Four Places
The Den

We start out anticipating a comedy: our setting in the first scene of Four Places, after all, is a car—that most quintessential of middle-class suburban transports—occupied by cantankerous elderly matron Peggy, her sullen grown son Warren and her sad-faced grown daughter Ellen.

Their destination is a weekly luncheon, designed to give Mom some time away from caring for the family's disabled dad.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
June 2019
Clearly Invisible: Magic Up-Close with Carl Seiger
Florida Studio Theater - Court Cabaret

Carl Seiger holds his audience in and with his sleight-of-hand via illusions, magic tricks, humor, and storytelling. He also brings his audience into most of his acts with grace and good reasons, not as a cheap way to amuse. No wonder he’s been brought back to Florida Studio Theater after being one of its entertainments in its first cabaret.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2014
Dixie's Tupperware Party
Geffen Playhouse

Like most men, I’ve never been to a Tupperware Party. After seeing Dixie’s Tupperware Party, nothing will ever change in that regard. That’s not to say, though, that I didn’t enjoy Kris Andersson’s send-up of that venerable American institution (which just celebrated its 65th anniversary).

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2014
Fuerza Bruta: Wayra
Daryl Roth Theater

Fuerza Bruta: Wayra is the best spectacle/experience in town — maybe in the world. You stand for eighty minutes, and the show takes place over you. Figures fly, gymnastics, romance, swimming, music by Gaby Kerpel, all directed by Diqui James. The music has the rhythmic beat I have heard all over world in all societies and countries, from African tribes to Australian Aborigines, to Scotland — dum dada dum dum, dada dada dum dum; dum dada dum dum, dada dada dum. Our bodies move to its rhythm as the breathtaking action goes on over us.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2014
Just Jim Dale
Steinberg Center - Laura Pels Theater

The amazing Jim Dale has written and performs in his one-man, autobiographical English Musical Hall show, Just Jim Daleat the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theater. As he recounts his show-business life story as a singer, dancer, comedian, actor, impressionist and mime, Dale illustrates with numbers from his Broadway and other shows. He has a vivid physical agility that is very rare today, especially for a man nearing his 79th birthday.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2014
Three Irish Widows vs. The Rest of the World, The
Ryan's Daughter Pub

The Three Irish Widows vs. the Rest of the World, written and nimbly directed by Ed Malone, stars the agile, versatile Fergal Titley. He plays the three women and others in an Irish town and snaps from character to character physically, vocally, emotionally, in a bravura performance.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2014
Village Bike, The
Lucille Lortel Theater

Beautiful, sensuous Greta Gerwig shines in The Village Bikeby Penelope Skinner, directed by Sam Gold, as she turns on everyone in the theater except her non-functioning husband (Jason Butler Harner). It’s a play with very contemporary sexual relationships, including the free use of pornography for a frustrated pregnant woman. I suspect the title relates to a very old negative quip referring to a woman as “The Village Pump,” but we’re with her all the way in this one as she relates to the man she bought her bike from (Max Baker) and the plumber (Scott Shepherd).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2014
Curse of Oedipus, The
Antaeus Theater

First produced at the Williamstown Theater Festival in a two-evening version entitled “The Legend of Oedipus” and then workshopped in an abbreviated version at the Getty Villa in L.A., The Curse of Oedipushas now been sculpted into a 2 1/2-hour-long performance piece by the Antaeus Company.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Gimplecapped: A Journey of "Inspiration"
Theater Asylum

One of the surprise hits of the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival, Gimplecapped showcases the work of an ensemble of handicapped actors who refuse to be defeated by their infirmities. Not only that, they’re not afraid to laugh at themselves in a series of scripted sketches (and songs) that brim over with cheeky, irreverent humor.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Penny Arcade: Longing Lasts Longer
Joe's Pub

Anybody who has ever seen Penny Arcade perform, be it in one of her own wildly unconventional extravaganzas or in a traditional play, which she has lately begun to explore, knows full well that she is a riveting force of nature, one that compels us, not only to hang onto her every word and action, but to examine the trajectory of both society and our own lives. Arcade is a kind of Everywoman, one who, no matter how personal or outlandish her truth-telling, lays it on the line.

