Comedians
Samuel Beckett Theater / moved to Acorn Theater 2/5-2/23/03.

From The New Group comes a welcome revival of Trevor Griffiths' 1975 comedy-drama that uses acid to burn its way toward a surprisingly humanistic center. Eddie Waters (Jim Dale, playing kindly but with an edge) is a once- famous music-hall comic teaching a class of up-and-comers eager to get on the paying circuit.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Exonerated, The
45 Bleecker

This intensely researched script, pieced together by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen from public records and personal interviews, is as much a crusade as a drama. A bunch of A-list talent has mobilized behind the cause since this reading stage production opened in October, including Richard Dreyfuss, Jill Clayburgh, Elliott Gould, Judy Collins, Lynn Redgrave, Mia Farrow, Mary Steenburgen and Debra Winger.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Hank Williams: Lost Highway
Manhattan Ensemble Theater

You go to a play called Hank Williams: Lost Highway for the music of the legendary singer, and your favorites are all there, played live by a dynamite country band, in the production now at the Manhattan Ensemble Theater. It's all framed in a bio-entertainment that is pure bio-charm. It's a good dramatic play as well about the self-destructive life of Williams, with a fine cast, all first rate musicians, led by Jason Petty as the singer/songwriter in a recreation that is almost a reincarnation.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Bartenders
John Houseman Theater

Bartending is a classic, noble profession. You have to be everyone in one day to all strangers, you have to make everyone feel at home, welcoming and attentive, and knowledgeable and smart and fast. So says Louis Mustillo in his revelatory opus on the minds and hearts of bartenders he's known and loved.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Adult Entertainment
Variety Arts Theater

Adult Entertainment is Elaine May's hilarious spoof on the porno industry and Robin Byrd's TV show, the morons involved in it, and what happens when they start to read books and plays. It's written in May's unique comic voice, and her daughter, Jeannie Berlin, has the great dead-pan delivery of her mother. We start with comedy and segue into real humor as the porn stars delve into literature.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Amorous Ambassador, The
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

American Ambassador to England Harry Douglas (gleaming-eyed Don Walker) wants to use his weekend country home to rendevous with sexy neighbor Marian (sophisticated Alison Dietz) while his wife Lois (Jenny Aldrich, so lovely you wonder why her hubbie would stray) visits a spa. Little does amorous Harry know, when he solicits butler Perkins (Ron Halvorsen, veddy proper) to be "the soul of discretion," that Perkins has just made the same promise to Debbie Douglas.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Boston Marriage
Public Theater

A note on the just-closed Boston Marriage by David Mamet: This attempt at a 19th-Century comedy of manners dotted with deliberate anachronisms is Mamet's shot at Wilde, and it wildly misses. Occasional humorous quip aside, this style experiment falls short, as does the acting of Kate Burton. She says all the lines quite clearly, but her foil, Martha Plimpton, does better (the latter also has an inner life for her character).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Crowns
Second Stage Theater

Crowns is an exhilarating evening of music and message. Emblazoned around the edge of the proscenium is the following credo: "OUR CROWNS HAVE BEEN BOUGHT AND PAID FOR: ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS WEAR THEM." The "crowns" are hats that the women in this all-black cast wear with pride, dignity, steely determination and a healthy dose of pure vanity! Through them, an entire culture is revealed, as is the psyche of the women wearing them. "We are queens and these are our crowns" they proudly state.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Def Poetry Jam On Broadway
Longacre Theater

They're young, they're vibrant, they're full of words and ideas, and, for the most part, they're a treat to watch as they share their thoughts about food, sex, womanhood, machismo and race. Considering that Def Poetry Jam is a Broadway show, the level of anger expressed at the American government's policies is also heartening, if occasionally misplaced or put in far too black-vs.-white terms.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
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
Hank Williams: Lost Highway
Manhattan Ensemble Theater

Country & Western star Hank Williams, one of our country's most dynamic and influential singer/songwriters, established his reputation and influence in only five years. He cut his first single, "Move It On Over," in 1946, at the age of 23, had his first of many hits "Lovesick Blues" and his spectacular Grand Ole Opry debut two years later. Death claimed him, the victim of painkillers and alcohol, in the back seat of his car en route to a concert New Year's Eve, at the age of 29.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
December 2002
Acts of Providence
Sande Shurin Theater

