Jose Feliciano
Iridium

 In 1964, I was the MC of The Hootenanny at The Bitter End Cafe in Greenwich Village every Tuesday night. One night a young woman came in dragging a blind Puerto Rican kid with a guitar. She said to put him on the stage, that he was really good. I said, "Sure," and put him on at two in the morning. When he sang his first song, I told the woman, "Bring him in any time -- I'll put him on any time you say." It was Jose Feliciano. About ten years later, at a club in Huntington Beach, California, I was his opening act doing my mime/comedy act, and he used to heckle me.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2006
Fever, The
Acorn Theater

 Starting with wry observations on theatregoing, Wallace Shawn is a fine monologist, an observer/commentator whose tales draw us in, while his insights and humor hold us. In The Fever, there is a lot about the lot of the poor and visits to poor countries, some with revolutions, including Karl Marx's analysis of value and the relationship between product and people, and a ramble on terrorism. There are also comments on a nude beach and on Christmas present-wrapping.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2007
Few Stout Individuals, A
Signature Theater Company at Peter Norton Space

 A good way to describe John Guare's newest play, A Few Stout Individuals, would be, well, stout. Literally busting at the seams with characters, historical events and information, this extravagant re-imagining of the process by which one Samuel Clemens (William Sadler) attempted to draft the memoirs of President Ulysses S. Grant (Donald Moffat) is overstuffed. But nobody can make that quite as endurable as Guare, as for every scene in the play feels trite or mundane, twice as many are healthy reminders of what an accomplished storyteller the man can be.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Few Stout Individuals, A
Signature Theater Company at Peter Norton Space

 I generally love John Guare's writing for both stage and film, but you can't win `em all. A Few Stout Individuals, his new take on a dying, debt-ridden Ulysses S. Grant and the question of who will write his memoirs, starts with a stiff opening with nothing happening and then dives into repetitious banter and haranguing, much by an acerbic Mark Twain, which is painful to watch.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Field, The
Irish Repertory

 In John B. Keane's The Field, strongly directed by Ciaran O'Reilly at the Irish Rep, an elemental battle in rural Ireland in 1964 pits a brutal cattle farmer, who needs the field for grazing and access to water, against and another man who needs the field so he can put in a quarry business (so that his sick wife can return to Ireland). It's the irresistible force meeting the immovable object; neither can compromise.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2006
Filao
Damrosch Park Tent

 Inspired by Italo Calvino's magical-realist novel "The Baron in the Trees," this "new circus" event is called Filao, a clever contraction of the French word for high wire. Now, after having toured Europe and America since 1997, Filao comes to Lincoln Center Festival 2000, its second-to-last venue. Artistic directors of Les Colporteurs company, Antoine Rigot and Agathe Olivier, along with director Lazlo Hudi, have assembled a company of aerialists and musicians that work as a family to develop innovative shows that are eminently unclassifiable yet utterly delightful.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
July 2000
Finnegan's Farewell
St. Luke's Church

 A somber crowd files into the basement of St. Luke's Church, facing the stage which contains six chairs, a pulpit, a large papier mache three-leaf clover on a stand. A priest quietly approaches several in the audience, chatting about the deceased, Paddy Finnegan. It seems that Paddy had been painting the kitchen ceiling, and fell to his death, at age 62. Also approaching viewers is Brian, Paddy's youngest son, in his fireman's uniform. We express our condolences. It's remarkable how quickly audience members embrace the situation.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
First Love
New York Theater Workshop

 The premise of Charles Mee's experimental comedy is laudable: compress a lifelong romantic relationship (and, metaphorically, all relationships) into its high and lowpoints -- first meeting, restaurant date, sharing of cultural signposts and sexual appetites, dish-smashing fight, mournful farewells, reunions, and resigned resumptions.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Five By Tenn
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage II

 Five By Tenn, now at Manhattan Theater Club, gives us five Tennessee Williams short plays from 1937 to 1970 interspersed with words from his letters and other writings as intros. It is interesting to see Williams' treatment of mostly gay themes grow and develop through time as the world changed. Sketches of later fully rounded characters appear, such as Penny Fuller's frantic hopes for her somewhat different son in Summer at the Lake.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2004
Five Course Love
Minetta Lane Theater

 In Gregg Coffin's Five Course Love, now at the Minetta Lane Theater, three vastly talented singer/comedians, Heather Ayers, John Bolton and Jeff Gurner, broadly directed by Emma Griffin, sing their way through five ethnic restaurants. Although I found little wit or real comedy at first, just people trying to be funny, the material seemed to get better as it progressed (or I liked the variety and range of the singing) and as they reached the mock opera in the Mexican restaurant, with music, let's say "influenced by," Man of La Mancha, it grew into a real entertainment.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Flaming Idiots, The
New Victory Theater

