Avignon – The Court of Honor is the interior square of the gorgeous Palace of the Popes in Avignon, residence of nine popes from 1305 to 1429 and the most important gothic palace in Europe. It was a residence, place of worship, fortress and administrative city. The hotel where I was staying had a whiteboard for guests’ comments. One scribbled in fury that “Dämon, the funeral of Bergman,” staged there this month was sacrilege.
This is a clever pas de deux by Mario Correa of two important Democratic women in Congress disagreeing about the ideals, commitments, beliefs of their party. Or of those Democrats who purport some values. Nancy (Holland Taylor) in a pink suit (which must denote some female tradition), is quite believable as a politician. She did a memorable turn as Texas governor Ann Richards in “Ann.” Ana Villafaña as AOC in a black pants suit is brilliant in her portrayal. If the real AOC was there, nobody could tell the difference. Playwright Correa, who worked in the congressional office of Constance A. Morella, has got the dialogue and differences down perfectly, the acting is fine, and the staging by director Diane Paulus is direct, as it should be.
This play about a woman war correspondent (of course, she rejects the first adjective) was written by Alexis Scheer, a young playwright whose Broadway debut was adapting the book for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s clever feminist “Bad Cinderella.” Director Jo Bonney is a prominent creative presence in the theater world, a winner of major theater awards and nominations, including Tony and Drama Desk. So, I expected a lot.
“In the West you have no idea….” says the opening voice of a man telling of the joys of Russian songs, picking mushrooms in the forests, laughter in the baths…” In other ways, “Patriots,” written by British playwright Peter Morgan and directed by Rubert Goold, on Broadway after a successful run in London, is based on Brits and Americans having “no idea” of the story it tells. It makes it possible for Morgan to mix fact and propaganda, even in a careless moment admitting as much. So, to find out what was true, I relied on the biography “Putin” by Philip Short, former correspondent for the BBC in Moscow, and acknowledged as the most important book dealing with the characters and period of the play.
Chekhov’s play was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski. It has gone way downhill to Lincoln Center’s production.
Jeidi Schreck’s adaptation of “Uncle Vanya” directed by Lila Neugebauer is soap opera leavened by slapstick, which ruins the Chekhov play. It evokes a sense of sadness, lives of quiet desperation, but no sense of Russia. The set’s picnic table laden with food and wine, backdrop of birch trees, makes it clear this is about the characters’ own desires (eating and drinking) rather than the land they inhabit.
This play by Ibsen, “En folkefiende,” written in 1882, was perhaps the West’s first environmental political play. Amy Herzog’s smart adaptation over a century later fits America today perfectly. It is about the utter corruption of a society where making money by powerful interests takes easy precedence over the health, even the death, of citizens.
The story of America has always been about the narrative, especially the righteousness of America’s foreign adventures or political leaders’ devotion to the public good. The country’s founding history is central to establishing America’s virtue. So, the narrative about Thomas Jefferson is that he was a heroic American patriot who wrote the Declaration of Independence (drum roll, “all men are created equal”) and served as the third American president.
“Corruption” is the most important play in New York this season. In a mesmerizing true crime narrative, it documents the takeover of the UK by sleazy media, bought or cowed political leaders and even top paid-off law enforcement officials. No, this is not fiction.
John Patrick Shanley’s play opened in 2004, but is set forty years earlier in 1964. It deals with complex themes of suspicion, faith, and morality surrounding the possibility of child sexual abuse. The issue of pedophilia by Roman Catholic clergy in the U.S. was first publicized in 1985 when a Louisiana priest pleaded guilty to molesting boys. But even though the scandal is not raised in the play, Shanley knows that is in the minds of the audience.
If you don’t have the time to read or listen to every argument about the Israeli-Palestinian question, spend an evening at the Public Theater production of “The Ally” (ie America’s ally, Israel) and you will get it all. In an entertaining and succinct fashion. From the voices of characters who represent the various sides and in-between of the debates. Playwright Itamar Moses has presented a theatrically staged event that could easily have occurred, and parts already have in U.S. spaces, especially universities, where this story takes place. Director Lila Neugebauer allows passion to power the arguments without ever becoming nasty.
Kelli O’Hara is spectacular in “Days of Wine and Roses.” Sometimes her voice soars so high that you don’t pay attention to the lyrics. It’s a depressing play about two alcoholics, one who recovers and one who doesn’t. But in her operatic soprano, you can listen to the joyous sounds that that give you a lift even as what’s unfolding on stage is a downer. But this is not unusual in the canon of opera. The book is by Craig Lucas and the bracing modern music and lyrics by Adam Guettel.
