Archive for the 'theater reviews' Category

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Theater review: THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN

November 21, 2010

My review of The Marriage of Maria Braun at the BAM Next Wave Festival is available for reading on CultureVulture.net.

“Perhaps taking a page from Flemish director Ivo van Hove…Thomas Ostermeier has stripped the Fassbinder film down to its essential narrative and staged it with five actors on a set full of mismatched armchairs and tables that looks vaguely like a hotel lobby or airport lounge….Ultimately, the piece seemed dry, visually drab, and perversely stingy. I think I’m most grateful to the production for encouraging me to go back and look at Fassbinder’s film on DVD, which also includes fascinating commentary by fellow director Wim Wenders and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus as well as a 2003 interview with Hannah Schygulla.”

You can read the whole review online here.

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Theater review: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

November 20, 2010

My review of Daniel Sullivan’s production of The Merchant of Venice has been posted on CultureVulture.net.

I didn’t manage to see the show when it was first staged in Central Park last summer, in rep with Michael Greif’s version of The Winter’s Tale, but I’m glad I caught up with it on Broadway.

Lily Rabe, Al Pacino, and Byron Jennings in "The Merchant of Venice"

“It’s a deep and upsetting rendition of one of Shakespeare’s darkest comedies….Sullivan’s subtle yet pointed staging made me unusually aware of the numerous contractual agreements in the play and how each of them comes loaded with some element of whimsy, perversity or downright cruelty. The scene where Shylock gets his day of reckoning could be considered the climax of the play, followed by some light-hearted comic business. But in this production, that tense scene launches an increasingly sickening series of humiliations, and nobody gets off the hook.”

You can read the complete review online here.

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Theater review: THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW

November 14, 2010


I wasn’t quite what to expect from the experience of seeing Pee-Wee Herman live onstage. Would it be an emotionally remote Xerox copy of the TV show? A cult event like Spamalot or Kiki and Herb on Broadway? In the event, I found myself helplessly swept up in its fiendish charms. You can read my review online at CultureVulture here.

Andy also loved the show

Like Jesse Green in New York magazine, I found myself cackling at the idea of Pee-Wee Herman opening on Broadway at a theater originally named for Henry Miller and recently renamed in honor of Stephen Sondheim. I loved it, though, that when Green brought it up in his interview, Paul Reubens wouldn’t put up with any snickering:

Yours is the first show in the former Henry Miller’s Theater since it was renamed for Stephen Sondheim. Some people might find that ironic—do you?
I don’t know what you mean. I love Sondheim’s work.

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Theater review: RAOUL

November 12, 2010

My review of James Thiérrée’s Raoul at the BAM Next Wave Festival has been posted online at CultureVulture.net. I was a big fan of Thiérrée’s previous show at BAM, Au Revoir, Parapluie.

“As nonsensical as its title, that show was a completely delightful, non-narrative nouveau-circus piece in which five superb performers (including Thiérrée, who conceived, directed and designed the production) ceaselessly transformed the stage space, themselves, their costumes and props every minute of the show, going back and forth between silly and magical, literal and symbolic…[Raoul is] much smaller and less magical than its predecessor.”

You can read the whole review online here.

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Theater review: IN THE WAKE

November 4, 2010


My review of Lisa Kron’s IN THE WAKE has just been published on CultureVulture.net. I liked the play a lot.

“It’s stuffed with so many ideas about so many subjects that you can’t believe the author can pull it off, and yet she does, with the help of an able cast smartly directed by Leigh Silverman.

It helps that Kron situates her play in the midst of hyperarticulate characters who feast on ideas, starting with Ellen, a writer and political junkie (played by Marin Ireland) who opens the show with a howl of outrage: ‘I cannot believe the ruthlessness of the Republicans!’ It’s Thanksgiving 2000, and the as-yet unsettled presidential race between Gore and Bush clouds the dinner party assembling in Ellen’s living room: her schoolteacher boyfriend, Danny (Michael Chernus), his sister Kayla (Susan Pourfar) and her wife, Laurie (Danielle Skraastad), who live downstairs, and Ellen’s old friend Judy (Deidre O’Connell), an older woman who does humanitarian relief work in Africa and is on her way to her mother’s funeral in Kentucky.

You may think you know what’s going to come out of these characters’ mouths as they hurtle through Bush’s inauguration, 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, and W’s re-election. Trust me — you don’t. Kron spares us generic characters spouting pre-digested social commentary safely distributed along the political spectrum.”

You can read the complete review online here.

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