Friday, November 21, 2025
Given the chance would you go back to the “good old days” in the 1950’s? Where women could vacuum their homes in their high heels and conical bras while their men mowed the lawn and their white children played happily with the family Labrador? And racism and homophobia were at an all time high? “Maple & Vine” is Jordan Harrison's discourse on what constitutes authentic living and it is superbly brought to life by the New York Deaf Theatre at The Flea Theater. Strong performances meet visually arresting design to keep you glued to the action. Katha and Ryu are burning
Reviews
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival: “Les Choses Dernières” & “To Catch A Terrorist”
The opening weekend of the acclaimed La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival featured the only two headlining works which would perform at the Ellen Stewart Theater -- an intimidating space for such intimate dance pieces. One, Lucie Grégoire Danse Company’s Les Choses Dernières: the New York premiere of a solo work made famous by the Montreal-based choreographer, now passed on to another dancer, and the other, Egyptian creator/performer Adham Hafez and HaRaKa Platform’s To Catch A Terrorist: a world-premiere of a new work and collaborative effort that utilizes spoken word as much as body language. Both explored disturbing topics that are
“Old Names for Wildflowers” at The Tank
It’s a monumental work. A colossal saga that astutely comments on 21st Century patriarchy through the lens of post Civil war societal fall out in 1865. It’s a vivisection of a family gone “nuclear” as a result of unspoken desires. It has a filmic quality to it that comes to us in episodes that fade in and out of our current reality –almost like a memory from a past life. Like the smell of jasmine through an open window that transports you to a long forgotten moment. Like a family tree lineage search that yields a discrepancy, a secret, an
For the Weekend: ‘Wind-Up Variations’ written and starring the New York Neo-Futurists
Do you like unicorns? Baked goods? Balloons? That and more is packed into the New York Neo-Futurists' Wind-Up Variations at the Kraine Theatre, which winds up its brief run at The Kraine Theatre this Saturday. Written and directed by Rob Neill, the story is ostensibly about the quartet pictured above. Wind-Up Monkey (spirit animal of Daniel Mirsky) is finds himself alone following an unspecified disaster. Along the way he encounters a Dinosaur (spirit animal of Ayun Halliday), Robot (Spirit Animal of Eevin Hartsough) and Unicorn (Spirit Animal of T Thompson). Their journey is interrupted by their human counterparts talking over each other,
ALTERNATING CURRENTS at Urban Stages
ALTERNATING CURRENTS is a heart-felt ode to the utopian ideal of community driven co-op housing in NYC. It’s a gritty excavating of systemic racism, union failure, mixed race marriage challenges and the desire for belonging. It poses probing questions about community engagement and the pressures associated with toeing the line. It’s a slick, energetic production that scratches beneath the faded veneer of the golden age of post-World War II American prosperity. The Working Theater’s Five Boroughs/One City Initiative encompasses five teams of commissioned writers and directors tasked with collaborating with working people to create an original play that is firmly rooted
Theatre: Two Local Festivals Celebrate Ancient Greek Theatre
Despite their rigid structure, Ancient Greek plays resonate in whatever era they are presented. Gods and demigods dealt with the same jealousy, conflict, passion, and humor mortals encounter in the real world. These powerful emotions are the centerpieces of two festivals: The Third Annual Onassis Festival, "Birds: A Festival Inspired by Aristophanes", offers Nikos Karathanos’s magical production of the comedy at Brooklyn co-producer St. Anne's Warehouse, and The Seeing Place Theater's "Whistleblower Series" at the Lower East Side Paradise Factory features Brandon Walker's timely and provocative recreation, The People vs. Antigone. "Where are the birds?" Pisthetaerus (Nikos Karathanos) and Euelpides (Aris Servetails) ask each
The Spring Fling: Chemistry at IRT Theater
“The Spring Fling” is a satisfying merry-go-round of seven 10-minute plays that explore the theme of “chemistry” as a jumping off point for the 2018 season. This F*It Club’s award-winning initiative is in it’s eighth year and presents commissioned world premiere works by emerging and established playwrights. It’s a sumptuous theatrical buffet where you get to experience a wide variety of talented playwrights, directors, actors and designers all in one go. All the chaff is winnowed away so we are left with strong kernels of possibility. It is thrilling to see how each playwright has imaginatively explored the theme and
“The Rainmaker” at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture – Black Box Theater
I didn’t realize how thirsty I was for a well made play, performed by a stellar cast, until I soaked in the charms of the “The Rainmaker” by N. Richard Nash. It’s a classic play from the “golden age” of American theater that transported me to the halcyon days of 1920’s farm life in the American West. Time slows down here on the Curry farm as you get drawn into their close-knit, yet fraying family quilt. It’s like paging through an old album, with sepia photographs, that slams you with intense nostalgia and a longing for people you have never
La Folie at The Black Lady Theatre
La Folie by Heloise Wilson is a deeply relevant revelation of a neglected slum that could be found not far out of Paris between 1950 and 1970. La folie translates into “insanity", an apt name for a muddy desolate place that was advertised to some as a paradise where they could find work in France and live like royalty. This was a real place that most French people have never heard about because it was almost completely un-documented and avoided by the government and press. Wilson and director Laura Tesman found an important balance between pain and hope and took
RANDY WRITES A NOVEL at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row
This is cheek sore, solar plexus spasm funny. This is laughter therapy that exfoliates grumpy out of your psychological wardrobe. Randy can turn a phrase like he’s cornering a Lotus Elise SC. You’re watching a truly hilarious stand-up comedian who is sitting down. He looks like the love child of Kermit the frog and Barney the dinosaur but has more facial expressions than Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura. You marvel at how “felt” and eyeballs can be more enlivened than the bulk of the humans you know. Randy may be energized by puppetry but he has almost as much soul