 Belying the subtitle of their own show, The Flaming Idiots, a trio of Flying Karamazov-style comedians/jugglers/stupid-human-tricksters, keep an audience "up" for two hours, and we never come down. Juggling bowling pins and circular rings may be old hat, but the verbal jokes feel fresh and are delivered with gusto. The odder moments -- Gyro constructing a bologna sandwich with his feet; Pyro juggling fire atop a very large audience volunteer -- prove even more diverting. Sheer fun, and extra- welcome for that reason.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Flare Path
Florence Gould Hall

 Want to have a marvelous theatrical experience? The Actors Company Theater (TACT) is without a doubt the best play-reading troupe in this town (or any other town that I've seen). Their staged readings of classics, script in hand (the scripts soon become invisible), with a hint at costuming, have the full dramatic intensity of a fully-realized production performed by Broadway actors. TACT's most recent piece, Terence Rattigan's 1942 wartime British Airforce drama Flare Path, flawlessly directed by Simon Jones, is brought to full life by their splendid cast.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2004
One On One
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 Robert Mansell has fulfilled many an actor's dream: gathering up scenes and roles he'd like to play and doing so in a well-directed, designed, entertaining program. Though without a thematic frame, the first half of this one-man show mainly presents men involved in monstrosities.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2007
Forbidden Broadway
Stardust Theater

There's a mouse in the house. No, that's not a reflection on the Stardust Theater, the new home of Forbidden Broadway after its years uptown. The rodent in question is Walt Disney, which figures repeatedly into the new line-up of Gerard Alessandrini's revue of Broadway spoofs. Not only is there an extended Lion King parody, but the four-member troupe often (perhaps too often) tweak the Disneyfication of Broadway, seeing it as the manifestation of Mayor Giuliani's campaign to G-rate all New York entertainment. It's an easy target and not the show's funniest.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 1999
Forbidden City Blues
West End Theater

 What do a crazy Russian general, an American consul who likes to dress as a clown, and a blind, Black blues singer have in common? Alexander Woo puts them together in Beijing in a new comedy, Forbidden City Blues. From his wheelchair, Blind Amos Cunningham (Jose Ramon Rosario) supplies ironic commentary on people and politics to introduce each scene (music by Ken Weiler, lyrics by Woo). An unsuspecting American couple -- Mandarin-speaking Alice (Kate Chaston) and naive Chinese-American Raymond (Rick Ebihara) -- land right in the vortex of an arch scheme.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Forty-Second Street Workshop One-Act Festival (1999) - Series A
42nd Street Workshop

 Maestro, which pays homage to Keaton, Chaplin and Leonard Bernstein, is performed entirely in silence, except for the sounds of an orchestra passionately playing a symphony, and equally passionately led by the Maestro, who, having entered with dignity and verve, bows to his audience, placed upstage, then faces his orchestra, in the direction of the actual audience. Gerber's baton doesn't miss a nuance, now gentle, now demanding, now almost losing control in his enthusiasm, and always appreciative of his players.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
August 1999
Forty-Second Street Workshop One-Act Festival (1999) - Series B
42nd Street Workshop

 In The Winning Ticket, sloppy employee Jimmy (David Allan Walker) is ecstatic: he's won the lottery, it's $37 million, and he's about to tell the stuffed shirt boss where to stuff it. Mousey secretary Stella (Elizabeth Ann Townsend) at first protects Jimmy, then avows her love and then hopes they'll quit together. Then...a highly amusing turnaround. The play's charming, funny, beautifully directed and acted, with a particularly winning turn by Ms. Townsend.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
August 1999
Forty-Second Street Workshop One-Act Festival (1999) - Series C
42nd Street Workshop

 In Charlie & Flo, the latter, an attractive widow (Celeste Mancinelli), meets her son Charlie's (Darien Scott Shulman) high school teacher Jerry (Bart Tangredi) and, after a slow start -- Flo can't readily forget her deceased husband -- sparks ultimately fly. Charlie, Jealous, cannot forgive his mother for "being unfaithful" to his deceased father. There are backs and forths between all, and ultimately a positive conclusion is reached. A nice, warm family story, well acted by the three plus Charles E. Gerber, who plays a bit as the Waiter, and does a fine job as director.

