the-moment, playwright Lynn Nottage's new play, Sweat, at Studio 54, takes a sharp scalpel to a working-class town in Berk County, Pennsylvania during the slippery slope of their American Dream and job security. With authority and a solid nine-person ensemble, Nottage finely crafts the disintegration of opportunities, friendships, and families swept up in whirlpools of disappointment and a cycle of drugs, violence and poverty.

The Public Theater presented Sweat off-Broadway in November, shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Price, The
American Airlines Theater

Decisions, dissembling, consequences and family — this is the meat in Arthur Miller plays. Directed by Terry Kinney, the Roundabout production of The Price has a universality as distinct in the 21st century as it was in 1968 and features a stunning cast of Mark Ruffalo, Tony Shalhoub, Jessica Hecht, and Danny DeVito.

The play is set in the dusty attic of a brownstone about to be torn down.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Elevator
The Coast Playhouse

Everybody’s nightmare — being trapped in an elevator with a bunch of strangers — comes true in Michael Leoni’s hilarious play, Elevator, which has returned to L.A. after successful productions elsewhere in the USA.

Sartre said hell is other people, and that’s borne out when the breakdown first occurs and a loud-mouthed, arrogant businessman (David Abed) tries to take command of the situation by insulting and bullying the other victims, all of whom he considers his inferiors.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Significant Other
Booth Theater

Every now and then an actor appears onstage, and you immediately know he’s got it all- talent, looks, presence. Gideon Glick is the whole package. As Jordan Berman, he takes what could be a cloying, rather annoying almost-30-year-old, and makes him sympathetic and real, with an Eddie Redmayne quality. Jordan, a gay man, is lamenting the fact that all his best friends are getting married, one by one. They’re all women finding the men with whom they want to spend their lives, and Jordan’s one real crush is not available or interested.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Profane, The
Playwrights Horizons - Peter Jay Sharp Theater

On the one hand, this is a play about the question of who is, or isn’t American, and equally who is, or isn’t Muslim. On the other, it’s about the worst Thanksgiving ever, and the ordeal of meeting the in laws for the first time.

In The Profane, Emina (Tala Ashe) brings home her boyfriend, Sam (Babak Tafti) to meet her family. The scariest for him to face is Raif (Ali Reza Farahnakian), family patriarch. He’s having his own problems as a famous writer who no longer feels inspired by the muse. He’s liberal, non-sectarian, and a devoted New Yorker.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Circle Mirror Transformation
Alchemist Theater

Years before playwright Annie Baker won the Pulitzer Prize for her play, The Flick, she wrote Circle Mirror Transformation. In it, a group of adults (and one teenager) come together for a six-week community acting class. The leader expresses her enthusiasm about persuading the non-profit organization (where her husband works) to fund this class. Her husband, James (Joe Krapf) has signed on as one of the students. The play’s title, Circle Mirror Transformation, gives a hint regarding what the would-be actors discover about themselves.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2017
Encounter, The
Wallis - Bram Goldsmith Theater

This is the second time I’ve seen Simon McBurney’s The Encounter,> his epic solo play about a man fighting for survival in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. My first exposure was three years ago at the Edinburgh International Festival. Now writer/director/performer McBurney has brought his immersive, high-tech production to The Wallis in a West Coast premiere.

McBurney, artistic director of the London-based theater collective, Complicite, was previously seen in L.A. in Shun-Kin (2013), Strange Poetry (2014), and The Noise of Time (2002).

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2017

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