Acts of Providence, two one acts by Edward Allen Baker, a strong writer with a good ear, is an intriguing evening of theater. The first play, Jane's Exchange, sets up a fascinating mystery about the relationships among four people in the kitchen of a bakery. The four actors, Amorika Amoroso, Joe Capozzi, Julie Karlin and the scintillating Tonya Cornelisse fulfill their roles perfectly, and Russell Treyz directs this engaging, fully satisfying piece with verve.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Annie
Paper Mill Playhouse

Leapin' Lizards! Can it really be time for another revival of Annie? The Paper Mill is reminding us that this is the musical's 25th anniversary. Although it seems like yesterday, it has been 19 years since the Paper Mill last staged the musical that ran five-and-a-half years on Broadway.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Betty Rules: The Exception to the Musical
Zipper Theater

Girls with electric guitars - even after Chrissie Hynde, Heart, the Bangles, etc. - it's still a relatively rare and empowering sight. So when Elizabeth Ziff cranks up her Gibson and giraffe-like Alyson Palmer thumps her thumb to the bass, there's a gusto and freedom present that goes beyond just the basic energy you get from hearing rock and roll. BETTY Rules follows the 17- year history of the New York trio, sisters Elizabeth and Amy and their partner in harmony, Alyson.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Book of Days
Signature Theater Company at Peter Norton Space

Lanford Wilson's best play in ages makes you feel like he's picked up a rock in Our Town and looked for what crawleth underneath. Dublin, Missouri seems like an idyllic American town, with good Christian folk going about their business, which includes tolerating the local theatrical production of Saint Joan and rooting for the son of the town's most successful businessman, a cheese maker, to make something of himself.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Debbie Does Dallas
Jane Street Theater

Debbie Does Dallas is hilarious. The satirical little musical at the Jane Street Theater about five nitwit cheerleaders, led by Debbie, who want to go to Dallas to cheer for the Dallas Cowboys, is entertaining from start to finish. It has the funniest choreography in town, by Jennifer Cody, marvelous idiotic performances by the girls, who never cross the line into actual pornography, fine comic support by the three men who play many roles, and some of the most brilliant comic timing and direction in town by Erica Schmidt.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2002
Antony and Cleopatra
Connelly Theater

Shakespeare with a Bollywood overlay makes this Antony and Cleopatra unique. Director Rebecca Patterson slips in Indian music, costumes, and above all, dance, but Shakespeare's text is thankfully untouched. As always, The Queen's Company puts a multi-ethnic, all-women cast to the task, and the result is both professional and believable. A lot of thought and practice must have gone into preparing principal male characters such as Mark Antony (DeeAnn Weir) or Pompey (Aysan Celik).

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Butter And Egg Man, The
Atlantic Theater

There are entertaining moments in The Butter and Egg Man, but you can see clearly why George S. Kaufman joined with other writers in his subsequent works. There are good gags in this play about a novice going into showbusiness, and clever lines, but it's a creaky antique that doesn't work anymore.

In act two director David Pittu has everybody shouting, but that doesn't engage us as we are asked to identify with a lucky idiot. John Ellison Conlee's acting gives the play a better balance towards the end, but "the play's the thing" -- and this ain't it.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Bailey
Theatrx

It was first-timer Bailey Warner, playing the title role in Bailey, who stole the show, upstaging seasoned talents Sam and Cheryl Warner. Bailey was a bouncing beauty. While her dialogue was limited, her charming smile ruled. After the show I took her into my arms and congratulated her (she's next scheduled for a role in Theatrx's upcoming version of The Nutcracker.) By then Bailey will be a seasoned performer at the age of five and a half months.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Call the Children Home
Primary Stages

Late in this rousing musical, Eugene Fleming, as "Professor," the loyal piano player in Madame Mary's New Orleans Bordello, concludes, "I'll finish my opera, got lots of material now" and, indeed, there is almost too much material in the late Thomas Babe's over-ambitious "libretto" for Call the Children Home. However, while the book reeks of operatic-style melodrama, it serves the music, and luckily so.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Carousel
Carnegie Hall

