Michael Dale - Page 13

'You take a mackerel, grill it, drizzle a little lemon on it, serve it up with a huge glass of white zinfandel, and one doesn't feel quite like blowing one's brains out anymore, does one?' observes a husband when considering the prospect of another evening's dinner with his wife of nearly twenty-five years.

The brevity of political satire's shelf life tends to rival that of a tray of supermarket eggs, but it seems one of the quips penned by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse for the book of their smash hit 1950 musical Call Me Madam is breathing in new life in the 21st Century.

With a proliferation of pimps, drug dealers and muggers saturating Times Square, business on Broadway was struggling during much of the 1970s, with theatres frequently left empty for long stretches and shows that didn't receive enthusiastic praise from the critics usually shutting down quickly.

'We can't talk about him, there's not enough time.' That's the quick explanation given to the audience as to why there's nobody portraying Michael Anthony, described 'as a bassist with a golden voice and a mullet that will last twenty years' in Amy Staats' fun and frisky comedy about some of the controversies surrounding big-haired metal rockers Van Halen, Eddie and Dave.

"In this business we make movies.  American movies.  Leave the films to the French."

Flying in the face of the dreadful 21st Century practice of making extreme cuts and revisions to classic musicals by deceased authors in the belief that they would offend contemporary sensibilities if presented as originally written, director Bartlett Sher has spent a good part of the last two decades mounting elegant and thoughtful revivals that smooth over potential trouble spots by, believe it or not, doing what directors are assigned to do... interpret and direct.

'Free speech is an acoustic art. It wasn't meant to go electric,' Colin Quinn explains in his very funny riff on contemporary American discourse, RED STATE BLUE STATE.

To those who knew her, Alice Trillin was highly regarded as an educator, author and film producer. But to millions more who never met her, she was the women that her husband, humorist Calvin Trillin, so obviously adored and admired with all of his heart.

'Before I walk in the room, I remember who I am,' explains rising hotshot negotiator Sarah in Helen Banner's new drama. 'I'm American. And I'm a woman, an attractive woman, divorced, successful, ambitious, sometimes on the news, going somewhere, from nowhere...'

During the first year of his presidency, after violence broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia during a protest involving white supremacists, many of whom were displaying Nazi symbols and slogans, Donald Trump infamously noted that there were 'very fine people' on both sides of the conflict. One could imagine the president regarding the character created by Neil LaBute for his solo one-act 'The Fourth Reich' to be one of those very fine people.

One of the great opportunities afforded to playgoers at The Public Theater's annual Under The Radar Festival is the chance to see how theatre companies from other countries address the same issues being tackled by their American counterparts.

"When I was little, my grandmother would sing songs to me that she told me freed slaves," says Pharus Jonathan Young, the central character of Tarell Alvin McCraney's emotionally thick coming-of-age drama, CHOIR BOY.

If the majority of Broadway ticket-buyers valued great acting as much as they valued celebrity, Marin Ireland would have been an above-the-title, name-in-lights star a long time ago.  Certainly New York's reviewing press, as a whole, has been doing its part to advise playgoers of the strength, intelligence and complexity she consistently brings to her contrasting portrayals in works such as THE RUBY SUNRISE, KILL FLOOR and IRONDALE.

At the commencement of MINOR CHARACTER, New Saloon's offering at the Public Theater's 2019 Under The Radar Festival, actor Madeline Wise stands downstage center, faces the audience and, with barely any body movement or facial expressions, begins rattling off the lines of various characters from the opening scene of Anton Chekhov's classic comedy of life's futility, UNCLE VANYA.

Sure, Broadway is traditionally known for its glitz and glamour, but New York audiences have never shied away from socially relevant theatre, either. And while controversial issues are more frequently discussed Off-Broadway, 2018 saw a great many political and social themes brought up throughout Manhattan's stages. So here are ten times New York theatre tackled political and social issues in 2018

Though there's nary a mention of snowfall or jingle bells in THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, the abundance of joy and good clean humor, not to mention some terrific voices, in the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' frothily charming production of G&S's 1879 romantic romp makes it a grand choice for holiday entertainment.

The humorous set-up for the new musical at The York, Christmas in Hell is a bit of an old chestnut, but bookwriter/composer/lyricist Gary Apple makes it sing nicely.

"Raise your hand if you consider yourself to be a trustworthy person." Those of a cynical nature might consider that a hapless request to aim at a New York audience, but sincerity is the key to mentalist Scott Silven's WONDERS AT DUSK, playing at the atmospherically dim Club Car at The McKittrick Hotel. Or at least the illusion of sincerity.

Shortly after midnight, on Christmas Day of 1914, a German soldier whose name is now lost to history committed what might be the most subversive act in all of modern warfare.  He walked, unarmed, out of the front line trenches and into the middle of No Man's Land, faced the enemy British soldiers before him and, in his native tongue, began singing 'Silent Night.'

In a city where hundreds of theatre productions are produced every year before audiences who encourage artists to experiment beyond the norm, it takes a lot for a play in New York to be regarded as unconventional.