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
August 1999
Four
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage II

 One of the choice bits in David Lynch's delectable Hollywood mindwarp, "Mulholland Drive" is where a director remarks upon the completion of audition scene between a young, would-be starlet (Naomi Watts) and an older, grayed once-lothario (Chad Everett): "Very good. It was forced, maybe, but still...humanistic." Christopher Shinn's remarkable 1998 play Four succeeds in being the very opposite. It is humanistic simply in how un-forced it is.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
February 2002
Four
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage II

 In his gentle drama Four, Christopher Shinn displays a Kenneth Lonergan-style talent for letting quirky, flawed but very believable characters quietly go through their paces, colliding with each other and leaving both grace notes and scars. Four keeps us guessing what will occur in the pairings of Joe, a married black man and June, a closeted, 15-year-old gay teen, as well as Joe's daughter and a charming, streetwise basketball player and minor thief.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Four
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage II

 The generally high-level Manhattan Theater Club has a show called Four, by the very inept (for much of the show, we're listening to one half of a telephone conversation) Christopher Shinn, whose forebear was undoubtedly the bumbling Mayor Shinn in Music Man. Much of the dialogue rings false in this story of two interactions: a teenage gay white boy and a fifty-or-so-year-old black man who likes boys, and the man's lovely, bright daughter and her illiterate, basketball-playing young lover.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Four Guys Named Jose - And Una Mujer Named Maria
Blue Angel Theater

 There was a time around the mid-20th century when one could truthfully say that the entertainer most visibly personifying the Latino temperament and artistry was Carmen Miranda, a.k.a. the Brazilian bombshell. Of course, the image of the short, fiery, motor-mouthed senorita with the tall, banana-topped headdress as the representative of so many diverse cultures was as limiting, and misleading, as it was grievously short-sighted.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
October 2000
Fourth Wall, The
Primary Stages

 A.R. Gurney stretches his wings by satirizing the kind of brittle, WASPy drawing room comedies by which he earns his keep. The premise - that a white suburban woman (Sandy Duncan) keeps a wall of her living room blank to represent the world "out there" -- is a tad flimsy for ninety minutes, but Gurney fills the evening out by spoofing the conventions of playwriting, the expectations of audiences, and the socially-constructed fallacy of American hegemony. And, yes, the laughs are there.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Freak Of Nature, The
Greenwich Village Center

 It is sometimes difficult to imagine how fresh these short plays must have seemed to Luigi Pirandello's contemporaries. Surprise and even shock cap a brisk spin through dangerous mental terrain leaving audiences intrigued. Director Slava Stepnov joined three one-acters using the author's own statements about his art, delivered engagingly by Leonardo Torres Vilar.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater Company
New Victory Theater

 The Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater Co. gives us two of the finest performance artists around (or is it "New Vaudeville?"). Garbo is a juggler, mime, clown and gymnast who has created a unique extravaganza using huge inflated cubes as his costumes and props. His partner, the stunningly beautiful Brazilian dancer Daielma Santos, does the acrobatics with him and lights up the stage with her dancing. The show, which runs at the New Victory Theater on 42nd Street, is an exposition of creative fun (for all ages) from start to finish.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Freedom Of The City, The
Lincoln Center Festival `99

 Brian Friel wrote The Freedom of the City in 1973, one year after the terrible Bloody Sunday massacre in Londonderry, in which 13 civil rights marchers were fired upon and killed by British soldiers. In his play, Friel artfully creates three unfortunate innocents: Lily (Sorcha Cusack), a mother of 11, the streetwise young Skinner (Michael Colgan), and the more serious and astute Michael (Gerald Crossan).

Diana Barth
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
French Defense, The
Abrons Arts Center at Henry Street Settlement

 The French Defense by Dimitri Raitzin is a fascinating look at a chess contest by then World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik (Robert J. D'Amato) and challenger Mikhail Tal (Daniel Hendricks Simon) in 1960. I'm not a chess player, but I was completely drawn into the drama of the contest between a champ and an annoying, insulting gadfly, and by the depth of the characterization by the actors, particularly D'Amato.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
August 2006
From Door To Door
Westside Theater - Downstairs

 Few themes in playwriting are as reliable as that of parents passing their fears, traits, customs and traditions down to their children. In capable hands, the opportunities for nostalgia and recriminations can be inexhaustible. James Sherman, who showed a sweet knack for Jewish family comedy with his Beau Jest, mines a slightly darker vein in this tale of three women and the choices they made.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
March 2004
Fuddy Meers
Minetta Lane Theater

 Now playing in an open-ended run at the Minetta Lane Theater after a smash engagement at Manhattan Theater Club, David Lindsay-Abaire's wacky look at a really dysfunctional family has charms to spare but too often falls into that pseudo-Coen Bros. funk that has marked too many comic plays of late. The tone is so bustling at times; you just wish everyone would take a Valium and get some rest. Still, this would be more of a gripe if the cast weren't so wonderful and the overall look of the play so striking (by the remarkable Santo Loquasto, no less).

