Goat, The
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

 Only a playwright of Edward Albee's stature (and reputation) could get away with a play such as The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? Known for his preoccupation for "pushing the envelope" with previous efforts such as The Zoo Story and, of course, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Albee focuses here on the subject of love. What are the limits of forbidden love?, he seems to ask in this riveting drama.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
God's Favorite
Central Piedmont Community College - Pease Auditorium

 Churches are thinking about cutting their losses and closing down a couple of days each week. Synagogues are merchandising the High Holy Days, selling tickets at a discount. Welcome to the new Neil Simon apocalypse. In the King of Broadway's 1974 comedy, God's Favorite, the trials of Job are transported from the land of Uz in the era of the Old Testament patriarchs to the edge of Long Island in the age of Carvel franchises and 800 numbers.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
God's Man In Texas
Florida Studio Theater - mainstage

 It's no accident that God's Man in Texas premiered at Actors Theater of Louisville's Humana Festival. Theatrically, it demands dynamic interpreters; FST is blessed with all three. Dramatically, could the title not apply to any of them? At Rock Baptist Church, Dr. Philip Gottschall (sharp-spoken, spiffy William Metzo) stars in pulpit, on TV, and among Houston's power elite as mesmerizing preacher and builder of a mega church cum community.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
August 2001
God's Man In Texas
Horse Cave Theater

 Since it premiered in 1999 at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, David Rambo's God's Man in Texas has been seen and lauded at seven -- now eight -- other theaters. And 14 more productions are scheduled around the country for this compelling work. Warren Hammack, artistic/producing director at Kentucky's Horse Cave Theater (celebrating its 25th anniversary this year) was acclaimed for his role in the three-man play -- where all three parts are strong ones -- last winter at the Hippodrome State Theaters in Gainesville, Florida.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
July 2001
Godspell
OnStage Playhouse

 Once upon a time, circa late 60s and early 70s, a phenomenon literally rocked the nation. With titles such as Hair, Jesus Christ Super Star, Oh! Calcutta!, Tommy and Godspell, the genre of rock opera came into being. John-Michael Tebelak was just 22 when his Godspell rocked New York. This Master's thesis project based on the writings of apostles Matthew and Luke is alive and wonderfully well. As the program states; "the time is now and the place is here." Godspell is truly ageless.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2005
Color Purple, The
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

When The Color Purple opened its short run in Milwaukee, it had two strikes against it on opening night. One: Jeannette Bayardelle, who plays the main character, Celie, was replaced by her understudy. Two: Sound balancing problems made some of the lyrics and dialogue difficult to hear.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Big Bang, The
Theater Three

Theater Three's revival of last season's hilarious hit musical, The Big Bang, by Boyd Graham and Jed Feuer, is every bit as riotous as it was last season. Two of Dallas' top talents, Gary Floyd and K. Doug Miller, reprise their roles as Boyd and Jed, respectively.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2008
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

Soon after the overly-miked opening number, "A Hundred Million Miracles," Flower Drum Song settles into its quieter storyline, and we soon agree with heroine Mei-Li in thinking, "I'm going to like it here." That we're never really bowled over by this Rodgers & Hammerstein revival has as much to do with the pleasurable but not extraordinary score ("You Are Beautiful" excepted), and the rather mild romantic conflict in the original book as it does with David Henry Hwang's occasionally too-revisionist, too-spoofy, yet still contrived new version.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 Get used to it. This is not the fragile little Flower of the past; this is a brand-new version, and any comparisons with the lightweight production of 1958 and its subsequent Hollywood version will only confuse the issue. Purists may object to the revamped version, but there was little heft in the original, which was less honest than this production about the assimilation of the Chinese into American culture.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 There's only one Flower Drum Song now playing on Broadway. Somehow, the reviewer for the New York Times seems more concerned with a production 40 years ago than the one now on the boards. Maybe he has a time machine, and that's why he persists in advising us to see a show that no longer exists. The new production is a terrific show about a Chinese girl's try at becoming an American, with spectacular staging by Robert Longbottom and flashy, inventive, humorous costuming by Gregg Barnes.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 It's no wonder this version of Flower Drum Song had a short life on Broadway. When someone first suggested that all these great Asian actors around town (from Miss Saigon) could easily populate a production of Flower Drum Song, it must have seemed like an inspired idea. In fact, some moments in the show are inspired. First off, it's nice to see an Asian musical composed of 90 percent Asian actors.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2003
Flower Drum Song
Virginia Theater