Edward Rubin
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Becoming Dr. Ruth
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

Inviting us into the living room of the New York City apartment she’s vacating after her third husband’s death, Dr. Ruth Westheimer revels in the chance to tell her life story onstage. Only a few intermittent calls make her pause as she recalls her past, starting with losing her German family and home as the Kindertransport sends her to a hard childhood in a Swiss orphanage. Only at the end of her tale to date will a conclusion come to her sad wondering about those closest to her whom she left behind.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Much Ado About Nothing
Delacorte Theater

Before us we see a villa; the green doors, striped awning, and balcony set the scene in Italy, more specifically, Messina. Filling out the stage are a high wall, covered in ivy; an orange tree; a fountain; and a garden, in full flower. Two women enter, sit down, and begin to chat while the outdoor Delacorte audience mills about. Soon the stage is alive with other characters, all speaking Italian; music actually makes the wall move. By the costumes, we can guess that the time is the late 1800’s.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Price, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

Early fall, 1968, an attic of a decaying NYC brownstone about to succumb to wrecking ball and loaded with dusty, once elegant furnishings, with its fourth wall removed, is the setting for a dramatic experience of classic modern realism.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Grease
Paper Mill Playhouse

Over in New Jersey, it’s still raining on Prom-Night, although the Greasers are not so Greasy. Still, thanks to the Paper Mill Playhouse’s program of musical revivals, it is now possible to open the closet and take a peek into the past. The theater’s recent revival of Oliver! gave its 21,000-Subscribers some time travel back to Dickensian London. Now, the high-powered current revival of Grease gives a Frankensteinian electric jolt to a vision of American high school days that oldsters may have thought were gone forever.

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Phantom of the Opera, The
Majestic Theater

On May 12, 2014, Norm Lewis made theater history by becoming became the first African-American performer to play the title role in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. Sierra Boggess returned to Christine, the role that has won her acclaim in the London and Broadway 25th Anniversaries.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
All the Way
Neil Simon Theater

Ah, American politics. A federal government so dysfunctional a single issue such as health care can cause a stalemate, a shutdown and an ideological war. A bureaucracy divided by battle lines so sharp they draw nightly geysers of blood from Fox News and MSNBC. Was it always thus? Judging by some of our most talented playwrights, among them Pulitzer-winner Robert Schenkkan, whose new drama, All the Way, runs through June 29 at Broadway’s Neil Simon Theater,  the answer is an emphatic, bitter but not fully disillusioned “yes.”

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Women
Theater Asylum

Working from a smart, snappy script by Chiara Atik, a nine-person ensemble cast turns Women into a comic romp that is packing ‘em in at the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Shakespeare's Ten Epic Plays at a Breakneck Pace
Venice Theater's Pinkerton

What’s it like for one man to sub for a large troupe from Togo? When visa problems kept the Togo company away from the AACT World Fest 2014 in Florida, Tim Mooney stepped from an exhibit of his adaptations of Moliere and Shakespeare’s works and his other books onto Venice Theater’s second, intimate stage. With barely a bead of sweat, he works his way quickly and notably through the history of England’s kings from John to Henry VIII in actuality and via Shakespeare’s relevant plays.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Holler if Ya Hear Me
Palace Theater

The hip-hop show Holler if Ya Hear Me, book by Todd Kreidler, lyrics by Tupak Shakur, directed by Kenny Leon, choreographed by Wayne Cilento, is basically kvetching about the problems of being black and the desperation of being trapped in the conflicts of the neighborhood, all performed in rhymed slang verse. Saul Williams plays the ultimately self-destructive protagonist, and he is a vivid performer.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Last Confession, The
Ahmanson Theater

Poirot to the rescue.

