The White Chip by Sean Daniels Directed by Sheryl Kaller MCC Theatre Space February 14, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
Addiction plays are very popular these days. Broadway is very busy with the musical Days of Wine and Roses (which I saw and didn’t like for all its preachiness and datedness) and Off-Broadway has The White Chip. As The White Chip started with its minimal set in a sort of AA meeting space with 3 actors taking on a multitude of roles, I thought it was going to be a corny comedic take on the whole drinking thing – but I was happily surprised. The White Chip was really a rather remarkable ride taking an alcoholic from those early days of Mormon Church challenges and teen drinking to full blown, toxic drunk, to recovering alcoholic.
Prayer for the French Republic written by Joshua Harmon Directed by David Cromer Manhattan Theatre Club February 13, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
In 1791 France became the FIRST European country to fully free its Jewish population, and for the for more than 200 years, French rabbis spoke a special sabbath benediction: “may France enjoy lasting peace, and preserve her glorious rank among the nations”. For centuries, Jewish identity in France, despite periodic waves of hate crimes, has been tightly linked to the state but in Prayers for the French Republic that contract shows signs of strain. In the first moment of the play, the son who insists on wearing a yarmulke to his school, enters the home, badly beating, having been accosted by an anti-Semitic group of men on his way home.
The Apiary by Kate Douglas Directed by Kate Whoriskey 2nd Stage/Tony Kiser Theater February 11, 2024 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
The Apiary just didn’t do it for me. I am glad that it didn’t take more than 80 minutes to explore its one note look into science vs. morality. For me, the play harkened to theme and variation of Little Shop of Horrors – – here, in a laboratory charged with keeping bees alive – bees are found to have a taste for dead humans and if you want to keep the bees alive and multiplying, then you need to supply them with bodies – lots and lots of bodies. So, just like Little Shop, the task is easy at the start, but soon becomes grizzly and overwhelming at the end. Worse than overwhelming, it just got predicable.
All the Devils are Here: How Shakespeare Invented The Villain created and performed by Patrick Page Directed by Simon Godwin DR2 Theatre February 10, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
All the Devils are Here
This masterpiece of theatre takes its title from The Tempest, in which William Shakespeare famously wrote, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” And the magic of the night is that we get to see all of devils in Shakespeare’s world played out by Patrick Page, a master actor with one of the most beautiful bass voices with academically brilliant commentary in chronologic order. I loved it!!! Time flew in the theatre! The space was very small, the props and stage effects were almost non-existent – it truly was just the actor, stage and audience. As a one man show, it is much more than a mere collection of villain monologues; it’s a crash course in Shakespeare—showing us how he created these corrupt, covetous, conflicted, and just plain evil characters, and how his villains evolved as he progressed as a playwright.
The Seven Year Disappear by Jordan Seavey Directed by Scott Elliott The New Group February 8, 2024 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
The Seven Year Disappear presents a performance art piece about a performance artist working to create a performance art piece about her relationship with she and her son. Cynthia Nixon, in the lead roll unexpectedly disappears at the very moment she is to have commission given to her by the Museum of Modern Art. The disappearance is for seven long years and leaves even her son puzzled as to its meaning. In his mother’s absence, he feels her presence in all of his/her friends, coworkers, strangers – and even the guy he is flirting with in a dark bar.. Suddenly she pops up and expects the son to join her in being a part of her next piece as if she never left. Obviously, the son has a LOT of questions and a LOT of issues to solve with his mother. The play seems to want to explore motherhood, self-discovery, and the skeletons we keep in family closets.
