Leo (Daveed Diggs) makes an outrageous request of his best friend Ralph (Thomas Sadoski) in Suzan-Lori Parks’ bizarre, disturbing and in some ways brilliant new play, White Noise, at the Public Theater. Leo wants to become Ralph’s slave. His tight circle of friends at first thinks Leo is joking. He’s not. Then the three of […]
Archives for March 20, 2019
Review: Dinner with Friends at Everyman Theatre
If breakups were only confined to the couple in question, life would be easier. Throw friends, children, potential new partners into the mix and it really takes a village to visit Splitsville with the inevitable detour into Crazy Town. Playwright Donald Margulies won the Pulitzer in 2000 for Dinner with Friends, his rueful and sad-funny […]
Fallen Angels review. NextStop rises to the occasion
Pre-dinner martinis turn into two bottles of champagne, which turn into nightcaps of Benedictine. The alcohol just keeps flowing during Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels, and things get more and more amusing as the play gets looser and zanier. It doesn’t hurt that Elizabeth Anne Jernigan and particularly, Teresa Spencer, are pretty great at playing tipsy. […]
Review: The Jewish Queen Lear, world premiere of Yiddish theatre classic
Yiddish theatre in New York around the turn of the century was vibrant: in the small Bowery theaters, Jews of all nationalities and branches of Judaism came to watch shows full of emotion and sorrow, joy and exuberance, all in the tongue common to European Jews: Yiddish. Theater J, with the first full production of […]
Review: The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963
I had a wonderful time at The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, a Theater for Young Audience’s world premiere Kennedy Center commission, on stage at the Center’s Eisenhower Theater through March 24th. The piece is moving, delightfully performed, and stingingly relevant. The Watsons of the title are an African-American family who live in Flint, […]