Michael Dale - Page 40

It might be easier to pity the hardworking gentleman at the core of Martin McDonagh's new darkly comic drama, who loses his job when his employer eliminates his position, if it weren't for the fact that the function of his profession was to kill people.

When the subject of New York City Center Encores! comes up among musical theatre enthusiasts, the conversation almost invariably steers to what shows they should be presenting in their series of concerts. Although several of their productions, like the mega-hit revival of CHICAGO, have transferred, a night out at Encores! is, to many, most satisfying when they revive shows that, although significant in one way or another, are unlikely to find themselves back on Broadway.

In the second act of Terrence McNally's fact-based drama, Fire and Air, the legendary dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev privately examines the technique of a young dancer he may consider as a successor to his protegee-turned-international star, Vaslav Nijinsky.

In last season's GROUNDHOG DAY, the exceedingly charismatic Andy Karl was given the unenviable task of playing out a romantic comedy as a thoroughly despicable character. Now, in Greg Pierce's Cardinal at Second Stage, Anna Chlumsky's perfectly fine performance is similarly weighed down.

Sentimental stories of adults returning to their childhood homes to face the demons of the past after achieving success far, far away are a staple of popular entertainment, and though Ngozi Anyanwu's engaging contribution to the genre, The Homecoming Queen, adds nothing surprising, the elegant storytelling, packaged in director Awoye Timpo's superb production, contributes to a very fine theatrical venture.

Audiences and critics alike swooned over relatively unknown Leslie Uggams when she made her Broadway debut starring in Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Arthur Laurents and Jule Styne's progressively-minded 1967 Broadway musical HALLELUJAH, BABY!

With the past year bringing in a new administration with a new Secretary of Education, the national awareness of how overworked, undercompensated and financially burdened America's public school teachers are has fueled debate within discussions of federal budget restructuring and tax reform.

All too often, the word dated is misguidedly used to diminish the impact a play of a bygone era can have on contemporary audiences. Take, for example, the puritanical attitude towards pre-marital sex expressed by many of the characters in English playwright Stanley Houghton's social commentary, HINDLE WAKES, which premiered in Manchester in 1912 and crossed the ocean to Broadway before the year was done.

As the ground-breaking theatre troupe Split Britches - which they founded with former member Deb Margolin in 1980 - Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver have been challenging both gender norms and theatrical norms for nearly four decades, ranking them among the respected elders of America's performance art movement.

Fear not, all you American playgoers whose comprehension skills usually require a few minutes of ear adjustment whenever a production from Britain or Ireland crosses over with its native cast.

'So what the hell is this?!,' John Lithgow quizzically quips to the audience at the outset of his Broadway solo stint.

Savvy playgoers attending British lip-sync artist Dickie Beau's RE-MEMBER ME at this year's Under The Radar Festival will notice that when a recording of Michael Douglas, playing Broadway director Zach in the film adaptation of A CHORUS LINE, instructs the solo performer to step forward, tell me your real name, your stage name if it's different, where you were born, and how old you are, they're watching a take-off of a moment that originated in the very space where they're sitting; The Public's Newman Theater, where that classic Pulitzer-winning musical was first seen by audiences in 1975.

That old adage that if men got pregnant, abortion and reproductive health would be fully funded by the federal government gets quite a workout in playwright/director Robert O'Hara's wild gender politics satire MANKIND.

Be careful about expressing your admiration for certain artists during Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's hard-edged solo play, HOW TO BE A ROCK CRITIC. Though the audience is encouraged to engage in some give and take with Jensen as he impersonates the legendary writer Lester Bangs, fans of Jethro Tull, Herb Alpert, Styx and others may find their tastes abruptly dismissed as the gonzo journalist flings the LPs of musicians he can't abide by across the room.

Ninety-nine years before television producer Aaron Spelling first invited viewers aboard 'The Love Boat,' Gilbert and Sullivan made good on their promise of shipboard romance with their enduring hit, H.M.S. PINAFORE.

Boris Karloff... Peter Boyle... Shuler Hensley... and Robert Fairchild. One of these things is not like the others.

Sure, HAMLET may be William Shakespeare's dramatic masterpiece, but when pining for some romantic comedy, it's hard to beat Twelfth Night.

Fans of trained actors filling Broadway houses with the richness of their unamplified voices (not to mention those who believe electric lights are overrated) have reason to rejoice. Shakespeare's Globe, the British theatre company that in 2014 arrived on Broadway with their productions of TWELFTH NIGHT and RICHARD III that replicated Elizabethan theatre technological, is back in town with a new play that is also witnessed solely by candlelight and graced with actors who project.

It may not be as well-known a holiday tradition as seeing the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, but for the fifth straight year, the Summoners Ensemble Theatre's delightful presentation of John Kevin Jones' thoroughly engaging solo performance of A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Merchant's House Museum is one of the hardest-to-get tickets in town.

When you consider the number of years that humans have been the dominant species on this planet, it was a comparatively quick burst of industrialization that set up the very real dilemma of progress causing irreversible harm to the environment that could lead to our ultimate demise.