If I was writing this review as a drama, where I could make things up, I would say “Congratulations to the Deep State (aka CIA & Co), which has moved from propaganda films into propaganda theater. However, Langley guys, you need some theatrical help. Your “Russian Troll Farm” at the Vineyard is the most crude, amateurish, nasty piece of pseudo-theatrical claptrap I have seen reviewing theater since 1998 when I became a member of the Drama Desk.”
Through the lens of one Jewish family in Paris, “Prayer for the French Republic” delves into the thorny issues of identity, racism, and anti-Semitism. And to what country you belong. Seen from an intimately human perspective, these divisive political debates couldn’t be more pointed or timely. The work by Joshua Harmon premiered off-Broadway two years ago and reopened on Broadway last month.
“Our Class” by Tadeusz Słobodzianek, one of Poland’s most important playwrights, is a powerful and dramatic exploration of the impact of anti-Semitism and betrayal in a Polish village during and after World War II. It is based on a true story, a pogrom 80 years ago when 1600 Jews in a Polish village were murdered by their classmates, neighbors and friends.
From working class kid to a master director/choreographer. That would have been story enough. But “Anuncia” is a charming, moving feminist story of a family of women who made that happen in the face of a repressive government in Argentina. Think of it as another take on “Evita,” the story of Eva Perón, who built her career on marriage with the president. This family was in the opposition.
The promotion for “Spain,” a new play by Jen Silverman, says, “Step into a sophisticated, slippery world where the line between truth and fiction is all in the packaging. It’s 1936, and a pair of passionate filmmakers have landed their next big project: a sweeping Spanish Civil War film with the potential to change American hearts and minds. It just happens to be bankrolled by the KGB. Unfortunately, the promo is fiction.
Patrick Page’s brilliant one-man show on how Shakespeare invented the villain is a combination of theater piece, master class and college literature lecture. In a purple pullover and vest, before a red curtain, through his acting and explanations, he shows how William Shakespeare developed his villainous characters from crudely evil to confounded with moral dilemmas, even if they defeated conscience and killed at the end. And how he dealt with the mythology of evil in popular culture, such as the Jew as rapacious money-lender and Lady Macbeth conjuring evil spirits.
“Spamalot” was a 1975 Monty Python film and a 2005 Broadway play famous for offending particular sectors of society. Does that hold up? Can you still insult significant groups without being cancelled? Can you attack sacred cows (vaches) without being de-platformed? On the other hand, has book and lyric writer Eric Idle taken the easy way out by sucking up to the groups that wield power in the theatrical system? And can I get away with suggesting it?
This play is about class and feminism, and also about the corruption of capitalism.
It is a smart satire by British playwright Elizabeth Baker staged in London in 1917. Baker started out as an office typist and wrote about office workers and shop girls and their struggles for emancipation against the bonds of class and gender. She was a supporter of the suffragist movement.
This annual series by the Mabel Mercer Foundation presents a selection from among the most talented and interesting established and new cabaret singers in the U.S. And occasionally a few from abroad. People attend as if it were an annual family event. And indeed, at intermission and after the show, the singers come out to the large entrance hall to hang out and chat with the cabaret community.
“Purlie Victorious,” playwright-actor Ossie Davis’s surreal satire about racism in the Jim Crow South, was first produced in 1961 at the cusp of the new civil rights movement. The Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, NC, had just taken place in February 1960.
Betty Friedan would have loved this musical, especially Brooke Dillman who plays O.F.G., the Original Fairy Godmother with wavy hair, a raspy voice and assertiveness that make her the feminist author’s double. I know, because I worked with Friedan in 1969 and 70.
David Byrne’s pop musical docudrama professes to be the story of Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos, their rise to power in the Philippines and the challenge to their dictatorship by Ninoy Aquino, who the Marcos government assassinated. It’s a smashing production. But a flawed history.
A non-salacious play about sex? Probably not these days. You’d have to go back to the last century. And that is just what Sandy Rustin does, to 1923 in fact, exactly a hundred years ago. Rustin’s sex farce, “The Cottage,” is a hokey funny slapstick shambles set in a gorgeous English country house where, instead of the ubiquitous moose head on the wall there is an end table atop the base of a stuffed dog. (Kudos for set designer Paul Tate dePoo III.) And for director Jason Alexander who manages the farce perfectly; it is very clever, never silly.
It’s a funny hokey clever story that catches you unawares with its smarts. Because it’s about corn. Which the folks in the story grow and is at the center of their lives. The residents of this corn town have chosen to be cut off from the world. They live in a huge wooded space and celebrate a chicken’s birthday and goats getting married.
