Letters of Suresh Written by Rajiv Joseph Directed by May Adrales Second Stage Theatre October 10, 2021 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5
With this play I did something I have never done in all of my years of theatre-going. I just looked at my watch and found that I could make an evening show if I wanted. I hadn’t planned on this – didn’t do any research. I just went to Playbill on-line and picked one not too far away that I hadn’t seen – – thus Letters of Suresh. Luckily it paid off and the play was the perfect choice for the evening.
Essentially Letters of Suresh is a series of letters that were found in the meager estate of a dead priest in Hiroshima. Over the years he had corresponded to Suresh about life and love. These letters where found and through a third party they are read and passed on to another reader. Essentially the correspondence of one pair of penpals grew into a small group of people that were transformed by the beauty and honesty of the writing. Each person that read the letters was driven to become a writer and the art of letter writing blossomed.
The Sound Inside
Written by Adam Rappelled
Directed by David Cromer
Studio 54
January 29, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Wow! This is the most unexpected play of the entire trip and one of the most beautiful.I had no idea what to expect – I had read notihng in advance of the show.I knew that it was at Studio 54 and I expected it to be big and bold.It was, but in a totally unexpended way!It was my first surprise in an afternoon full of surprises.
The play is a two-hander featuring the REMARKABLE Mary-Louise Parker coming to the story with 30+ years of remarkable stage work – she is an entire theatrical event in herself. The plot revolves around awriting professor at Yale who has just received a diagnosis of stage 2 cancer. In much of the play, she addresses the audience directly as if reading a novel-in-progress aloud.The story then eventually includes Christopher Dunn, a freshman in a course of hers called Reading Fiction for Craft.She is a mysterious teacher with surprises up her sleeve and he is a misfit of Yale that just doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. Continue reading The Sound Inside→
The Inheritance
Written by Matthew Lopez
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Ethel Barrymore Theatare
December 26, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Nothing is more wonderful then curling up with a good book – a good thick book that will take you though the lives of many people and occupy many hours of page turning –and when the book is a good one the time just cannot be beat!In Matthew Lopez’s beautifully sculpted play, The Inheritance you in in for a full day’s read in the best possible sense – it is being read live right in front of you.The seven plus hours of production occupies your day from 2:00 to 10:00pm and gives you four intermissions and a dinner break.It is theatre heaven!The staging even provides 28 men sitting around the giant coffee table of a stage – all in bare feet – ready to take us through the journey. Continue reading The Inheritance→
Oklahoma
Music by Richard Rogers
Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Directed by Daniel Fish
Circle in the Square
June 12, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
I have never seen a golden age musical go down this plywood covered path before!Wow!When I first entered the stage I thought that Oklahoma was going to be more gimmick than art.The thrust stage was all boarded up in raw plywood – the floor and all the walls.Crockpots of chili were cooking away on long picnic tables where front row audience members were seated.Audience lights were going to be kept up for the majority of the production.I thought this was going to be a long night. Continue reading Oklahoma!→
Hillary and Clinton
Written by Lucas Hnath
Directed by Joe Mantello
Golden Theatre
June 8, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Laurie Metcalf rules Broadway in the summer.One year Three Tall Women, one year Doll’s House Part 2, this year Lucas Hnath’s Hillary and Clinton – and a possible next summer with a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf.And each one just keeps getting better and better.In way of thinking what makes Laurie Metcalf so wonderful on stage is the great ease she brings to her work.You sense no effort on her part.She is not obviously working.She is simply talking, reading and being with her partner – there is no artifice here.
