All in Play

REVIEW: Hook & Eye’s “She-She-She”

Hook & Eye Theater’s fourth collaborative play “She-She-She” examines the experience and legacy of New Deal-era She-She-She campers and their contemporary descendants, set against a larger dialogue about female agency, grief, trauma, and isolation. While this witty, playful, and heartfelt show has closed, be sure to put Hook & Eye Theater on your radar.

REVIEW: “Paradise Blue”

Dominique Morisseau completes her “Detroit Cycle” with “Paradise Blue”, a tail-end jazz-age noir tale about the cost of history and bigotry through the lens of Detroit’s racist city planning in the late 1940s.  Expertly written in the vein of August Wilson and Tennessee Williams, rivetingly staged by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and finely acted by a terrific ensemble, this play is another triumphant entry by Ms. Morisseau, and a “must see” of the spring season.

REVIEW: “Dance Nation”

“Dance Nation” at Playwrights Horizons is Clare Barron’s explosive and raw look at a ragtag troupe of 11-to-13 year-old competitive dancers as they discover their bodies, their power, and their ambition amid the glorious horror of adolescence.  Both messy and explicit, this hilarious and unsettling new play is refreshingly weird and thrillingly honest, featuring an excellent ensemble cast and perfect direction.  Catch this one if you can.

REVIEWS: The Revivals Cometh – Broadway’s 2017-2018 season ends with “The Iceman Cometh”, “Saint Joan”, and “Travesties”

The 2017-2018 Broadway season comes to a close with three play revivals: an excellent, energetic production of “The Iceman Cometh” with Denzel Washington; a perfunctory and pageant-like production of “Saint Joan” starring Condola Rashad; and an absolutely ravishing London transfer of Tom Stoppard’s brilliant “Travesties”, starring Tom Hollander.

REVIEW: Marin Ireland in “Summer and Smoke”

Marin Ireland gives a ravishing performance in a first-rate revival of Tennessee Williams’ rarely seen “Summer and Smoke”, jointly produced by Classic Stage Company and Transport Group.  This lyrical, low-rent Southern Gothic tragedy is stripped to its bones by director Jack Cummings, III, allowing the actors to shine uninhibited and deliver riveting and magnetic performances.  This play is a highlight of the spring season in New York, and should not be missed.

REVIEW: “Children of a Lesser God”

“Children of a Lesser God” is one play whose sell-by date has definitely passed; even given embers of a still burning debate about deaf culture and identity, this plodding and clinical revival is dull, stale, unremarkable, and problematic in its treatment of a relationship between a deaf student and her teacher.  Despite strong performances by TV’s Joshua Jackson and deaf actor Lauren Ridloff, skip this one.

REVIEW: “This Flat Earth”

“This Flat Earth”, by Lindsey Ferrentino, unintentionally taps into the headlines to explore what happens when a school shooting shatters the world of a 13 year old survivor; while good ideas and questions abound, the play is unfocused and unrealistic, too lightly sketching its characters and lacking a central, cohesive, and convincing point of view.