Michael Dale - Page 26

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.

Without knowing any better, one might easily mistake the new stage adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer-winning 1960 novel 'To Kill A Mockingbird' for a revival of a classic Golden Age Broadway drama. So earnest in tone and full of plainspoken poetics is Aaron Sorkin's thoroughly engaging text. So old-school honest are the performances given by director Bartlett Sher's 24-member cast, beautifully framed in rural elegance designed by Miriam Buether (set), Ann Roth (costumes) and Jennifer Tipton (lights).

The inherent problem with trying to craft a book musical around a score made of previously-existing hit songs is that the lyrics rarely match the character/situation specifics enough to keep the story moving. So film director/screenwriter Amy Heckerling tries finagling around that challenge in the new musical based on her 1995 coming-of-age romantic comedy, CLUELESS.

It was fifteen years ago when over forty million people tuned into the season two finale of 'American Idol' to see Rubin Studdard win the crown over runner-up Clay Aiken.  This reviewer wasn't one of them.  And aside from Aiken's stint on Broadway as a replacement in SPAMALOT, he'll admit to not having paid much attention to the careers of the two vocalists.  But, based on the enjoyable antics now on display at the Imperial titled RUBEN & CLAY'S FIRST ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CAROL FAMILY FUN PAGEANT SPECTACULAR REUNION SHOW, the fellows have definitely found an interested viewer if they ever hosted a television variety show.

The lack of visible doors in our view of the home of the title character of Heather Raffo's drama of an immigrant Christian Iraqi family in America, Noura, appears more and more to be a symbolic gesture once it becomes apparent that her story takes its cue from Henrik Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE.

It was over fifty years ago when designer Boris Aronson famously let a large mirror hang from the set of CABARET, forcing audience members to see their own reflections to bring home the point that what was happening in 1930s Germany could very well happen in America. And while that symbolic gesture may have become a bit of a cliche in the ensuing decades as it got used by other artists for other plays and musicals, designer Clint Ramos ads a provocative twist with the fully mirrored upstage wall in his design for Jeremy O. Harris' extremely daring, highly original and undoubtedly thought-provoking satirical drama, SLAVE PLAY.

For the past five holiday seasons in a row, savvy New York playgoers have been filling the upstairs parlor of East 4th Street's Merchant's House Museum for a warm and intimate evening of Christmas cheer; Summoners Ensemble Theatre's delightful production of actor John Kevin Jones recreating Charles Dickens' solo readings of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Their 2018 engagement is the third time this reviewer has attended, and Jones' thoroughly engaging performance keeps getting better and better.

The audience loudly booed at the end of last Saturday night's preview performance of the new Broadway offering based on Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1976 film classic "Network."  Seriously, the great majority of viewers at the Belasco Theatre angrily booed what they were seeing onstage, a good many of them yelling out profanity-laced objections.  Undoubtedly, playwright Lee Hall and director Ivo van Hove must have been delighted.

From the moment the houselights dim and the music cranks up on The Cher Show, Broadway's newest bio-musical, the message is clear. Surrender to the fabulousness ahead and brace yourself for a show just as gutsy, glitzy and glam as the icon it ravishingly celebrates.

Since family-friendly entertainments tend to dominate the holiday performing arts scene, it's especially cheery that for the past nine years that scandalous crew called Company XIV has been offering grownups an option that's decidedly more naughty than nice.

If there's such a thing as subtlety in the world of The Illusionists, that band of touring magicians that have frequently been making Broadway their winter home, it's evident in their latest visit, titled MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS.