Safeword
Written by S. Asher Gelman
Directed by S. Asher Gelman
American Theatre of Actors
April 20, 2019 Production website
💉💉 out of 5.
If only this play needed a “safe word”But it clearly doesn’tThe play here is strictly vanilla and actually not very interesting vanilla.I do believe that our playwrights intention here was to introduce the average audience member to the world of bandage, domination, and sadomasochism – but what we get is more housewife with a cute whip.
The play starts out with a most provocative scene at the top of a set where a leather clad “dom” is abusing his willing victim.That got everyone’s attention – but it never back to that powerful first image.Sad when your best moment is the very first one of the show. Continue reading Safeword→
Hurricane Diane
Written by Madeleine George
Directed by Leigh Silverman
New York Theatre Workshop
March 12, 2019 Production website
💉💉 out of 5.
You are not going to expect this one!Part homage to HGTV and part send up on Greek mythology, you just don’t know what you are getting.A god, Dionysus, now named Diane and described in the text as a “butch charm factor”is a very lively trans performer who is a bit all over the place.She has lots of energy but I am just not sure to what point. Continue reading Hurricane Diane→
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→
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→
Kinsey Sicks in Things You Shouldn’t Say
Soho Playhouse
December 22, 2018 Production website
💉💉 out of 5.
The Kinsey Sicks is an institution in the gay community, and I never knew it!Thinking this was going to be just another drag show to fill a chilly New York winter, I came to the theatre with little expectations.I imagined that they were going to either 1.) be doing some off-color re-wordings of Christmas tunes or 2,) going to go down the “we are Jews revolting against Christmas, or 3.) Trump commentary. We got some of this – but, thankfully much more.
Safeword
