Marvin’s Room
Written by Scott McPherson
Directed by Anne Kauffman
American Airlines Theatre
June 11, 2017 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
As an acting teacher there are scenes and monologues that you see a hundred times (as in the “care of the wig” scene) in this play. Â After awhile you almost become numb to the scene as it becomes more of an academic exercise then a real story . Â . . so it was nice to go back and discover the rich story that is here.
I am not sure if the young students that I took with me could really connect with the gut of this story. Â Dealing with chronic, prolonged illness just changes everyone. Â More than the patient, the entire house becomes a sick place. Â And even more acutely the ones who are the caretakers are sicker than the patients. Â This, I pray, is years and years away from the experience of these teenagers. Continue reading Marvin’s Room→
Six Degrees of Separation
Written by John Guare
Directed by Trip Cullman
Starring Allison Janney, Â John Hickey, and Corey Hawkins
Barrymore Theatre
April 14, 2017 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
“For each of our dysfunctions, there is someone out there eager to meet us.”  This is NOT a line from the play but a line I have learned from my life – – the hard way.  I saw Six Degrees of Separation almost 30 years ago and all I could remember was the nudity and the reckless inclusion of gay hustlers.  Beyond that I am not sure I could tell you the plot.  But I am some 30 years older and now able to focus on those things beyond the scintillating and grab more of the story. Continue reading Six Degrees of Separation→
Miss Saigon
Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg
Lyrics by Richard Maltby, Fr & Alain Boublil
Choreography by Geoffrey Garratt
Directed by Laurence Connnor
Broadway Theatre
March 20, 2017 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
It has been 20 years since I saw Miss Saigon and the show feels quite different. The show still has that wonderful anti-war bite of spinning embassy gates, marching followers of Ho Chi Minh storming through the rice fields, and helicopters (now more realistically then EVER) pulling out all of the American forces from Saigon and leaving all of the natives with lots of empty promises and fatherless children. The exploitation of the women into sexual slavery and trafficking remains the same – perhaps made even more painfully blunt as this cast has no inhibitions about touching the breasts, butts, and crotches of women at will. This production truly takes the objectification of women to a new level of inappropriateness. It is NOT for the faint of heart.Continue reading Miss Saigon→
The Babylon Line
Written by Richard Greenberg      Directed by Terry Kinney
Lincoln Center: Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre
January 5, 2017 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
I walked into the theatre and saw the tell-tale chalky blackboard, pictures of presidents, encyclopedias, student desks and musky muskiness. I was back in fifth grade at Central School. Only this play wasn’t about going back to 5th grade. It was a classroom that was being used in the night time for an adult education class in writing. A wanna-be writer from the city was making the perilous journey by train (hence, the Babylon Line) to the suburbs of Long Island to share his love of writing with a group of misfit adults a bit chagrined that the class they WANTED – the class on flower arranging or such was filled to capacity. Continue reading The Babylon Line→
The Front Page
Written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur                            Directed by Jack O’Brien
Broadhurst Theatre
January 4, 2017 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
I think that I could just leave the theatre right now and nobody would know that I have gone. This is the feeling I had for the first hour or two of Front Page. After seeing so many shows that worked to bridge the distance between the actor and the audience, it was a shock to see a good ol’ fashioned realistic play where that fourth wall was truly being respected. To be honest it felt like I was watching really good TV. Continue reading The Front Page→
Marvin’s Room