Well, not quite. This time around, David Suchet, now in the guise of an enlightened Vatican cardinal, tries but fails to solve the suspicious death of a newly elected pope, John Paul I (Richard O’Callaghan). In Roger Crane’s The Last Confession, Suchet plays a man of the cloth, Giovanni Benelli, who feels guilty for having failed to stand up for the liberal John Paul I when he was under attack by reactionaries in the Vatican.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Noises Off
Contemporary Theater of Dallas

Noises Off,now playing at Contemporary Theater of Dallas, is British playwright Michael Frayn's funniest play. Originally produced in England in 1982, it is a play-within-a-play that involves a second-rate theatrical troupe producing the play, “Nothing On.”

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Clown Bar
The Box

Clown Bar, a production of the Pipeline Theater Company at The Box on Chrystie Street, is a kind of vaudeville show/Halloween party by Adam Szymkowicz, with music and additional lyrics by Adam Overlett. Directed by Andrew Neisler, the show creates a kind of Clown Mystique which, real or imaginary, is quite entertaining. The cast is red-nosed, white-faced and loud, and they give you a red nose to wear as you enter.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Dixie Swim Club, The
The Players - Mainstage

“The faster we swim, the sooner we win” proclaim former collegiate women’s swimming champs. They’re still in a close social swim with each other, meeting every few decades from 1980 to the present in a rented beach house. But each has a distinctly different personality and leads a different life.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Country House, The
Geffen Playhouse

The skillful and successful playwright Donald Margulies returns to the Geffen Playhouse for the sixth time with his latest work, The Country House. Commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club, which will mount the play on Broadway this fall, The Country House is a bittersweet take on a theatrical family headed by Anna Patterson (Blythe Danner), a once-famous stage actress whose career was impacted by the sudden death of her 41-year old daughter, Kathy. Grief-stricken, Anna was unable to work for a year.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Pump Boys and Dinettes
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

As originally conceived, Pump Boys and Dinettes is a satirical mini-musical with a semblance of a plot. In its latest Florida Studio Theater production, though, it pretty much emulates the cabaret revues for which FST has become famous. And audiences eat it up as with the pie and coffee served at intermission.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Shakespeare in Hollywood
Irving Theater - Mainstage

Irving Community Theater (aka Mainstage Irving) mounted a frenetic production of Shakespeare in Hollywood, but with a Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo, Crazy For You)play, what other kind of production could there be? The farce, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, had its world premiere in 2003 at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. and won the Helen Hayes Award as Best New Play of the Year.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Baritones Unbound: Celebrating the Uncommon Voice of the Common Man
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

If you go thinking Baritones Unbound will imitate a famous tenors trio in a different key, are you in for a surprise! When Mark Delavan, highest toned of them, promises you “Some Enchanted Evening,” it means magic is ahead. With lowest-down baritone Jeff Mattsey, as well as Marc Kudisch, who musically gives a new meaning to sliding, the three produce a classy lead-up to ever-popular music in their classically American register. When it’s followed by a plea not just for revival but rescue, you’ll want to bind yourself to their cause.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
Death of the Author
Geffen Playhouse

You wouldn’t think a play about such arcane subjects as plagiarism and postmodern literature would be of much interest to non-academics, but Steven Drukman’s Death of the Author proves that theory wrong Although the play does get bogged down at times in a repetitive argument about the worth of certain contemporary literary disciplines, there is enough satire and humanity in it to satisfy a general audience. Also, a first-rate cast led by Orson Bean as a Falstaffian professor keeps breathing warm life into what could have been a long, chilly evening.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2014
BenDeLaCreme: Terminally Delightful
Laurie Beechman Theater

The wonderfully intimate, 80-seat, Laurie Beecham Theater, situated across from Theater Row and a few blocks west of Broadway is one of my favorite theatrical venues. It’s located on the lower level at the West Bank Café, itself one of my favorite Pre and Post-theater drink-and-dinner haunts (their drinks are divine, and the menu’s addictive black linguini with shrimp, tomato, and sweet garlic, served at the both restaurant and theater, is to die for).

