Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

In 1879, Nora slammed the door on Torvald, and it shocked Victorian readers and, soon thereafter, audiences world-wide. A Doll's House  catapulted Henrik Ibsen into the international spotlight, and solidified his position as a subversive writer. Nearly 140 years later, Lucas Hnath , a subversive and gifted writer in his own right, imagines what happened after the door slammed. Details reveal themselves naturally so I won't give too much away (especially not the 100% perfect, A++ first and final moments of the show). Suffice it to say that A Doll's House, Part 2  picks up 15 years after Nora (Laurie Metcalf) left her husband, Torvald (Chris Cooper), and young children. The doll returns to her house, which Miriam Buether has cleverly designed to suggest a boxing ring. The metaphor continues in the direction (by Tony winner Sam Gold), as actors brace themselves on and grasp at the walls like a boxer working the ropes. Toward the end, we find both Nora and Torvald on the...

Stephen Karam 's play is so perfectly titled. The Humans is a deceivingly simple title, two seemingly innocuous words, but as humans, we know that there's much more—complexities, universal truths, timeless family dynamics—to simply being a human, and over the course of one Thanksgiving dinner, Karam delves into them all. Brigid ( Sarah Steele ) and her (older) boyfriend, Richard ( Arian Moayed ), are hosting Brigid's family for Thanksgiving in their new downtown Manhattan duplex. Brigid's sister, Aimee ( Cassie Beck ), recently got out of a long-term relationship with her girlfriend; Brigid's parents, Erik and Deidre ( Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell , respectively), are being parents, worrying about their daughters, while dealing with their own stresses, including taking care of Erik's mother, lovingly referred to as Momo ( Lauren Klein ), who is in the beginning stages of dementia. Playing out in real time, The Humans allows us to, essentially, be f...