Roma Torre — Theater Critic

When I first reviewed Les Misérables for its Broadway opening in 1987, I knew that it was special. It’s hard to believe that almost 40 years later, the show still gets to me, even after seeing it so many times. I’m obviously not alone. Judging by the number of times the Radio City audience was moved to stand and cheer as if rooting for a hometown sports team, its cult status is deservedly preserved.

Shifters is a meditation on first love – love found, love lost and love rediscovered. Playwright Benedict Lombe deserves high praise for crafting this profoundly universal work because what starts out as a fun little romcom turns into an existential riff on all the important stuff in our lives.

Like Giulia, Nettles has created a rare alchemy here. And while you could say both are killers, obviously Nettles is slaying in the good sense. With Zimmerman’s expert direction, Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo has that magical stage chemistry that fuses disparate elements into a work of undeniable beauty. I would be very surprised if that alchemy doesn’t grow a set of legs that can take this bravura company all the way uptown to Broadway.

There are plenty of other reasons to be wowed by this production. I have to wonder if Oana Botez was working with some chemical enhancements when designing the masquerade costumes. They’re a deliriously freakish collection of whimsy and pagan fever-dreams. Contrasting the lavishness of those scenes, the play opens with very simple haunting imagery – three black-robed creatures wearing ram masks. It’s all that’s needed to establish a sense of doom and death.

A program note says that the play asks what it means to inhabit a role within a community and to define oneself against or within expectations of others. It’s a vague notion and director Sarah Cameron Hughes’ staging doesn’t help to clarify the point of spending so much time on unrelated activity. The playing space – in the round with audience members seated along the periphery – offers no sense of time or place. The play begins as the actors enter from all sides setting up lawn chairs alongside the seated audience members. If intended to create a communal effect with the audience, it mostly causes confusion. And unlike in All My Sons, most of Jonas’ characters are peripheral to the story.

Anyone who’s spent time with high school girls will recognize the four characters in this work struggling to make sense of their lives. But as presented, ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| feels less of a fully realized play and more like a character study depicting cliquish teen girl behavior and it drags in spots. By the time Margot states: “It’ll be great when we’re done being teenagers and never have emotions again,” the message is all too clear. These are young women who have lots of growing up to do. If only there was more music to quicken the tempo.

Anyone who’s spent time with high school girls will recognize the four characters in this work struggling to make sense of their lives. But as presented, ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| feels less of a fully realized play and more like a character study depicting cliquish teen girl behavior and it drags in spots. By the time Margot states: “It’ll be great when we’re done being teenagers and never have emotions again,” the message is all too clear. These are young women who have lots of growing up to do. If only there was more music to quicken the tempo.

Animal Wisdom could afford some cutting. The first half is filled with a hodgepodge of random observations. We’re told that you must not verbally deny a ghost that you know is in the room; Coca-Cola works better than sacramental wine, and “what they don’t tell you about dying is that you lose chronology. ” All of that is often repeated and it can try your patience. But by the second half, director Keenan Tyler Oliphant takes us to church and it all comes together in a moving crescendo.

The show does not reek of desperation after all. In fact, I think it’s better than the film, even with its flaws. And while none are fatal, there are enough to keep The Lost Boys from achieving that one thing vampires and Broadway musicals desire more than anything else – eternal life.

It takes a great deal of skill to pull off a work that’s as quietly understated as this. The women, interacting in pairs, mostly delve in circular small talk. In lesser hands, the conceit would be a total bore, but the Irish Rep’s minimalist production, directed by Conor Bagley keeps us hooked by planting little clues that allow us to seize on inconsistencies exposing the desperation and lengths the women go to hide their unhappiness.

Of course it helps to have a production team sharing the same vision. This one achieves symmetry with the show’s protagonists who liken their best math theorems to music. Directed by Thomas Kail, it all comes together with a lyrical grace.

Let’s begin with the playwriting. Gionfriddo’s script is lean and mean (quite literally). With just five characters she crafts a compelling story about damaged souls tied together by fate and desperation. Two of them spew unvarnished truth like rattlesnakes spitting out venom. And while it’s loaded with zingers, there’s nothing contrived here. The lines are as perceptive as they are brutally funny.