Edward Rubin
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
Gruesome Playground Injuries
Theatre/Theater

Rogue Machine kicks off its seventh season with a superb production of Rajiv (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries.This two-hander, beautifully acted by Brad Fleischer and Jules Willcox, tells the story of Doug and Kayleen, self-professed “retardos” who first connect when they are eight and stay connected until they are thirty-eight, sometimes physically, always psychically.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

Plot? See title: I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. Vivacious Antoinette LaVecchia finds Giulia Melucci’s recollections of the men she loved and lost (probably for the better) present no barrier to trying again. Still, just as she embarked in the past on romances with four different guys, she’s equating making food with dishing out love.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
I Hear America Singing
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

Writing an opera is hard work. Writing a musical is also hard work. When you try to combine the two, it can result in something beautiful or become a train wreck. Unfortunately, the latter is mainly the case in the world premiere of Daron Hagen’s I Hear America Singing,at Milwaukee’s Skylight Music Theater.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
Equally Divided
Bath House Cultural Center

Equally Divided by Ronald Harwood, presented by One Thirty productions, is one of the funniest and most well-done productions on a Dallas stage this season. Set in the British coastal town of Bournemouth in the antique-filled living room of Edith Taylor (Gene Raye Price) and her late mother, the play relates a story of classic sibling rivalry.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
Hair
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

Almost 50 years ago, Hair rocked the country with its brazen (and, as some would say at the time, un-American) view of war, drugs, sex and the U.S. government. It wasn’t the first rock musical, but it’s the one that has stayed with us over time. Even those who never bought a ticket to Hairprobably can recall lyrics from some of its songs: “Aquarius,” “Easy to Be Hard,” “Let the Sun Shine In,” and, of course, the title song.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
Act One
Vivian Beaumont Theater

Act One, the 1959 jam-packed memoir of Moss Hart, is the bible of many theater lovers. A beloved book, however, does not necessarily translate into riveting theater. Through his passion for the stage, Hart moves from his impoverished Bronx childhood up to playwright heaven with hits on Broadway like The Man Who Came to Dinner,co-written with George S. Kaufman. A stage-struck kid of any age can relate to this rags-to-riches tale.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
Mary Poppins
Westchester Broadway Theater

The Westchester Broadway Theater is the longest running, year-round Equity theater in the history of New York State. On July 9, 2014, the theater will celebrate its 40th anniversary. The very first musical was Kiss Me Kate;183 main-stage productions followed. The theater has become a cultural mainstay of Westchester County.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
City of Conversation, The
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

In its debut at Lincoln Center Theater, Anthony Giardina's The City of Conversation proves that harrowing and funny tete-a-tetes make for powerful political drama. The center of this compelling play is not the politician himself but his magnetic mistress, Hester Ferris, a sharp, liberal Washington DC hostess played by Jan Maxwell (Follies),who knows all the movers and shakers in the Nation's Capital.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
different words for the same thing
Kirk Douglas Theater

A kind of 21st-century Our Town, Kimber Lee’s different words for the same thing[sic] looks at a cross-section of the town of Nampa, Idaho, where green Jello is considered a specialty dessert and the First Church of Nazarene rules the roost.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
Hero: The Musical
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Hero Batowski has to succeed as a unique comic artist by drawing his own experiences in his own style rather than imitating others’ superhero creations. He also needs to get over paralyzing feelings over the death of his mom, loss of his high-school girl,and supplying help he thinks his father needs to sustain his comics store. In Hero: The Musical, the titular character faces his problems accompanied by best pal Kirk and to a nice pop-rock score.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2014
Irma La Douce
City Center

Quel dommage! Even with John Lee Beatty's decorative French bar set and catchy tunes by Marguerite Monnot, this revival of Irma La Doucenever revives. Encores!' final production of the season fails to deliver the excitement of the original Broadway production in 1960 that ran more than 500 performances. (While there was also a film version starring Shirley MacLaine, all the music was cut, so enough about that.)

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2014

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