Glass Menagerie, The
Ethel Barrymore Theater

 The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a good show. Really. Quite good. Despite a total misconception in the production by director David Leveaux, and some of the worst lighting I've ever seen on Broadway (by Natasha Katz - who is usually one of the best). The play itself and most of the cast provide us with a satisfying, moving evening of theater.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Glengarry Glen Ross
Bernard B. Jacobs

 Oh Boy! Want to see a demonstration of how good, how vivid real acting can be? Check out Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet's dazzling drama now revived on Broadway. It's the most exciting acting ensemble in town. Alan Alda will give you a lesson on how to do a nuanced monologue - his encounters as a nervous, failing, older salesman with the very controlled Frederick Weller as his supervisor are like a mongoose darting at a cobra. The nervous energy Gordon Clapp exudes as he tries to con the stolid Jeffrey Tambor into a crime is full pf prickly tingles.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2005
Goat, The
John Golden Theater

 It's as if producer Max Bialystock is back in business, trying to mount a comedy about a subject so gross, the play will have to close after one performance. Credit Edward Albee for choosing an inconceivable plot, writing about a man who has sex with a goat and making us care about him. Not only that; Albee has written perhaps the wittiest of all his plays. Bill Pullman and Mercedes Ruehl are an apparently-happy married couple with a relatively normal gay son. Pullman is a world-famous architect, on top of the world at age 50.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Goat, The
John Golden Theater

If you know the play's big secret, that spares you watching the first half hour, so here it is: the lead character, a successful architect and family man, confesses to a friend he's in love with a goat. The next hour shows his wife and gay son screaming at and insulting him while he tries to explain why. The last twenty minutes features a father-son reconciliation of sorts, and a wife who exacts revenge.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
March 2002
Goat, The
John Golden Theater

 What can you say about a play that makes you feel sympathy with a goatfucker? If you're offended by that word, don't go to the Golden and watch a brilliantly funny, deadly serious play that so provokes the audience to genuine moral reflection that, night after night, much of the crowd lingers under the marquee for a long, long time -- just talking it over. The Goat is that good.

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
June 2002
Good Body, The
Booth Theater

 Eve Ensler is funny as a writer, performer, and philosopher, with universal deeply felt insights that go beyond comedy. She's sometimes hilarious but with depths that plumb the heart and consciousness. The Good Body explores being overweight -- with a Southern fat woman - and she gives us an 80-year-old Cosmo woman, a pierced lesbian, a Puerto Rican girl, a wife with an unsatisfactory sex life getting her vagina tightened, a high-fashion model, Botox, and a coda with an Indian summing up her "You're Okay!" philosophy.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2004
Good Vibrations
Eugene O'Neill Theater

 A quick view of Act One of Good Vibrations, the Beach Boys musical on Broadway: shallow, inane book by Richard Dresser; great set by Heidi Ettinger; some good singing voices; boring, unengaging. Director/choreographer John Carrafa's work had no dynamic in it. We escaped at intermission.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
February 2005
Gore Vidal's The Best Man

 (see Criticopia review(s) under "Best Man, The")

Graduate, The
Plymouth Theater

 Okay, regarding what all you've heard about The Graduate: it's only half-true. Yes, Kathleen Turner bares all. Yes, the show often bastardizes Mike Nichols' benchmark counterculture motion picture. And yes, the cast is wildly uneven and, in one case, downright awful. But it seems to me the shuddering cold response by critics operates on a decidedly pro-American bias, almost as if to say, "How on earth could this be a hit in (gasp!) London!" (Let's also not forget that many American productions are now heading there, not vice versa lately).

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Graduate, The
Plymouth Theater

 Though not the disaster most critics have tagged it, this is still a curious production, one that retains some of the classic film's humor but feels utterly divorced from context or meaning, despite the between-scene snippets of `60s pop.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Graduate, The
Plymouth Theater

 The Graduate is a hoot. Kathleen Turner's star turn is in the best Bankhead mode, and her impeccable timing brings a heartfelt laugh to every punchline in this fun-from-start-to-finish comedy. We know what's going to happen in this tale of seduction and first love, and this play's success is all in the telling. Adapted and directed by Terry Johnson, with a brilliant sense of what real comedy is, and long knowledge of whom to cast in the leads, the show totally succeeds.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2002
Grease!
Eugene O'Neill Theater

 Well, I thought it was going to be fun. After a pre-show warm up by a smarmy, lip-synching dee-jay, Miss Lynch waddles to the stage as a prim but lovable homeroom teacher, bantering with the audience and getting laughs just by fixing her widened eyes on a "student" and devastating him with a shocked exclamation of "GUM???" But all too soon, the amps kick on and Grease! becomes the equivalent of a transistor radio on the beach: loud, canned-sounding, and too staticky to entertain. Authors/composers Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey tap into 50's nostalgia, but they do so witlessly.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
May 1994
Green Bird, The
Cort Theater