 David Henry Hwang has totally rewritten the book for the revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein's abortive San Francisco treat of 1958. PC pulsewatchers will be glad to find our heroine Mei-Li has been upgraded from an illegally immigrating mail-order bride to a political refugee whose father was martyred back in Red China. But there's no rehab performed on the R&H score, which pales next to the oriental splendors of the team's South Pacific.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Follies
Belasco Theater

 Though many other critics have done so, I'm not going to start in on why Follies has never been properly staged because of how tough the material ultimately is (though it's a damn good point to argue and probably true). Better to comment on the show at hand (which critics have already sharpened their claws on), which is a big `ol mess in so many ways but single-handedly rescued by Stephen Sondheim's impeccable gift of making magic even after so many years.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Footloose
Richard Rodgers Theater

 When many of your colleagues are calling Footloose one of the worst musicals ever staged, it's difficult to pipe up and say, "hey, I liked it," but that's my duty the day after catching Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie's stage-musical adaptation of the 1984 hit flick. Hating Footloose would have been easy, since there was no reason on God's green earth to do this show, except to make money, to offer yet another amusement park-ish entertainment on Broadway, rather than a legitimate attempt to do something new, interesting or meaningful.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 1998
Forever Tango
Walter Kerr Theater

 In the case of Luis Bravo's Forever Tango at the Walter Kerr Theater, it takes 16 to tango. And, boy, can they! One might think, if you've seen one tango, you've seen them all. Well, you ain't seen nothing yet (as they say, down Argentine way); there are vibrant surprises in store at Forever Tango. The tango is a traditional dance, dominated by specific steps and moves (always below the waist), and there are many traditional elements in Forever Tango. It's the not so traditional ones that bring shouts of the show's creator's name -- Bravo!

Ellis Nassour
Date Reviewed:
June 1997
Forever Tango
Shubert Theater

 The dance is spectacular - smoldering sexuality, clean, elegant, amazingly intricate movements as the couples glide, smooth as silk, into effortless lifts and daring endings to the numbers. There is a beautiful, slow, adagio number with the woman in tights instead of the flashy slit skirts of the rest of the show, and there are two comic dances, one in each half. A great, thrilling dance show, in full Tango mystique, with emotionless faces and smoldering eyes, where men are men and women are women - and don't they know it.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2004
Fortune's Fool
Music Box Theater

 In the case of drunks, most people prefer to keep a safe distance. But the one on marvelous display in Mike Poulton's adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's 150-year-old, 19th-century play is a drunk of the highest order. Playing a rumpled, shabby Russian hanger-on named Vassily Semyonitch, Alan Bates gives a towering portrayal of a man whose world has crumbled on him, and in Fortune's Fool's penultimate scene, Bates performs an extended drunk bit that impresses by how un-technical Bates plays it.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Fortune's Fool
Music Box Theater

 A play the way they used to make `em, albeit 150 years ago in Russia. In classic theatrical fashion, nothing actually happens -- nothing, that is, except secrets revealed, emotions roiled, foundations shaken and compromises made. Alan Bates, as an impoverished member of the household who pays his rent by occasionally allowing himself to be humiliated, bumbles and apologizes, abases himself and then rises to dignity, and, in a memorable turn, fashions a drunken remembrance into a comedic aria.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Fortune's Fool
Music Box Theater

 Fortune's Fool, Turgenev's mid-nineteenth-century play is more of a valid drama for today than most plays written in the last decade. Its people have deep feelings and deep inner pain and find themselves in a moral dilemma. And how brilliant are two of today's finest actors: the great farceur Frank Langella and the amazing Alan Bates, who gives us long monologues without a moment that isn't fascinating. What a privilege to see a master like Bates play a character who declaims while getting progressively drunker -- it's one of the all-time great drunk scenes.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Forty-Five Seconds From Broadway
Richard Rodgers Theater

Following the Brighton Beach trilogy and Lost in Yonkers, it appeared Neil Simon was on the brink of creating a host of mature masterworks. Instead, he's moved backwards, papering over thin material with joke after joke (Laughter on the 23rd Floor) or caught between punchlines to build something more serious but frustratingly contrived (The Dinner Party, Proposals). 45 Seconds From Broadway, however, is the most disappointing to date.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Forty-Five Seconds From Broadway
Richard Rodgers Theater

 45 Seconds From Broadway is Neil Simon's valentine to the people in the orbit of Broadway, without whom it could not survive, who spin the threads that make up the rich fabric of theater. It is also a love song to that humble, hallowed haven for theater personages, the Edison Cafe, fondly nicknamed the "Polish Tea Room" (a take-off on the flashy Russian Tea Room, where Hollywood types mostly convene).

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Forty-Second Street
Ford Center for the Performing Arts

 Tap, glorious tap. You see it constantly in Mark Bramble's overproduced but charming revival of 42nd Street, and it makes you wonder how many shows have abandoned it altogether. These days, dancing onstage amounts to little more than overly literal gyrations, even in classic revivals, presumably because theater creators think that if you don't toss in a few sexual references, people will think it's old-hat. I, for one, am happy to report that this production never gets racier than Mary Testa powdering her own behind, and in this day and age, that seems positively original.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Forty-Second Street
Ford Center for the Performing Arts

 It's all about those dancing feet -- be they attached to the legs of literally dozens of young hoofers, or our own toes keeping time to Al Dubin and Harry Warren's evergreen tunes. Production values are handsome but not quite lavish, with Douglas W. Schmidt's settings running from grandly art-deco to too cartoony. Christine Ebersole, has both comic wattage and a singing voice to hush the house. Michael Cumpsty is an engagingly benign Julian Marsh - so much so that his hiring of goons to beat up a pest feels uncomfortably out of character.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2001
Fosse
Broadhurst Theater

What are "Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries," "I Love A Piano" and "Mr. Bojangles" doing in a show about choreographer Bob Fosse -- the one who smoked and drank and worked himself to death? The one known for injecting darkly sexual overtones into every leg extension and finger curl?

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 1999
Fosse
Broadhurst Theater

 More than three years into its Broadway run, Fosse has lost none of its sizzle. Indeed, the recent infusion of star talent (in this case, Bebe Neuwirth) has breathed new fire into this razzle-dazzler. It has been about 13 years since Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse dropped dead of a heart attack, but Fosse allows his spirit to live on. The audience is treated to a retrospective of dances selected from Sweet Charity, Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2001
Frogs, The
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

 The Frogs, now at Lincoln Center, billed as "A New Musical," is only about 2400 years old. Based on the play by Aristophanes, adapted by Burt Shevelove, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and re-adapted by Nathan Lane, the show is the broadest of farces, dripping with imagination, sparkle and laughs. It's not a great work, but Susan Stroman has directed and choreographed this mixture of Greek myth, contemporary political commentary, and absurdity with brilliance, imagination and flair.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2004
Frost/Nixon
Bernard B. Jacobs

 I was so enthralled by the play Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan, now on Broadway, and by the performances of Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, that I could barely take notes.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2007
Full Monty, The
Eugene O'Neill Theater

 Better shows may be playing around New York right now, but I can't think of one I have more unfettered affection for than The Full Monty, the just-opened musical that manages to improve upon the charming 1997 British film on which it's based. The show is rough around the edges, and there's scant evidence of its reported $7 million budget (sets are effective, but chintzy), but every minute the show wants nothing more than to entertain you and give you a rollicking good time.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
November 2000
Full Monty, The
Eugene O'Neill Theater

 If you've seen the 1997 British film of The Full Monty, there's really no need to spend the time and money to see this live version. Essentially, the stories are identical: a group of out-of-work factory employees need to come up with some quick cash. The most desperate of these blue-collar boyos is Jerry Lukowski, who is several payments behind in his child support and therefore could lose custody of his son to his ex-wife. Incredibly, the guys decide to become strippers, a la Chippendale's. Auditions are held, and the "best" candidates are selected from this pitiful group.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2002
E Meno Male Che C'E' Maria
Teatro Sistina

 This musical adaptation of "Mrs. Doubtfire" provides an entertaining evening. The title, roughly, means, "Well, at least there's always Maria" -- the re-named protagonist. The plot concerns a man whose wife leaves him, winning full custody of their three children. The lonely husband impersonates a female nanny and gets the job of caring for his own kids while their mom works all day outside the home. It is, to mix the national source of my figure of speech, a tour de force for Enrico Montesano, who is a star of Italian films and night clubs.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
December 2000
Eastward Ho!
Royal Shakespeare Company - Gielgud Theatre

