All in Critic's Pick
Two new plays opened Off-Broadway last week that are “teaching plays” meant to instruct the audience and broaden horizons on subject matter otherwise unknown or unexplored by most. Here’s a look at “India Pale Ale” at MTC and Critic’s Pick “Plot Points in Our Sexual Development” at LCT3.
Keen Company’s revival of Adam Gwon’s delightful chamber musical “Ordinary Days” cleanses the soul, lifts the spirit, and reminds you what you love about New York. All four performers in this almost entirely sung show are outstanding as they tell a simple, beautiful, and original story about how small acts and interactions can change lives. This sweet and quietly extraordinary musical is a must-see.
“Midnight at the Never Get” is a cabaret concert mediation on impossible love, revolution, music, and memory; easily the best new musical I have seen this season so far, Sam Bolen gives a knockout performance as a gay cabaret singer recalling his romance in the smoky backroom haze of New York’s 1960s underground nightclub scene. This gorgeous show is not to be missed.
Jocelyn Bioh’s brilliant play “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play” is back at the Lucille Lortel Theatre for an encore engagement by MCC Theater; every bit as funny and devastating as it was when I saw it last fall, the play seems to pop and sizzle even more on a second viewing. Check out my review and get tickets now.
Director Daniel Fish delivers a glorious and terrifying production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s groundbreaking 1943 musical “Oklahoma!” at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, completely deconstructing this canonical and totemic masterpiece of American musical theatre by stripping it of its corn and highlighting the darker themes of violence and injustice that have always been simmering underneath. Sexually charged and presented with a striking naturalism, this masterful new production is a revelation.
Part civics lesson, part memoir—at once bittersweet and beautiful— Heidi Schreck’s mostly one-woman play “What the Constitution Means to Me” at New York Theatre Workshop recounts her formative experience of wrestling with the constitution’s meaning as a teenager through the lens of her adult self, the women in her family, and the bitterly divided nation it serves. Heartbreaking, humorous, brilliant, and profoundly important, this is a must-see event of the fall season.
Manhattan Theatre Club presents Richard Bean’s hilarious new comedy, “The Nap”, a high-stakes, low-rent farce set in the world of Snooker (British pool). A superbly comical, poised, and perfectly cast ensemble of kooky characters make this off-beat crime thriller comedy the kind of delightfully droll escape that only theatre can provide. Silly, yes, but that’s never been more needed than right now.
In “Private Peaceful”, Irish actor Shane O’Regan makes a smashing New York debut playing 24 characters in a one-man World War I story. A dispatch from the trenches of war told from the perspective of a young solider, this simple but arresting play is a haunting reminder of the savage cost of war and the terrific sacrifices made for democracy by those who came before us. I recommend you catch this crisp and brilliant production before it goes on tour.
Jen Silverman’s “Collective Rage: A Play In 5 Betties” at MCC Theater is a blazingly brilliant and uproariously funny new comedy that serves up a giant entrée of pure feminist, queer, intersectional theatre. Smart direction and design, and a stellar cast, make this fresh, original, and urgently-now play a must see of the fall season.
“THE AЯTS” at La MaMa is a stirring world-premiere collage-like piece of multimedia docu-drama recounting the contentious history and debate over public funding for the arts and humanities in the United States. Rousing, informative, and depressing, this is an important piece of argumentative, documentary theatre for these weary times.
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbeine’s “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish” breathes fresh life into a treasured property from the golden age of musical comedy, forcing audiences to interact anew with what is now one of the most well-known and performed musicals of all time, and providing, in return, a host of vital performances and resonant insights. It is, in short, a revelation. See it, or regret it.
The Public Theater presents a free, Public Works musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” in Central Park. Featuring songs by Shaina Taub and a cast in excess of 75 professional and amateur performers of all ages, races, sizes, and abilities, this “radically inclusive” production is magical, festive, and highly accessible. Infectiously energetic and buoyantly spirited, do not miss this jubilant new musical.