Possibly the most-anticipated event of the Richard Rodgers centennial year was the gala concert performance of the composer's favorite show, Carousel. It was great to hear a big orchestra playing this rich score, to see the original Billy Bigelow, John Raitt, introduce the evening and share a bow with Hugh Jackman at the end, and to enjoy fine performances by an all-star cast. There was, however, some disappointment. Leonard Slatkin led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a brisk reading, with few expressive ritards.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Exonerated, The
45 Bleecker

No matter how good the writing, shows that have actors reading scripts from lecterns require an extra level of patience from audiences and start to wear out their welcome quickly after the first hour, mainly because of the lack of design elements and movement. Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's The Exonerated is no different, even though Tom Ontiveros's varied spotlighting is nicely done, and the play offers gripping, real-life, in-their-own-words stories of wrongly-convicted people who spent years on death row until DNA or other new evidence cleared their names.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Harlem Song
Apollo Theater

Harlem Song at The Apollo on 125th Street, written and directed by George C. Wolfe, mixes a fascinating photographic history of Harlem with narrative (by older long-time residents) and musical numbers, some of which are splashy and some balladic, all derivative. The show is uneven -- another clear example that a writer generally shouldn't direct his own show. The first two numbers are bland; the fun starts about ten minutes in when David St. Louis, dressed in white, comes down the steps, and tap dancers enter and lift our spirits.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2002
Burn This
Union Square Theater

Watchable but not especially rewarding revival of Lanford Wilson's tale of a grieving woman finding solace in hot nookie with a vaguely dangerous asshole.

I was lucky enough to see the original production, with John Malkovich torching the stage indelibly, albeit to the detriment of the love story's credibility—i.e., what did Joan Allen's Anna see in him? With Edward Norton's funnier, greasier turn, Pale's tantrums are more childlike and less overtly threatening, though there's still an oil-and-vinaigrette taste to their twosome.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Burn This
Union Square Theater

There's a little deja-vu in Signature Theater's revival of Lanford Wilson's 1987 play, Burn This, for those who have recently seen Broadway's Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune, another romance between two diametrically opposite characters. Anna (Catherine Keener) is soft, naive, introspective and sensitive. Her unlikely paramour, Pale (Edward Norton), is bombastic—a cursing, drinking, drug-taking emotional bulldozer.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Burn This
Union Square Theater

This review of the current revival of Lanford Wilson's Burn This comes in two parts: What it is and what it could (and perhaps should) be. First, the opening half hour of expositional chatter among a former dancer, her gay roommate and her boyfriend as they relive the funeral of a third roommate who, with his boyfriend, perished in a boating accident, is static, boring, without style or energy, poorly cast and directed (by James Houghton).

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Guys, The
Flea Theater

The Guys employs a simple but very effective premise: a woman penning eulogies for firemen killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks asks their captain for details about his lost men. Also, to break up the solemn q&a, the interviewer breaks into the occasional poignant, personal solilquy. Even a year after the bombings, Anne Nelson's chamber drama has the feeling of theater-as-therapy, an act not of political questioning or outrage (as was Reno's recent solo), but of communal mourning.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Boys from Syracuse, The
American Airlines Theater

Though forever overshadowed by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rogers and Hart were as delightful a duo as ever concocted musicals for the Broadway stage. Where the later team dealt in lushness, epic themes, and emotional upheavals, the earlier duo found greatness in zest, cheery wit, and melodies so easy, only a muse could have penned them. If the Roundabout’s revival of The Boys from Syracuse looks a little slapdash, it sounds nifty, thanks to a cast of Broadway pros who can play goofy characters and still sing—formidably—for their supper.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune
Belasco Theater

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune takes one of the oldest staples of playwriting - the first date - and grills up two hours of negotiations, neuroses, desires, and regrets. Familiar territory, but the humor is relatively fresh, from F & J's convincingly frank sexual jousting to Johnny's emotional neediness that swings between endearing and borderline scary.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
All Over
Gramercy Theater

Edward Albee's 1971 play, All Over, about a family and friends waiting for the patriarch to die, is full of exposition, some of it interesting. As directed by Emily Mann, the piece consists mainly of old- fashioned, careful declarations by the highly professional performers, with everybody ACTING, and no real conversations. Emotional risings and occasional laughings are carefully stitched into the proceedings, and good, bright lines do pop up, but even if some of the stories told are engaging, a play that is almost all exposition tends to be static and boring.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Antony and Cleopatra
American Players Theater

Spring Green, WI, lies in a particularly beautiful section of the state. For 23 years, audiences have waited for the summer opening of American Players Theater, which makes its home in Spring Green. APT offers a rotating repertory of plays in its outdoor amphitheater. Most of its season typically consists of Shakespeare's plays. The two initial offerings this season consist of Antony and Cleopatra (see TotalTheater Criticopia review) and The Taming of the Shrew.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Barbara Cook: Mostly Sondheim
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Grant Barbara Cook a little leeway with her titles; "Mostly Sondheim" is really half Stephen Sondheim and half songs this great composer/lyricist wishes he'd written -- and grant her a few minutes to get comfy with the Vivian Beaumont stage (she claims to love the space but spends her opening number swiveling like a sprinkler head), and you'll be treated to an evening of fine, sometimes moving singing.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Endpapers
Variety Arts Theater

There are 11 different characters in Thomas McCormack's comedy-drama Endpapers, and, most astoundingly, they're played by 11 different actors. And no, it's not a musical. In an age when playwrights daren't pen anything with more than a half-dozen roles in it (because producers won't produce anything with more than a pocketful of Equity salaries attached to it) we're reminded of just how much breathing room a full-size cast gives a dramatist.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Endpapers
Variety Arts Theater

The moment you sit down in the Variety Arts Theater for Endpapers and encounter the marvelous set by Neil Patel, you feel you're going to see something special -- and it all is. Thomas McCormack is a smart writer who really knows his subject: the world of publishing. The play is full of insights, high humor and thoughts that reach the corners of your mind. The premise is that the patriarch of a publishing company is dying. Who will succeed him? We learn a lot about the underpinnings of this world while we are thoroughly entertained.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
July 2002
Aida
Forrest Theater

Disney's Aida is a visually stunning show, and this road production looks almost the same as the Broadway original. The sun-drenched oranges, reds and pinks and the sparkling stars in the dark night sky are beautiful and exotic. If only Elton John's score had as much luster. John clearly is trying to expand his range. "Easy as Life" is a worthy dramatic monologue, "The Gods Love Nubia" is a stirring anthem, and "Like Father Like Son" is a dramatic argument that advances the plot while rousing us. But most of the rest is conventional rock.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Barbra's Wedding
Plays & Players Theater

As Barbra's Wedding begins, a wife prepares an elaborate pie for her husband, who could not possibly care less. It's playwright Daniel Stern's way of letting us know this marriage is in trouble. But it also illustrates the play's flaws. The scene goes on endlessly, as neither the character nor the author knows when to change gears. And the husband never makes an effort to sample his wife's creation, let alone show his appreciation for her effort, thereby losing a chance to reveal shades of gray in his persona and thus losing audience sympathy for his character.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Capitol Steps: When Bush Comes to Shove
John Houseman Theater

n December, 1981, a group of White House staffers planned a Christmas Party with song parodies and skits about current political headlines. Several administrations later, now known as "Capitol Steps," the group has made several albums and tours the country making fun of the very people who employ them. New York is lucky to have them for a few weeks.

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Cooper Savage
West End Theater

There's so much to admire about Bash Halow's Cooper Savage, it takes a slight trepidation to report that the play never quite works. Halow is obviously going for a hailstorm of themes: Southern family dysfunction, budding sexuality, self-image issues, the appeal of a possibly dangerous drifter. But all these tantalizing ideas never coalesce into one solid production. Only in the fragments can an audience see the possibility of what could have been.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Endpapers
Variety Arts Theater

What could be more reassuring and satisfying to a playwright than to have his first full-length play turn out to be quite good? That playwright Thomas McCormack happens to be 70 years old may, at first, sound astonishing but not when you discover that his play is drawn from a world he knows intimately. Isn't that what everyone tells us to write about?

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Annie Get Your Gun
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

Whoopee for the Golden Apple's respecting the great Irving Berlin by doing all the music and words that he wrote for Annie Get Your Gun. Recent p.c. "revisalizers" would have us deprived of the very funny "I'm an Indian Too" and the "Indian Ceremonial" Dance that's a choreographic high point in Golden Apple's production. Luckily, we even get the clever "Old Fashioned Wedding" that Berlin wrote for a 1966 revival.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2002

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