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  Theatre in Review: All In: Comedy About Love (Hudson Theatre)
One way of understanding this quizzical, oddly titled, evening is to note that Simon Rich, its author, is identified in his program bio as "a Thurber Prize-winning humorist." This is telling, because All In: Comedy About Love
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Theatre in Review: Cult of Love (Second Stage Theater/Hayes Theater)
"We are in the middle of a meltdown," announces Ginny, the matriarch presiding over a houseful of psychological basket cases in Cult of Love. Not that this is anything new: In the last year or so, the Hayes Theater has become ...
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Theatre in Review: Eureka Day (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
In Eureka Day's funniest scene -- which is to say the funniest scene in town -- the eminent cast of Jonathan Spector's play is upstaged by David Bengali's projection design. It's intentional, of course, and the ...
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Theatre in Review: Pen Pals (Theatre at St. Clement's)
At first glance, Pen Pals looks alarmingly conventional: Drawing on the model of A. R. Gurney's Love Letters, it uses a reader's theatre format and revolving cast to delve into the decades-long correspondence of two ...
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Theatre in Review: A Guide for the Homesick (DR2 Theatre)
A pickup in an Amsterdam hotel becomes a powerful reckoning in this cunningly plotted two-hander with psychological thriller undertones. Teddy, a Black American financier ostensibly on holiday, gets together with Jeremy, a young Bostonian ...
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Theatre in Review: Elf (Marquis Theatre)
This Christmas season, the people at the Marquis Theatre are giving us the gift of professionalism. Elf is that rare thing, a clever, unpretentious, strictly-for-fun entertainment that knows exactly how to win over an ...
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Theatre in Review: The Blood Quilt (Lincoln Center Theatre/Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)
Katori Hall has given us so many different kinds of plays -- among them the historical drama The Mountaintop, the musical Tina, the religious investigation Our Lady of Kibeho, and the groundbreaking study of ...
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Theatre in Review: This is My Favorite Song (Playwrights Horizons)
I am grateful to Francesca D'Uva for introducing the concept of "loud smiling." At the top of her deceptively casual evening of comic confessions. she says, "I used to have this teacher in high school who used to smile so hard that ...
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Theatre in Review: Welcome to the Big Dipper (York Theatre Company/Theatre at St. Jean)
Banish all thoughts of outer space: The Big Dipper is a hotel and nightclub on the verge of closing forever until it gets a surge in business thanks to a monster blizzard. The extreme weather afflicting the greater Buffalo area forces Joan ...
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Theatre in Review: Babe (The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center)
Babe wastes no time setting up its generational conflict: Gus, a recording industry legend of several decades standing, is interviewing the bubbly, twentysomething Katherine for a starter position at his company. A true ...
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Theatre in Review: The Merchant of Venice (Arlekin Players at Classic Stage Company)
Often cited as one of William Shakespeare's "problem plays," The Merchant of Venice is in fact a remarkably supple piece. It can absorb a multitude of interpretations, which is perhaps one reason it gets done so often ...
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Theatre in Review: Death Becomes Her (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre)
How do you like your comic divas? Death Becomes Her offers you quite a choice, which I bet you'll be hard-pressed to make. First up is Megan Hilty as Madeline Ashton, a self-adoring Hollywood icon with only a smidgen ...
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Theatre in Review: Swept Away (Longacre Theatre)
Swept Away is a jukebox musical of a different sort; rather than recycling a clutch of overexposed pop hits and tying them to an airheaded plot, it takes its songs from Mignonette, a concept album by the folk-rock band ...
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Theatre in Review: We Are Your Robots (Theatre for a New Audience/Rattlestick Theater)
Contrary to popular belief, it's not true that every new show is about robots or the climate crisis; it just seems that way. This week, the robots have it: Even as Maybe Happy Ending piles up raves on Broadway, Ethan Lipton ...
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Theatre in Review: Strategic Love Play (Audible Theatre at Minetta Lane Theatre)
The characters in Strategic Love Play consume many drinks over a running time of seventy-five minutes or so and, before very long, I was ready for a couple myself. (I would have preferred a martini or two to their endless ...
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Theatre in Review: 300 Paintings (Vineyard Theatre)
Sam Kissajukian is a sly, understated presence who knows how to land a laugh when you least expect it. Taking the stage at the Vineyard, he marvels at the terra cotta-colored trapezoid painted on the floor just for him. (Like most ...
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Theatre in Review: Sh*T. Meet. Fan. (MCC Theater)
In his latest effort, Robert O'Hara is out to shock -- the title might offer a hint about that - but, despite a predictable premise, it takes some time to figure out what kind of play this is. Clint Ramos' swanky set design - ...
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Theatre in Review: Music City (BEDLAM/West End Theatre)
For so many years, jukebox musicals have merely been a trial that must be borne, leaving one devoutly praying each season that this too might pass. I won't hear a word against Mamma Mia!, although its creators will surely face a ...
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Theatre in Review: Sex Variants of 1941: A Study of Homosexual Patterns (The Civilians/NYU Skirball)
The title of this new entertainment sounds like a Broadway revue series from the between-the-war years, say Earl Caroll Vanities or George White's Scandals. (One instinctively conjures images of Sex Variants of 1942 or ...
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Theatre in Review: Maybe Happy Ending (Belasco Theatre)
It tells you something about this theatre season that possibly the most touching relationship on a Broadway stage just now is between two machines. In Maybe Happy Ending, composers/librettists Will Aronson and Hue ...
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