 A parade of merchant-class Jacobean Londonites, baskets of fruits and veggies on heads, begins this "city play" that settles down in Goldsmiths Row, where Touchstone has two apprentices: honest, hard-working Golding (proper but achromic James Tucker) and ambitious carouser Quicksilver (aptly silly Billy Carter). Likewise, the Touchstone daughters differ. Modest Mildred (lovely brunette Shelly Conn) is of fine character, a good match for her father to give Golding, whom he then releases from servitude.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2003
Easy Virtue
Shaw Festival - Festival Theater Stage

 As we have come to expect from The Shaw, this Canadian professional premiere of a Coward play demonstrates the definitive treatment of Britain's master of sharp repartee and elegant observer of high society. And what a society it was in 1925 when Coward, age 25, wrote Easy Virtue. The year before, Hay Fever made him a celebrity, and Easy Virtue was a natural follow-up. Like his contemporaries, Shaw and Granville-Barker, Coward tackled marital affairs and male-female relations. Unlike them however, he is not verbose.

Alan Raeburn
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Eighty-Four Charing Cross Road
Atelier de la Main d'Or

 Here's one for the books and in more ways than one: A play, production, and actors so good that one wishes it were longer. A struggling young writer working from her small apartment in New York, Helene Hanff hungers for classic literature of the ages but particularly Britain. She loves books others have loved or, at least, used. So in 1949 she gets in touch with Marks & Co., second-hand booksellers at 84 Charing Cross Road, London -- mailing a request and some dollar bills.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Embers
Duke of York's Theatre

 If you go to Embers, it should be to see Jeremy Irons' sustained, quite realistic performance of what is essentially a dramatic monologue. As Heinrik, a retired general from the Austro-Hungarian army, he "entertains" (with gun nearby) Konrad, who'd been his bosom friend since childhood. Now in his castle-like home, in the midst of the ravages of WW II, Heinrik dwells on the last time they were together, hunting. Konrad then fled Vienna, never contacting Heinrik or his wife Christina. Nor did she speak to her husband from then until her death eight years later.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2006
Enrico IV
Arena del Sole

 Noted Italian Shakespearean actor Glauco Mauri is the centerpiece of this beautifully realized production of Luigi Pirandello's cryptic look at madness premiered in 1922. The story concerns a man who suffers complete amnesia following a fall from a horse during a faux medieval tournament. He is condemned to live in an eternal present: for him, the year 1071. Those around him attempt to maintain his illusion of living in medieval times, even as his wife Matilde (Magda Mercatali) discerns glimmers of his lucidity.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
January 1999
Herod's Ring
Galleria Toledo

 (see Criticopia International listing(s) under "L'Anello di Erode")

Eurydice
Whitehall Theatre

 Jean Anouilh drew on ancient literature several times in his career, most notably in his wonderful Antigone of 1942. He had also conveyed his disillusion the year before with Eurydice, in which he updated the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Set in a French provincial railway-station snack bar in the 1930s, the play introduces us to itinerant fiddler Orpheus (Orlando Seale) and his over-the-hill, boozy dad (Edward de Souza). Members of a third-rate acting troupe arrive, including Eurydice (Amy Marston).

Caldwell Titcomb
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
Fallout
Royal Court - Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

 Black theater in Britain has received a big boost with the production of Fallout by Roy Williams. The writer, now 35, has several awards to his credit for previous plays. The new work is a stunner, both in the writing and the acting.

Caldwell Titcomb
Date Reviewed:
July 2003
Feast Of Snails, The
Lyric Theatre

 Though it's a dreary, rainy Icelandic night, in the great room of Karl Johnson's ancestral mansion, the high, white, modern art-laden walls reflect abundant artificial light. More comes from the fireplace flanked by antique spears. Candles on the long down-front dining table reflect the silver and gleaming wine glasses, set up for just one.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2002
Festen
Lyric Theatre

 Once again, a classic film gets transferred to the stage. Accordingly, everything on it, in it is black and white. Yet the aura of a posh resort, where a 60th birthday party will be held for Helga, is colored by mystery. Why wasn't son Michael invited? Could it be because of his tough mouth, his violent yet sexy relationship with wife Meta, his egotistic bullying? Doesn't sister Helene appear to be still spooked by the death of their other sister? Don't the others hear a child singing, crying? Mostly, why should successful (and invited) son Christian act so remote?

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2004

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