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

I had the pleasure of seeing Joshua Harmon 's Significant Other in summer 2015 , when it premiered off-Broadway. I loved it. I had never laughed and cried so much in a single show. Just like in his breakout play, Bad Jews , Harmon beautifully fused humor with pathos, making for a thoroughly entertaining and moving work. It has lost nothing in its transfer to Broadway, and, in fact, gained the terrific Rebecca Naomi Jones ( American Idiot , Marie and Rosetta ) as a cast member. Significant Other deals with how relationships change over time, as seen through the eyes of Jordan (an affecting Gideon Glick ( Spring Awakening , Speech and Debate )), a 29-year-old single gay man whose three best girlfriends are beginning to marry off and develop their own lives. (Jordan also has regular visits with his grandmother ( Barbara Barrie ), whose age, of course, comes with wisdom.) We begin at Kiki's bachelorette party. Kiki (a hilarious Sas Goldberg ) is the first of the crew to w...

The last time I saw "theatre noir" I was thoroughly turned off. (It was Mike Bencivenga's Billy and Ray .) In the hands of the talented playwright Leslye Headland ( Bachelorette , Assistance ), though, the genre is interesting and provocative. The Layover  begins with two strangers on a plane, Shellie (Annie Parisse) and Dex (Adam Rothenberg). Their flight is delayed, and they start chatting. In the next scene, they are in the airport terminal, their flight having been canceled. I noticed how easily they spoke to each other, how easily they told each other what I consider intimate details of their lives. I thought, "How interesting that they can open up like that." I supposed that since they were strangers, with little to no risk of seeing each other again, they felt comfortable being honest, being themselves. I was sure of where this was going. But then Headland introduced a gear shift (as she called it in a post-show discussion), and the play moved dec...

Early in Joshua Harmon 's fantastic new play, Significant Other , our protagonist, Jordan ( Gideon Glick ), says to his friend, Laura ( Lindsay Mendez ), that the point of life is finding someone to go through it with. Laura replies that that seems easy. Jordan is adamant: No, it's not easy. It's the hardest thing ever to know  that's the point and then spend you life trying to find that significant other. Preach, Jordan. Jordan, a gay man in his late twenties, is close with his friends, Laura, Kiki ( Sas Goldberg ) and Vanessa ( Carra Patterson ). At rise, the four are celebrating at Kiki's bachelorette party. One by one, we watch as Jordan's friends—his significant others—couple up. ( John Behlmann and Luke Smith also appear as multiple characters, some significant some not.) Throughout, he fulfills his grandson duties by visiting his grandmother (usually played by Barbara Barrie; played by Alice Cannon when I saw the play), who's lived long enough ...