King Lear
Starring Glenda Jackson
Written by William Shakespeare
Music by Philip Glass
Directed by Sam Gold
Cort Theatre
March 11, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
This is a major chew for an audience. For a crowd that is going to the theatre expecting all to be would up in a 90 minute intermission-less night, Lear coming in at almost three hours and thirty minutes is a test. Of course to see the incandescent Glenda Jackson take on this role of lifetime at the age of 82 is worth the wait!
Fiercely Independent
Written and Directed by Kathleen K. Johnson
Soho Playhouse
March 10, 2019 Production website
☠ out of 5.
This is total crap! God help you if you find yourself sitting here for 80 too long minutes. I did think the premise had promise. Take a married couple that is having trouble and put them in a hotel and go completely off the grid, off the booze and off the insults for 24 hours and see why comes of it. A day without technology – totally loving it from just this idea.
BUT, this couple had so little to say above the cliche’s that you “don’t hear me” and “I need your attention” and “where did we go wrong” and “I think it went bad long ago” and and and and. Continue reading Fiercely Independent→
Blue Ridge
Written by Abby Rosebrock
Directed by Taibi Magar
Atlantic Theatre Company – Linda Gross Theatre
January 4, 2019 Production website
💉💉 out of 5.
Tell me this isn’t a provocative blurb offered about the play – – “A progressive high-school teacher with a rage problem retaliates against her unscrupulous boss and is sentenced to six months at a church-sponsored halfway house, where she attends to everyone’s recovery but her own.”
I love to see new work and Atlantic Theater is a home to some of the best in the city.Blue Ridge is one of those new plays written by Abby Rosebrock and nurtured by the Atlantic Theatre Company.I am not the biggest fan of realism on stage.Sometimes I feel like I am watching a television show on stage. Continue reading Blue Ridge→
American Son
Written by Christopher Demos-Brown
Directed by Kenny Leon
Starring Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale
Booth Theatre
January 3, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
This was by FAR the best play that I have seen in many months.In only about 75 tight moments on stage this play prepares you for a kick in the gut that my entire row in the theatre AUDIBLE recoiled at the play’s conclusion.It started with a slow wind-up as the mother (Kerry Washington) paces around the stage in complete agitated silence checking her cell phone again and again.It seems like forever.The lady next to me actually thought someone had forgotten to enter.But the pain of the wait was oh so necessary. Continue reading American Son→
Nassim
Written and performed by Nassim Soleimanpour
with guest actor Thom Sesma
Directed by Omar Elerian
New York City Center Stage II
January 2, 2019 Production website
💉💉 out of 5
Man did I want to like this play – because I adore Performance Art.A week at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland is my idea of theatre heaven!But tonight it was Nassim at NY City Center Theatre.Nassim Soleimanpour is an actual playwright from Iran known here in the US for his big hit White Rabbit Red Rabbit – a play that Nassim, himself was never able to see in America as he was having trouble leaving his country and coming to the US. Continue reading Nassim→
King Lear
