All in Play
Roundabout Theatre Company presents a sterling revival and Broadway debut of Charles Fuller’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Soldier’s Play”, a thrilling and tautly constructed military murder mystery set among the segregated barracks of an Army base in 1944 Central Louisiana. Kenny Leon directs a terrific ensemble, led by David Alan Grier and Blair Underwood, in one of the best productions Roundabout has presented in recent memory.
Laura Linney stars in an unnecessary and poorly adapted stage version of Elizabeth Stout’s acclaimed 2016 novel, “My Name is Lucy Barton”. Despite a grounded and forthright performance from one of the greatest actors of her generation, the play never satisfactorily justifies its existence.
Richard Jones directs a new adaptation of Ödön von Horváth’s 1937 noirish procedural “Judgment Day” by playwright Christopher Shinn, performed in the Park Avenue Armory’s drill hall on a grand scale. The experience is mesmerizing and effective, even if not essential to the text.
Playwright Matthew Lopez’s “The Inheritance” is a an epic, novelistic, and enjoyably consumed two-part, six act, six and half hour long play that is a loose adaptation of E. M. Forster’s “Howards End” set among a contemporary group of gay men living in New York contending with the legacy of AIDS and what it means to be gay today. Flaws are overcome by the strength of the staging, and the play is humorous, heartbreaking, and deeply memorable. A must see.
Here I take a look at “The Michaels” and “Dr. Ride’s American Beach House”, two Off-Broadway plays of very different substance that trade in the same, refreshing approach of eschewing bombast and declaration for delicacy and introspection.
Here I give an overview of a trilogy of “the” plays that opened on Broadway over the past month: “The Great Society”, “The Height of the Storm” at Manhattan Theatre Club, and “The Rose Tattoo” at the Roundabout Theatre Company.
Following a sold-out run downtown, Jeremy O. Harris’ “Slave Play” is now on Broadway. At once hysterical and alarming, this trenchant satire of white fragility, identity politics, racism, psychotherapy, and a certain brand of its crunchy practitioners is a conversation piece to top them all. Thoughtfully written, constructed, and executed; thought-provoking, relevant, and a herald of what can be, “Slave Play” is a must-see of the season.
In “jazz singer” a group of artists grapple with making a piece of theatre about the film “The Jazz Singer” by examining its roots in Jewish mythology, wrestling with its use of blackface, exploring vital themes of assimilation, appropriation, and atonement, and questioning its legacy. While the piece substantively evinces the feel of a work still in progress, the production design is impeccable and unimpeachable, and its mission is achieved.
Wives”, Jaclyn Backhaus’ smartly satiric and forthrightly feminist play, deconstructs the way in which women are “supposed” to behave, think, and feel about each other, and retells three historical episodes typically told through the male gaze, but this time from the perspective of the “wives”. The result is hilarious and poignant.
Jack Thorne’s listless, shapeless, and dreadful new play “Sunday” centers on a book group of Gen Z-ers grappling with ennui; yes, it is as painful as that sounds. Mr. Thorne doesn’t have much to say for this unconvincingly invented milieu, other than to wallow in the imagined ennui and dullness of a supposedly disillusioned generation to which he does not belong.
The Gingold Theatrical Group is currently presenting a rare revival of Shaw’s 1898 play “Caesar & Cleopatra”; superbly rendered, well-acted, and keenly directed, this production makes a convincing case for reconsidering “Caesar & Cleopatra” as a play worthy of more examination and rightful placement in the canon of classics.
Tom Hiddleston’s magnetic and gripping performance is the reason to see this otherwise pretentiously unadorned and wholly unremarkable production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal”—the third major revival on Broadway in just 19 years. The text is gold but this muted and non-contextual production does not do it justice.
