Exit the King, Chasing Manet and 33 Variations

Eugene Ionesco died in 1994, and left us the progeny of his Theatre of the Absurd in which he was a pioneer. He wrote some 28 plays, and is best remembered for The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, The Chairs and Rhinoceros. His ode to dying, Exit the King, played 47 performances on Broadway Read more

Cruising with Chita, Early to Bed and Happiness

Two days after debarking from Celebrity Cruise’s SS Solstice in Ft. Lauderdale and flying back to NYC, I came down with the worst cold of my life and here I am, nine days later, still coughing and wheezing to beat the band. Read more

Hedda Gabler, This Beautiful City, Music in the Air

Mary Louise Parker is one of those luminous ladies who will have allure on a stage as long as she agrees to set foot on one. Movie cameras are not so friendly, and the radiant Ms. Parker has thus far graced many more small screens than large ones. Embroiled for the past few seasons in the crazy plot maneuverings of Weeds on Showtime, she must have reached out to Ibsen’s Hedda for an opportunity to explore a very different kind of woman. But has she given us Ibsen’s frustrated, misplaced, sexually repressed Hedda Tesman, Read more

Billy Elliot, August: Osage County, The Third Story

Billy Elliot, August: Osage County and The Third Story
by Richard Seff

Here we are into February and I’m just catching up on two of last year’s big winners. I’d seen Billy Elliot in London last April, but saved the New York production until it properly settled in for its long run on Broadway. I caught up with it at the Actors’ Fund Benefit on January 25^th .  It  turned out to be a night and a half for the audience at these benefits (which is played for free by all the Broadway casts that run long enough) because each is always alive and ready to enjoy itself. As a result, my night at the Imperial Theatre had 6 show-stopping moments in it, all deserved, and it was wildly exciting to experience. Read more

Shrek’s Brian d’Arcy James

Brian d’Arcy James Talks with Richard Seff
Recorded by Joel Markowitz

Sixteen years ago Richard Seff met Brian d’Arcy James when the two performed in Lend Me AaTenor at the Players Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. A bond was formed, and Richard has watched Brian grow from the Bellboy in Tenor to Shrek The Ogre in Shrek The Musical, now in its Broadway run. Read more

The American Plan and Leaves of Glass

The American Plan and Leaves of Glass
by Richard Seff

Lynne Meadow and her Manhattan Theatre Club have been extremely loyal to playwright Richard Greenberg, mounting play after play of his, regardless of their merit. No question, Greenberg is a fine writer, as witness his Take Me Out and his current adaptation of John O;Hara’s book to Pal Joey, but he’s delivered some clinkers too (The Violet Hour,  The House in Town). His comedy A Naked Girl on the Appian Way served to offer roles that stretched Richard Thomas and Jill Clayburgh, but the play itself fell far short of its attempt to offer an incisive look into modern American family life, to promote the author’s theory that we must pursue and protect love wherever we may find it. Read more

Speed-the-Plow, Any Day Now

Speed-the-Plow, Any Day Now
by Richard Seff

David Mamet speeds words at you as though they were coming straight from the mouth of an automatic rifle. I’ve never acted in one of his plays but even in my salad days I think I’d have been terrified to try. For it’s boom bang bing; it’s all manic music. You must play the piece with only your body and voice as instruments, and there are no notes on a music stand. You’re not on your own. No, you’re in it together, you and your fellow players, for the speed and energy must be maintained or the effect is diminished, and the simplicity of the plot may be revealed, which would not be good.

So it is that I was curious to see if Norbert Leo Butz could cut it in this revival at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Read more

Pal Joey

by Richard Seff

One of the more quoted critical quotes of the last century is Brooks Atkinson’s conclusion to his review of the original production the Rogers-Hart-O’Hara collaboration Pal Joey in 1940. The terminal sentence was: “Can you draw sweet water from a foul well?” Well, no, you can’t, but that’s just the point of the startling and effective revival brought to us by Roundabout at Studio 54. The authors never intended a “sweet water” musical. But in 1940 that was all that was allowed. Read more

Yiddish Theatre’s Gimpel Tam and Kids and Yiddish

by Joel Markowitz

In its 94th year, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, is alive and full of energy and ended 2008 with two productions.  It was the last day of Chanukah and Joel Markowitz made sure to see them both on his recent swing through NYC.  Here he interviews actor Adam Shapiro from the critically acclaimed Gimpel Tam, and  artistic director Zalmen Mlotek and his daughter Sarah from the children’s production of Kids and Yiddish. Read more

Shrek, Cripple of Inishmaan

Shrek, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and a visit to the Players Club

by Richard Seff Read more

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