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
February 2000
Fully Committed
Vineyard Theater

One of the delightful surprises of the fall season, Fully Committed, is a shining example of economical theater. The gifted Mark Setlock, playing over 30 speaking roles all by himself, and the wonderful director Nicholas Martin (Betty's Summer Vacation) create an identifiable tale of an actor-hopeful in his stress-inducing job as a receptionist at a posh Manhattan restaurant. Left to his own devices, Sam must man the phone lines all by his lonesome while a flighty co-worker is off doing something vague. The trick in this show is that the actor is the whole she-bang.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
October 1999
Further Than The Furthest Thing
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage I

 Further Than the Furthest Thing is the absolute worst kind of bad play -- the kind where you cannot imagine anyone deriving any sort of pleasure from it. An unbearably downcast, coma-inducing story by Scottish playwright Zinnie Harris, it is the latest Manhattan Theater Club production that begs the question of why anyone there ever thought it would work. It is also the latest import from the West End that transfers so poorly in America, you wonder what's in the water over there.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Further Than The Furthest Thing
Manhattan Theater Club - Stage I

 Further Than the Furthest Thing at Manhattan Theater Club is basically about moronic people in a wretched situation. It starts with incomprehensible rapid-fire chatter from Jennifer Dundas and goes to the stupidity of dropping eggs so they break -- twice. A magician/capitalist enters, and things pick up a bit, and it's "should the factory come to this primitive island?" "Local Hero" did that one a lot better. The cast of five utilize five different accents as their community rolls towards death and destruction. Not a lot of fun.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Warrior, The
Backlot Theater

 Dog-tagged, in fatigues, dragging her huge canvas sling-bag, Tammy, veteran of Desert Storm and now Iraq, suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Giselle, an old school mate (heard but not seen), is filming a documentary. Tammy's agreed to be interviewed, desperately hoping it'll help win back her daughter from her soon-to-be ex-husband. He found another woman -- just one of the terrible things that happened to Tammy when at war in Iraq.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2007
La Discreta Enamorada
Southern Methodist University - Greer Garson Theater

 Southern Methodist University mounted a student production of Vern G. Williamsen's ill-conceived translation of La Discreta Enamorada by 16th century Spanish playwright Lope de Vega, in the Greer Garson Theater. The setting was updated to 1950s Madrid. This is a review of portions of Act I -- the parts I saw when not hiding in the lobby to escape the excessive stench of on-stage smoking, at times by two characters at once who paced back and forth downstage.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2006
Labor Day
Weiss Arts Center

 Summerfun is a true summer stock theater, changing shows every week, and as a result, the product varies greatly. Labor Day is one of its best successes, featuring a good cast in a well-directed, one-set play. Obviously autobiographical in part, the Gurney piece tells the story of John, a playwright, who for forty years has achieved moderate success although never a Broadway production.

Donald Collester
Date Reviewed:
July 1999
Lady Cries Murder, The
Lamplighters Community Theater

 John William See's The Lady Cries Murder, Lamplighter's current offering, was premiered by the San Diego Rep almost 22 years ago, and it has aged well. Placed in 1938, the story is a classic detective tale of the period, cram-packed with twists. See has a special talent for the unique language of the film-noir style. The script is also rich in interesting, almost contemporary, phrases that add extra bite to the dialogue.
 

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Lady In The Dark
Prince Music Theater

 This is a sumptuous and beautiful revival of a challenging 1941 play-with-music. The timing couldn't be better, since the script includes references to "these difficult times" and national emergency. Early in the show, the troubled magazine editor, Liza Elliott, says to her psychoanalyst: "I feel ashamed to sit here whining about myself, with the world at war." The show's structure is unusual, starting cold, without music, and the scenes in Liza's office and the psychiatrist's office are straight Moss Hart dialogue.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Lady Windermere's Fan
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 Coming directly from real London theater-going to go to this play set in London but performed in Sarasota seems a trip from the sublime to the ridiculous. Director Eberle Thomas claims to have approached Wilde's comedy of manners straightforwardly, "not overly concerned about what the style of the play should be." As a result, all that seems highlighted is what's melodramatic about the plot. Exaggeration, especially in manners and vocalization, substitutes for stylization.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2006
Lady, Be Good
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

 Few musicals can match the pedigree of this 1924 classic. It has a number of "firsts," including being the first of 14 musicals written by the legendary team of George and Ira Gershwin. It also established a pair of dancers, Fred and Adele Astaire, as Broadway's leading dance team. Then there are the songs, which have become standards through the years: "Lady, Be Good," "Fascinating Rhythm," "I'd Rather Charleston" and "Nice Work if You Can Get It," among many, many others.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Language of Their Own, A
Asian American Theater Company

 An elegant John Lee design (recalling the genius of Ming Cho Lee), expertly lit by Rick Martin, sets the scene for the Asian American Theater Center's lyrical A Language Of Their Own. The quartet of this Kushner/Pinter-influenced play search for ways to express them selves by going to the ends of words, hiding within words or silence. Chay Yew's touching, talky drama about love, loss and linguistics finds its structure in solos and duets. Oftentimes circuitous and repetitious, Language reflects the Yin and Yang of life.

Larry Myers
Date Reviewed:
January 1996

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