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

Blackbird  is intense. David Harrower 's two-hander packs a lot of history and angst into the knock-down, drag out war that makes up the 90-minute play. As some of the marketing materials have said, Ray (Jeff Daniels) and Una (Michelle Williams) had a relationship some 15 years ago. Today, in the plain, fluorescent-lit break room at Ray's office, they'll have their reckoning. The relationship, as you might guess if you have an idea of the actors' age difference, was an inappropriate one. When Una was 12 and Ray was 40, the two had a three-month long sexual affair, and though Ray already went to trial and served some time for it, Una has arrived (unannounced) to re-litigate the abuse. It's not fun. It absolutely will make you uncomfortable—how could it not? (Director Joe Mantello ( The Humans , The Last Ship ) is sensitive and careful not to sensationalize the action.) Yet it's unfortunately relevant today, just as it was when it debuted off-Broadway in 2...

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...

Lisa D'Amour 's Airline Highway, like some of her other plays ( Detroit ), looks in on the lives of fringe people, those misfits who get lost along the way and end up on the outskirts of town, making the best of being outcasts and forming their own community. The action takes place at the Hummingbird Motel, located on Airline Highway in New Orleans. The time is now, the first week in May, to be exact, when Jazz Fest takes over and bros from Michigan infiltrate the city. The motel is home to a colorful, eclectic group, most of whom have a good heart (but that's not enough to pay the bills), including Sissy ( Tony nominee K. Todd Freeman ) and Tanya (Tony winner Julie White , who also earned a Tony nomination for this performance). During the time we get to know them (as some residents of the Hummingbird will tell you, you can't really know them in one afternoon) Sissy, Tanya and the others put together a living funeral for the ailing Miss Ruby (a feisty Judith Ro...

What've we got? It's not now't, that's for sure. The new, original musical, The Last Ship , has set sail on Broadway and I love it. Conceived by Sting , the personal musical features a score by the rocker and a book by Brian Yorkey  ( If/Then , Next to Normal ) and John Logan  ( Red ). It tells the story of Gideon Fletcher (Michael Esper), who is returning to his working-class hometown of Wallsend (in the northeast of England) after turning his back 15 years ago. Wallsend is a blue-collar company town where the men build ships and everyone is family. Times are tough and the shipyard has closed; not knowing what to do with themselves, the men decide to build one last ship. While the town is struggling to find its identity, Gideon is struggling to find his home. He rejected the notion of following in the footsteps of his father and his father's father and so on; he did not want to be a ship builder, and so he fled Wallsend, leaving behind his love, Meg Dawson (R...

As I settled in for Casa Valentina , the new play from theatre luminary Harvey Fierstein , I was ready for something to bowl me over. I see a lot of theatre and it had been about a month since I saw something that really excited me. (For those of you keeping score, at the time I saw Casa Valentina , the last thing to excite me was If/Then .) And after the first act of Casa Valentina , I thought I’d found it. The second act disappointed by comparison, but still made for a good production of a good new play. Casa Valentina is “inspired by events that took place in and around the Chevalier d’Eon Resort in the Catskill Mountains in 1962,” playwright Fierstein and director Joe Mantello say in program notes. It was at this resort that heterosexual men who identify as women could relax and dress as themselves, that is, dress in women’s clothing, complete with well-coiffed wigs, perfectly applied make up, undergarments galore, jewelry and heels. (This is an earnest, sincere tale—it...