Archives for: "May 2011"

Reviews: Knickerbocker & Cradle and All

Two new Off-Broadway comedies demonstrate that the current crop of playwrights is clearly grappling with parenthood issues. Both Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Knickerbocker and Daniel Goldfarb’s Cradle and All deal with impending, possible and actual child-rea… more »

Review: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

Lynn Nottage’s new comedy couldn’t be more different from her last effort, the Pulitzer Prize winning, Rwanda-set Ruined. A satirical portrait of the subservient roles assigned to black performers in 1930s Hollywood--and decades afterwards, for that matt… more »

Review: A Minister's Wife

A little show called My Fair Lady provides ample demonstration that the works of George Bernard Shaw are certainly ripe for musical treatment. But the latest attempt, A Minister’s Wife, illustrates the pitfalls as well. This chamber musical adaptation of… more »

Review: King Lear

Most actors play King Lear as an imperial monarch, the better to contrast with the character’s subsequent descent into madness. But in the new production of the play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, veteran British actor Derek Jacobi (of I, Claudius fam… more »

Review: Julia

That life doesn’t always offer the opportunity to neatly right past wrongs is a promising theme for a drama. Too bad, then, that Julia squanders it.       The central character is Lou, a clearly ill man in his seventies who wanders into a rundown coffe… more »

Review: The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

If the title of Tony Kushner’s new play premiere puts you off, wait until you actually sit through it. The overlong and overstuffed The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures is typically Kushnerian in its… more »

Review: The School for Lies

Playwright David Ives has clearly had a ball adapting Moliere for his screwball verse comedy The School for Lies, and his enjoyment is infectious. Retaining the basic characters, situations and 17th century setting of The Misanthrope, this comedy being p… more »