“Wit” shows power of intellect to preserve one’s humanity in face of death

The irony of Vivian Bearing, a profession of John Donne’s poetry, fighting a futile battle against Ovarian cancer, is caught in Donne’s most famous work, “Death be not proud.” It is a challenge that says mortals will cheat death through eternal life. Pulling an IV pole or sitting in a hospital bed, a red baseball cap covering a scalp made bald from chemotherapy, Cynthia Nixon is cynical and acerbic as the 47-year-old professor. She expertly portrays this unflinching woman’s struggle to keep her soul.

“The Road to Mecca” explores women’s self-fulfillment in conservative culture

Playwright Athol Fugard is most known for distilling into intimate personal stories the physical and spiritual struggles against apartheid in South Africa. In this engrossing play he plies the same theme, but this time it’s not about blacks and coloreds, but about women and non-conformists. A society that keeps the former in thrall will without too much difficulty stomp on the latter. And Fugard asserts that they have to fight back as much as the racial victims.

Comic “Chinglish” tells how translating culture is about more than language

David Henry Hwang’s “Chinglish” is a highly improbable but entertaining diversion about a U.S. sign-company owner from Cleveland who goes to China to persuade government tourism officials that they need better translations. For example, “Deformed men’s toilet” doesn’t quite cut it for “handicapped men’s toilet.” The play benefits from comic, fast-paced direction by Leigh Silverman.

Sondheim’s “Follies” elegantly dramatizes showgirls’ bad choices

Eric Schaeffer’s moving, elegant production of “Follies” is dramatic proof of Steven Sondheim’s brilliance – the subtle combination of emotional focus and scintillating musical panache and wit. It is said best by the show’s name, “Follies,” which has a double meaning. It refers to the high-kicking vaudeville show the women of the show danced in their youths and to the foolish decisions of human beings. The book is by James Goldman, who is perfectly attuned to Sondheim’s sensibility.

May, Allen and Coen depict the weird, funny, and bizarre of families in “Relatively Speaking”

Weird is relative, you might say about the characters in these three rather bizarre comedies about relatives as a connecting theme. The self-involvement of a wife when her husband dies, the revelations set off by a couple who flee a wedding at which one was to be wed, the impact of marital conflict on an unborn son, everything turns on the unexpected, which of course is what makes memorable comedy.

“Blood and Gifts” a vivid portrait of disastrous U.S. policy in Afghanistan in the 80s

In the mid-1980s I went to Peshawar on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan to write about the war between the Russians and Afghans going on across the divide. It all came rushing back during J.T. Rogers’ gripping theatrical docudrama of what went wrong then (and it was virtually all wrong) with American policy in Afghanistan.

“Anything Goes” with a spectacular, jazzy Sutton Foster is “The Top”

Sutton Foster’s performance in Cole Porter’s frivolous, sophisticated “Anything Goes” glitters as much as the gold sequins on her clothes. She is one of the great musical actresses of our day, and she has a field day showing it in this 1934 musical, featuring a scintillating score with, in addition to the title song, numbers such as “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “Easy to Love,” and “It’s De-lovely.” Porter’s music and lyrics are still unmatched for invoking the spirit of light-hearted romance.

“Private Lives” is Coward’s clever, sexy, charming take on the impossibility of love

Cynical and romantic, Noël Coward manages to be both in this charming pas de quatre about the impossibility of love. And this was in 1930!

Two couples find their honeymoons in the south of France held hostage to the marriage that one of each duo had with the other five years before. Might not be a problem, except the sparks that ignited the earlier romance have not been quenched. In fact, it doesn’t take much for the smoldering embers to ignite.

“Queen of the Mist” is a powerful musical about a gutsy woman

Mary Testa is thrilling in Michael John LaChiusa’s cantata about the true-life Anna Edson Taylor, a gutsy, idiosyncratic woman who in 1901 went over Niagara Falls in an oak barrel she had designed. She was 63, had an overwhelming sense of self and saw this as the defining moment to prove there was “greatness” in her.

“Fragments” shows Beckett’s chiaroscuro mood interpreted by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne

Loneliness and inhumanity are the themes of stark but elegant conception by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne of a pastiche of Beckett mood pieces designed for Brook’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. They are dark and yet sometimes comical, as if one should not take the dreariness to seriously, a combination of Commedia dell’ Arte and Mime, with an acting team at the top of its form. They show happiness and unhappiness dependent on oneself and on circumstances and on how one uses those circumstances.

Maureen McGovern whips up a tasty brew of jazz and politics at Birdland

I saw Maureen McGovern at Birdland, the iconic jazz club on West 44th Street in New York. It always amazes me to hear her smooth mix of jazzy, a soupçon of folk, and lyrics that are as smartly political as they get. These are not the standards you might expect at a cabaret. At 61, McGovern channels the 60s and 70s, and her rendition of the Beatles “When I’m 64″ is the best I’ve ever heard. She presents an ethereal version of “Up, Up and Away” (“Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon.”) She also conveys a feminist idiom: “A woman is a fighter, a mighty force of nature.” On the folk side of the era, this very versatile performer does a powerful “If I Had a Hammer” (“The Hammer Song”), noting that “Pete Seeger has always been a hero of mine.” And McGovern has long been a favorite of mine.

“Dublin by Lamplight” a fine fantastical play about Irish nationalists

Michael West’s play is a charming, stylized, fantastical imagining of a Dublin theater troop that gets caught up in the Irish independence movement over a hundred years ago. It tells the story of some actors’ efforts to found the Irish National Theatre of Ireland and the conflicts and dangers that arise because some of them are also committed to “the Cause.”

