TIMES SQUARE
If you've been to Times Square at least once in your lifetime, you know how crowded with tourists it is. And I guess it's supposed to be filled with tourists, because it's a place everyone wants to see at least once in their lifetime, then they probably never go back there, which makes it a once in a lifetime experience for many. Before I moved to New York, I saw it once, and never went back there until 7 years later when I got a job near it. And now I see it almost every day of the week because ...
BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON
Fair warning: "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" isn't your typical stage bio. In fact, with its macho, beefcake lead, rockin' score, and broad, burlesque-y style, it's anything but. It is, however, lots of fun. Benjamin Walker plays Jackson--the seventh President of the United States--as a strutting, hip-swinging statesman, a real cock-of-the-walk. (If Elvis ever went to Washington, this is what he would look like.) In broadly funny strokes, his early years are brought to life: first as the son of Injun-hating parents (who are quickly dispatched, in slapstick fashion, early on), then as the young populist who takes ...
Three American Women
Personal Dreams Clash with Family Responsibility and Racial Prejudice in Three American Women: A Trilogy A Taut Trio of One-Acts Presented by Vincent Scott and Lori Marra Beginning July 13 at the June Havoc Theatre In Association with The Midtown International Theatre Festival A hard-charging lawyer from New England struggles with demands made by her Indian heritage while forever fighting the perception that all dark-skinned people with foreign accents are terrorists, a late forty-something African-American woman just wants to go home to the South, but instead gets caught up in what she perceives is racially-based con game at a local garage (a tale ...
IRON MAN II
One of the reasons I preferred "Iron Man I" to "The Dark Knight"--that other superhero blockbuster from 2008--was that it was lighter, brighter, more fun. Sure, the Batman flick was a fine piece of filmmaking, but it was too dark, too complicated, too--well, as the Joker himself might have noted, too SERIOUS. Now, "Iron Man II" has exploded onto our screens, and, in the hands of returning director Jon Favreau, it's still got all the depth of a curbside puddle, all the razzmatazz of the comic book. Unfortunately, it's also got a couple of disappointing villains, some truly cringe-worthy ...
PARENTS’ EVENING
In "Parents' Evening"--the ninety-minute trifle currently premiering at the Flea Theatre--Judy (Julianne Nicholson) and Michael (James Waterston) are a young, upper-middle class couple (she's a lawyer, he's a struggling novelist) gearing up to meet with their ten-year-old daughter Jessica's teacher on parent-teachers night. Well, Michael is gearing up--mentally, anyway--while Judy is anchored to their huge platform bed (the entire play is set in their bedroom) distractedly replying to Michael's comments while poring through a ton of paperwork for an upcoming case. Little Jessica, it seems, has been causing some mischief at school--among other things, she has been passing ...
ENRON
Proving once again that a talented writer can fashion a play out of just about anything, here comes "Enron", British scribe Lucy Prebble's look at the rise and fall of "America's Most Innovative Company" which, in the 1990s, became the poster child for corporate greed and corruption. Stage vet Norbert Leo Butz plays Jeffrey Skilling, the money-hungry, ego-driven mastermind of the billion dollar scheme who, at the beginning of the play, is just a nebbishy Enron accountant but is soon taking over as president and COO. Butz undergoes a remarkable transformation: as the company starts to rake in the ...
INTERVIEW WITH STAND-UP COMIC MATT ALSPAUGH
That laughter you hear from the basement of the Drama Bookshop on Monday nights isn't the ghost of French playwright Moliere chuckling anew over one of his seventeenth-century farces. No, it's coming from the Arthur Seelen Theatre, where every week the shop hosts Late Night Open Mic, a chance for stand-ups, old and new, to try out fresh material. We caught up recently with the show's emcee, Matt Alspaugh--a bookshop staffer (hey, even Clark Kent had a day job) and stand-up comic in his own right--and talked to him about acting, comedy, stage fright, and how important it ...
SHUTTER ISLAND
In Martin Scorcese's latest, "Shutter Island", Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, a federal agent sent to an offshore asylum to investigate the disappearance of an inmate, a young woman who was put away after drowning her three young children. Before you can say, "Don't visit Ward C!"--which happens to be where the dank facility's most dangerous criminals are housed--DiCaprio's character is not only wandering around the aforementioned area (in official prison garb, no less), but he's also suffering from flashbacks and hallucinations that are turning him into a sweaty, wild-eyed mess: everything from haunting visions of his wife, ...
THE STRIKING VIKING STORY PIRATES
One floor below the thousands of titles at the world famous Drama Book Shop--in the basement level performance space known as the Arthur Seelen Theatre--the laughter of children can be heard every Saturday afternoon (along with a few whoops and screams) as the shop's resident theatre company, the Striking Viking Story Pirates, takes the stage. The Story Pirates' specialty is turning the stories submitted to them by grade schoolers (some as young as six or seven) into exciting--and funny--performance numbers, complete with lyrics, music, choreography and costumes. A recent show featured a mix of the new and the old, ...
THE MIRACLE WORKER
Now we can add Abigail Breslin and Alison Pill to the list of actresses who have tackled the roles of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, in the 1950s classic, "The Miracle Worker", currently running at the Circle in the Square theatre. The story is a familiar one: born normal, but turned deaf and blind after an early bout of scarlet fever, Helen grows into, quite literally, a "wild child"--uncontrollable, uncommunicative, and, for the most part, unwanted...even by her parents. It is the 1880s, and there aren't a whole lot of things that can be done ...
GOD OF CARNAGE
Michael and Veronica have invited Alan and Annette over for a little chat. It seems their boys have had a bit of an altercation at the playground, and Michael and Veronica want to find out what caused it. That's the wafer-thin plot of French playwright Yasmina Reza's 2009 Tony-winning comedy, "God of Carnage" and, by evening's end, we have indeed witnessed carnage--mostly of the emotional kind. Before their chat is over, tempers explode, accusations are hurled about like poisoned darts, marital bonds are ripped to shreds--and nobody is any the wiser as to WHAT might have happened on ...
Performing arts
Three American WomenPersonal Dreams Clash with Family Responsibility and Racial Prejudice in Three American...
IRON MAN II
One of the reasons I preferred “Iron Man I” to “The Dark Knight”–that...
PARENTS’ EVENING
In “Parents’ Evening”–the ninety-minute trifle currently...
Read more posts from Performing arts