Bernthal tackles the role with gusto. His shouting and bluster are covers for a guy with a good heart. At one point he says “Admittedly we’re off to a rough start…this is my first robbery.” And it’s fun to watch him relish his newfound platform as a folk hero who sees himself as a defender of the city’s disenfranchised. Sonny’s ultimate motive involves a gay component which, in 1975, must have been rather shocking. Even today, it elicited some startled gasps from the audience. The introduction of Sonny’s “wife”, Leon (Esteban Andres Cruz), allows Bernthal to display a tender side. And the brutal honesty in their scene together is touchingly poignant.

Simply put, Public Charge is not very good theater, but as a docudrama, it’s an important work that deserves to be seen. The story is true as told through the eyes of former diplomat and co-writer Julissa Reynoso who created the play with Michael J. Chepiga. In episodic fashion, it takes us through Reynoso’s (Zabryna Guevara) experiences from 1981 as a young girl in the Dominican Republic straight to her career in government where she rises to become US Ambassador to Uruguay in 2011.

David Ireland knows how to touch a nerve with his biting dialogue. As sparks fly, nasty truths emerge between his three characters; and the humor is strikingly dark. There were intermittent gasps throughout the 80 minute one-act as audience members were stunned to hear the obscene comments that flew so off-handedly out of Jay’s mouth.

As a mother of two, whenever I learn that a family member or friend has just given birth, I often say “Welcome to the agony and ecstasy of parenthood.” And in many cases, it’s the mom who bears the brunt of it. If you want to experience what the worst of it looks like, you can get a crash course in Meat Suit, or the shitshow of motherhood.

As a mother of two, whenever I learn that a family member or friend has just given birth, I often say “Welcome to the agony and ecstasy of parenthood.” And in many cases, it’s the mom who bears the brunt of it. If you want to experience what the worst of it looks like, you can get a crash course in Meat Suit, or the shitshow of motherhood.

Data is a serious play but there is humor, almost exclusively in the hands of Jonah who knows his limitations but compensates by taking on the persona of an over-stimulated dude. Brandon Flynn is that guy to a T, and all the more impressive after seeing him play Marlon Brando so convincingly off Broadway in Kowalski

Did it work? I’m sure not for everyone. This is, after all, the first effort in what I’d call a high-tech existential thought experiment. But despite all the hoopla about the innovative technology, the play’s still very much the thing here, and this is a sweet one.

It’s the same excellent cast from Steppenwolf’s production in Chicago five years ago. But it feels even more relevant now. America’s history of conducting secret experiments on unwitting human guinea pigs planted ample seeds of doubt about our institutions. And today that distrust has only metastasized amid the acute madness of social media-fueled disinformation. Letts cites Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as inspiration for the play. It’s terrifying to consider how many more are out there.

Spelling bee participants are an odd lot. Full disclosure, I was one of them way back in the day. It’s a terribly vulnerable time for most children that age. Finn’s song “Pandemonium” captures the angst and confusion they experience. The show plays it mostly for laughs but it has the added elements of insight and wisdom. For that reason, anyone raising children may need to see it even more than their kids. It’s not just entertaining and funny, it offers much to learn about family dynamics; and when it all aligns, it’s a perfect syzygy.

When Bess Wohl’s play Liberation premiered off-Broadway last winter it was revelatory. Despite some structural weaknesses that remain, it’s a beautiful work featuring an ensemble of actors at the top of their game. It’s no wonder the production transferred to Broadway totally intact.

The imagery gets a big boost from lighting designers Adam Honoré and Donald Holder’s exquisite palette attaching distinctive shades of light to each of the main groups, and framing them in monochromatic bands painted overhead. And costumer Linda Cho did a terrific job expertly evoking the period, the class and the temperament of the characters. But even without the technical enhancements, the production would still soar given the bravura talents – all 41 actors and 28 musicians – gracing the Vivian Beaumont stage.

Good storytelling is not only key to selling merchandise, it’s essential to musical theater. And while the production at the Laura Pels Theatre has much to offer – most especially a bravura star turn from Betsy Wolfe – the book by Ken Davenport falls rather short in selling Joy’s rags-to-riches story on the live stage.

Good storytelling is not only key to selling merchandise, it’s essential to musical theater. And while the production at the Laura Pels Theatre has much to offer – most especially a bravura star turn from Betsy Wolfe – the book by Ken Davenport falls rather short in selling Joy’s rags-to-riches story on the live stage.