 Julie Taymor is the kind of theatrical inventor that prompts people to say things like, "She throws in everything but the kitchen sink." Well, her latest concoction (actually a revival, this was staged at the New Victory in 1996), The Green Bird, actually features a kitchen sink. And toilets. And naked women. And swing dancing. And much more, leaving one with the impression that nothing is disposable in eyes of the gifted Taymor. This is both her greatest curse and blessing. On the one hand, it tends to clutter her productions and distract from their initial intentions.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
April 2000
Grey Gardens
Walter Kerr Theater

 If you're a Christine Ebersole fanatic, or if you harbor an unquenchable curiosity for all things even peripherally Kennedy, you may be able to work up some genuine enthusiasm for this dreary, static adaptation of the Maysles Brothers' documentary, "Grey Gardens." Not qualifying on either count, I found myself questioning the critical kudos.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2008
Gypsy
Sam S. Shubert

 So how's Bernadette? That question has surely taken on more meanings than the producers of the current Gypsy revival intended. Of course, everyone wants to know how Bernadette Peters stands up to the memories of Merman and Lansbury (and, for some, Tyne Daly). But Peters' numerous health-related absences ended up giving the question a more urgent slant -- will she be playing tonight or will her understudy be offering "Rose's Turn," "Some People," and the numerous other classics Mama Rose belts as she fights for her daughters' careers?

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Gypsy
Sam S. Shubert

 Bernadette Peters herself is a great theatrical experience, and in the current Gypsy on Broadway she brings a vulnerability as well as the strength and power of Mama Rose to her performance. Directed by Sam Mendes, it's a very entertaining, imaginative production, a tuneful treat with strong dramatic content, lively Sondheim lyrics, hummable music by Jule Styne, book by Arthur Laurents.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2003
Razorback
Theatre Theater

 The formula that draws youthful audiences to the movies today -- extreme violence interspersed with raunchy wisecracks -- has been tapped by John Pollono in the writing of his new play, Razorback, now in its world premiere run at Theatre Theater. A lurid melodrama filled with killings, profanity and jokes, Razorback drew laughter and cheers from those in attendance on opening night, most of whom seemed were in their twenties.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
September 2008
Hairspray
Neil Simon Theater

 Harvey Fierstein in a jumbo housedress and croaking his trademark "Hellaaaooh" is already enough reason to see any show he's in, so it's a hair-hopping pleasure to report that his current vehicle, Hairspray, adapted from John Waters' break-out commercial film, boasts a half-dozen other reasons for its instant hit-dom. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's punchline-filled lyrics hit the mark often enough to keep our ears on ever-perk, matched as they are to Shaiman's intentionally-derivative but buoyant tunes ("Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now" being the catchiest).

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
August 2002
Hairspray
Neil Simon Theater

 Cute and cartoon-y, a campy, cardboard comedy with heart, this bouncy, bubble-gum bauble is already a favorite among those whose entertainment requirements are non-cerebral. Marissa Jaret Winokur as Tracy is every tubby teen's heroine as she blithely blitzes through weight-related insults and stereotypical barriers to achieve her dreams in remarkably short succession: to dance on the local TV's "The Corny Collins Show" (Clarke Thorell) and steal the beauty queen's (pouty Laura Bell Bundy) hunky beau (Mathew Morrison).

Jeannie Lieberman
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Hairspray
Neil Simon Theater

 Your scribe was not permitted to see this amazing show for weeks and months. It had opened while I was still in Europe, before what used to be the Opening of the Broadway Season. By the time I returned, it was already so smothered with raves n' honors that - or so I was repeatedly told - the producers didn't need a website rave. Fortunately, I am (as non-recording Secretary of the Outer Critics Circle) an Awards Nominator and a Voter. Not to overlook also being a Voter for the Drama Desk Awards. So, shortly before the nominations, I suddenly got aisle-seats for this fabulous musical.

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
March 2003
Hedda Gabler
Ambassador Theater

 Everybody's favorite female monster is back on Broadway in a new translation by Jon Robin Baitz (Three Hotels), and none other than Richard Burton's capable daughter Kate playing the lead role. One of the unlikeliest of Broadway offerings, this Hedda Gabler is much like the bold, reptilian woman who bears the name: crafty and admirable but chilly and distant, making this well-mounted affair ultimately an exercise in futility.

Jason Clark
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Hedda Gabler
Ambassador Theater

 I've never understood why Hedda Gabler is considered one of the most interesting and complicated heroines in dramatic literature. She always comes off as a capricious, cruel viper without being decent enough to evoke sympathy or vivid enough to cast an Iago-like fascination. Nicholas Martin's current Broadway revival of Ibsen's drama, while solid and lively, does little to make the play a grabber for our times.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Hedda Gabler
Ambassador Theater

 The current production of Hedda Gabler, in a lively adaptation by Jon Robin Baitz, is a peculiar mixture: the play, as usual, starts off with so much exposition that it tends to bore. Then a gushing, very fey, Michael Emerson bursts in as Tesman, a mode he retains throughout the play, tilting all in a novel direction.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Hedda Gabler
Ambassador Theater

 Plays in translation are bastard stepchildren of the originals, especially when the version presented is written by someone who cannot, and thus never has, read the original. I don't read Norwegian any more than Jon Robin Baitz does, but I have spent enough time in Norway, with Norwegian friends, and with direct translations of Ibsen plays, to know that Hedda is a peculiarly Norwegian type. (Buy me a drink and I'll tell you about the time, many years ago, when two local amazons abducted me off a railway bridge in Oslo, until they, both in their 20s, learned I was underage.