“The Select (The Sun Also Rises)” an entertaining parody of Ernest Hemingway’s novel

The Elevator Repair Company’s often entertaining, sometimes puzzling parody of Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel was maybe not intended to be the second. But the production, which cuts but doesn’t change a word of the book, makes one wonder how anyone could have taken Hemingway seriously. Or maybe that’s a result of this hokey presentation of Hemingway’s lines.

Mark Rylance gives brilliant performance in pretentious play “Jerusalem”

I hated this play by English playwright and film director Jez Butterworth. Yes I know it got plaudits and awards, but I thought it was pretentious drivel. The friend I took also hated it. Lest you think that was just an off night, her friend who attended at another time hated it. Nevertheless it was so powerfully acted by Mark Rylance and so vividly directed by Ian Rickson that we were annoyed and even angry, but never bored.

Riveting “Master Class” shows Maria Callas dominating music but not her own life

Maria Callas’ brilliance, as articulated by her dazzling stand-in Tyne Daly, was as much about discipline and courage, presence and presentation, as about hitting the right notes. Playwright Terrence McNally shows that through an imagined master class Callas gives late in her career. Working with students, she focuses on what makes a great star rather than a skilled performer. But McNally also creates a feminist parable of a woman who sold her soul for the lifestyle offered by a billionaire.

“Measure for Measure” is vivid staging of Shakespeare’s commentary on sex and hypocrisy

In a fascinating and occasionally lurid take on sex and hypocrisy — as current as it ever was five centuries past — The Public Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” opens with horned demons slithering around stage. They will appear again at a bordello and elsewhere. Suddenly, a cover is pulled off a mound on a bed and horrific creatures scamper off, leaving the Duke of Vienna (Lorenzo Pisoni) awake and distraught at his sexual fantasies.

“Baby it’s You!” a fascinating and entertaining feminist juke box musical

This is a terrific feminist juke box musical. It is based on the true story of Florence Greenberg (Beth Leavel), a New Jersey housewife who discovered the Shirelles, four Passaic, NJ, high school coeds, who she would make into a major singing group. She would, in the process, move to Manhattan, shed her traditional husband and take up with a young song writer. This was in 1958, before feminism became a mass movement. Also before Motown, before the Beatles. The visionary Flo and pop music would never be the same.

Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well” shows women winning the war of the sexes

This is a Shakespeare sex play. Didn’t know he did those, did you? The playbill for the production has a cover that says, “Shakespeare in bed.” And the comic Reg Rogers, whose signature style of exaggerated and plosive speech makes him recognizable anywhere, delivers a long near-tirade to the play’s heroine, Helena (the generally cool and often hot and always excellent Annie Parisse) about the importance of getting rid of one’s virginity.

“Born Yesterday” is a funny skewering of crooked capitalists and politicians

Garson Kanin’s 1946 comedy is a delightfully clever political romp which pits a crooked businessman and a bought U.S. Senator against a supposedly dumb kept woman who gives everyone a civics lesson while taking the bad guys down a few notches.

“The Motherf**ker with the Hat” is a classy, funny, grungy tale of underclass betrayal

Stephen Adly Guirgis’ play is a very funny, ironic, grungy and cautionary tale where four-letter words, sex and betrayal are mixed in equal parts in the down and dirty milieu of New York City drug addicts and their relatives and friends. It starts at a residential hotel in Times Square. Jackie (Bobby Cannavale), just out of jail and on parole, is ready to take up again with his sweetheart Veronica (Elizabeth Rodriguez), but then he notices a man’s hat on a bedroom table.

“The House of Blue Leaves” is stunning dark comedy of illusion and delusion

John Guare’s 1970 dark comedy, in a brilliant revival by David Cromer, shifts between humor and tragedy as it traces the path that links illusion to delusion. As one morphs into the other, the differences appear increasingly subtle.

“The People in the Picture” a tour de force for Donna Murphy as Jewish actor in wartime Poland

It was 1935 Warsaw, and a small traveling troop of Jewish actors were playing the “shtetl circuit,” as they half affectionately, half mockingly called it. They did vaudeville, they did Shakespeare, they did the Bible. Raisel (Donna Murphy) as Moses’ wife: “You’re going to do what? You can’t even part your hair!” The times are dark and the troop reaches for answers in absurdity: “A pogrom is not an easy act to follow.”

“A Minister’s Wife” a charming chamber music version of Shaw’s “Candida”

Michael Halberstam’s chamber music version of Shaw’s “Candida” is a charming and exhilarating production about male-female relations in earlier days of the battle for women’s sexual freedom. The story is adapted by Austin Pendleton from Shaw’s 1898 version of the play, which he revised in 1930, when post-flapper era so much in society had changed. At the turn of the century, women were even more psychologically and materially dependent on their husbands.

“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” is a fierce political statement against war

Surreal, sometimes funny, often cruel, Rajiv Joseph’s play in a stunning production by Moisés Kaufman looks at killing, in war, and among beasts, and wonders if it is a primordial instinct, something that somehow infects people who think they “don’t do that.” It is a powerful production, not your typical war story, as the murder victims come back as ghosts.

Stoppard’s “Arcadia” is an engrossing, provocative intellectual argument couched in a mystery

Tom Stoppard’s 1993 “Arcadia” plays with truth and illusion and shows how easy it is to be deceived. It sets true intellectuals devoted to search and discovery against glory-seeking “scholars” who invent convenient truths. Stoppard, as he is good at doing, mixes truth about historical figures with fantasy about their connections with the protagonists in a way that adds to the fascination of the plot.