How I Learned to Drive Written by Paula Vogel Directed by Mark Vogel Manhattan Theatre Club March 31, 2022 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
I just didn’t get this play. I just didn’t get it. I know that this is Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play and I know that the dream team of Mary-Louise Parker (Proof) and Tony nominee David Morse (The Iceman Cometh) were the perfect performers for the story but I just didn’t get it. I appreciated the skill of the playwright in building this sexual assault from its small simple beginning to its conclusion. The creepiness of the relationship between this adult man and girl was palpable. I appreciated the effects of a family that has no boundaries – how it abandons every member and opens the door to all kinds of demons. BUT what was the girl after?
Take Me Out Written by Richard Greenberg Directed by Scott Ellis Helen Hayes Theatre/2NDSTAGE March 30, 2022 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
This play had everything going for it! I had seen the original cast 20 earlier but the play remained as relevant – if not more relevant today. The play has a nice organized plot with sharp character conflicts leading to a very satisfying climax. This play also had a highly complex masculinity. In fact, the play became a bit of a textbook on on being a man as it explored a most masculine, successful baseball player owning his homosexuality and seeing how it played through the various dynamics of his teammates and the sacred locker room.
Birthday Candles Written by Noah Haidle Directed by Vivienne Beseech American Airlines Theatre/Roundabout Theatre Company March 29, 2022 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
This play really had an affect on me and took me on quite an emotional rollercoaster. The premise of the play is clear: we are going to show the passage of a woman’s life from being 18 to 91 in the very same kitchen. Characters are going to play children and then they are magically going to age step by step to their grave.
At first I just hated this play. To see Debra Messing wiggling her way playing an 18 year old girl talking about how bored she is with live – – I thought that this was going to be the LONGEST two hours in the theatre. I was ready to tune out and focus on my watch. BUT then I began to get invested in the transition from teenage years to adult years.
Lehman Trilogy Written by Stefano Massine Adapted by Ben Power Directed by Sam Mendes Nederlander Theatre January 1, 2022 Production website 💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
This was simply perfect! It was a true story; an important story and told with the utmost economy of language, movement, and scenic support. The story of the Lehman’s is a story of American industry and wealth. The story starts with the great immigration from Europe, takes us through cotton and the anti-bellum South. It leads us through Civil War and its aftermath. Soon after, they create the middleman -the man who has nothing – but makes the connection between the creator and the buyer. It moves us from the fields to the city – New York City – – as the stock market is invented and creates new wealth and the sees the birth of the railroad, television, and even computers – finally addressing the ultimate wealth maker: the ability to convince people to spend money they don’t have on things that they do not need. Perfect wealth! The Lehman brothers also dealt poignantly with the stock market crash of the 29 and the market reset in the 1980’s. All this while telling the story of three very Orthodox Jews who work to maintain their beliefs in a world that constantly challenges faith.
Flying Over Sunset Book by James Lapine Music by Tom Kitt Lyrics by Michael Korie Direction by James Lapine Lincoln Center Theatre at the Vivian Beaumont December 31, 2021 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
It was a perfect New Year’s Eve. I was lucky and scored tickets in the first row right to the side of the stage next to the step down into the audience. The seat was comfortable, plenty of leg room and NO chatty neighbors! Heaven! The musical, Flying Over Sunset was quite an adventure. The brief program note bears repeating,
In the 1950’s the drug LSD was legal, but generally it was only experimented with by a small number of people either under the radar or in a clinical setting. Flying Over Sunset is a work of fiction inspired by the extraordinary lives of Aldous Huxley, Claire Boothe Luce, Cary Grant, and Gerald Heard, all of whom experimented with the drug. We know that the famed author and philosopher Aldous Huxley’s first experience with LSD began when he stopped at a new Rexall drug store in Los Angeles on what was to be a quick errand. He was with his wife Maria and an old friend Gerald Heard. WE know that playwright Congresswoman and Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce first experienced the drug in the garden of her Ridgefield, Connecticut, estate with Gerald Heard serving as her guide. We know that at his wife’s urging, the movie star Cary Grant went to her psychiatrist’s office to find out more about this miraculous drug she dept urging him to try. Flying Over Sunset connects the dots.