David L. Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Henry IV
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

 Jack O'Brien, whose fluid, almost dreamlike direction of Stoppard's The Invention of Love nearly shook that drama out of its ivory-tower lethargy brings the same sense of style to Shakespeare - and here he even gets to have battle scenes, hold-ups, tavern carousing and a coronation. For all the legitimate excitement of the production, it should be noted that not much really happens in the first two hours(!), and that fine as the work by adapter Dakin Matthews is (he cobbled the two Henry plays into one), the piece does feel every bit of its 230 minutes.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
December 2003
High Fidelity
Imperial Theater

 The musical, High Fidelity, based on Nick Hornby's novel, has closed. I liked it. Even though the problems and concerns of the record store owner, played by a charismatic, charming leading man, Will Chase, are naive and simplistic, the show, a mixture of 70's and contemporary sensibility, was a lot of fun. Amanda Green has the gift, and I found her lyrics to be clever and full of humor.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
December 2006
High Fidelity
Imperial Theater

 Centering on the belated maturation of vinyl record shop owner Rob (Will Chase), David Lindsay-Abaire's script for High Fidelity had the misfortune of sporting a recurring Top 5 theme. The Times critic took aim at this irritating tick and enshrined the show among a makeshift list of Top 5 "All-Time Most Forgettable Musicals."

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
January 2007
History Boys, The
Broadhurst Theater

 What a pleasure to be in the presence of the product of a sparklingly brilliant mind. Alan Bennett's The History Boys is full of wit and wisdom in his construct of an English boy's school presented as an intellectual swordfight with musical interludes and film clips. It is so smart, it is thrilling.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Hollywood Arms
Cort Theater

 There's an old saying: "Shoemaker, stick to your last." Remember when Michael Jordan tried to play baseball? Carol Burnett wrote a play (with her daughter), Hollywood Arms, now on Broadway. Sorry. She's a great performer. The acting, by Linda Lavin, Michele Pawk and Frank Wood, is fine, but you also know the one about a silk purse...

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Hollywood Arms
Cort Theater

 Creaky and unfocused, this semi-autobiographical play by Carol Burnett and her late daughter, Carrie Hamilton, has stretches of entertaining humor and believable familial squabbles, but its parade of short scenes and lack of dramatic thrust take their toll early. Not bad (Burnett should definitely write another), just incredibly familiar stuff. Think of it as a weak, third-generation Brighton Beach Memoirs, and then see something else instead.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
November 2001
Hot Feet
Hilton Theater

 Hot Feet, ultimately a rather good dance show conceived, directed and choreographed by Maurice Hines, throws us off by an over-zealous opening of dancers wigglin', jigglin', jumpin' and humpin' like really good cheerleaders with colorful Arabian Nights costumes (by Paul Tazewell). But a lot of it can be seen every weekend for free at Broadway and 50th Street. It takes a while for us to realize that they are doing a version of The Red Shoes and that there is a coherent show here.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2006
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Hilton Theater

 Jack O'Brien's lively creation, Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas is a bundle of familiar family fun with a great singing-dancing cast of grownups and kids, including a couple of stars: John Cullum as the Old Dog who tells the story, and the gruff, lovable Patrick Page as The Grinch.

Directed by Matt August, the tuner has an "Alice in Wonderland" feeling with stylized moves and bouncy choreography by John DeLuca and whimsical cartoonish costumes by Robert Morgan played on John Lee Beatty's fanciful set.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
November 2006
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
Richard Rodgers Theater

 A secretary may not be a toy, but if you're Des McAnuff, a Broadway show is. McAnuff and designer John Arnone go all-out to turn this revival of How To Succeed into something out of FAO Schwartz -- all movement, eye-popping colors, sound and silliness. That it works, mmm.. 90% of the time, is a credit first and foremost to Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock & Willie Gilbert's miraculous book, one which, even played perfectly straight, could only offend the most humorless feminists.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
January 1996
Eyes Of Love, The
Producers Club Theater - II

 This is a shrink play. Three black, faux-leather swivel chairs become the offices of two analysts: level-headed Kathryn Brooks (Linda West) and earnest Mark Ryan (Thomas F. Honeck). Mark accepts an emergency call from volatile Annalisa Dominico, who is having boyfriend trouble. She pours out her problems to Mark, who in turn airs them with his own shrink, Kathryn. Annalisa has rapid-fire oscillations in her relationship with Anthony Fatima (Frank Caruso), to whom she is as addicted as to her cell phone.

David Lipfert
Date Reviewed:
May 2000
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
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
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
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

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