2017 in Review

Gotham Playgoer in 2017 

Excellent (A)

Hello Dolly!

Jitney

Sweeney Todd

Very Good (A-)

Derren Brown: Secret

A Doll’s House, Part 2

The Hairy Ape 

Invincible 

The Liar 

The Little Foxes

Mary Jane

A Parallelogram

School Girls 

Torch Song

Good (B+)

Come from Away 

Cost of Living

Describe the Night

The Government Inspector

Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train

Junk

Kim’s Convenience

Once on This Island

Pacific Overtures

The Price 

Prince of Broadway

The Profane

Small World

Summer Shorts A

Terms of My Surrender

(B)

Bright Colors & Bold Patterns

Fucking A

Gently Down the Stream

If I Forget

Iphigenia in Splott

Latin History for Morons

Of Human Bondage

On the Exhale

Pipeline

Rotterdam

Sunset Boulevard

Time and the Conways

(B-)

Baghdaddy  

Groundhog Day

How To Transcend a Happy Marriage

Linda

Marvin’s Room

The Parisian Woman

Pride and Prejudice

Significant Other

Six Degrees of Separation

Sojourners & Her Portmanteau

Summer Shorts B

The Treasurer

Too Heavy for Your Pocket

Fair (C+)

After the Blast

Bella: An American Tall Tale

Inanimate

M. Butterfly

The Children

Harry Clarke

The Rape of the Sabine Women…

(C)

Bandstand

Charm

The Glass Menagerie

Hundred Days

In the Blood

Kid Victory

The Last Match

Man from Nebraska

The Moors

The Play That Goes Wrong

The Suitcase under the Bed

20th Century Blues

War Paint

Yen

(C-)

Animal

The Antipodes

Bull in a China Shop

Can You Forgive Her

Everybody

Fulfillment Center

The Gospel According to…

My Eyes Went Dark

The Portuguese Kid

The Traveling Lady

Poor (D+)

The End of Longing

Evening at the Talk House

The Light Years 

On the Shore of the Wide World

(D)

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me 

For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday

Illyria

The Mother of Invention 

Office Hour

The Penitent

(D-)

Wakey, Wakey

Abominable (F)

All the Fine Boys

The Children

C+

Manhattan Theatre Club has brought this highly praised Royal Court Theatre production of Olivier award-winning playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s dystopian drama to Broadway. After a Fukushima-like disaster has rendered their home uninhabitable, retired nuclear engineers Robin (Ron Cook) and Hazel (Deborah Findlay; Top Girls) have retreated to a cottage on the English coast where they strive to maintain a semblance of normalcy. When they receive a surprise visit from Rose (Francesca Annis), who worked with them at the nuclear plant down the road almost 40 years ago, they are puzzled by the reasons for her visit. Is she there to rekindle an adulterous affair with Robin or does she have a more ominous purpose? Why does the childless Rose express so much interest in their children? All will eventually be revealed but at a pace that was much too glacial for my taste. I found the changes of tone from humor to drama to a dance number and back irritating. The three actors are superb but the relationship of their characters seemed trivial next to the larger theme of their obligation to future generations. If seeing fine British actors in their prime is enough for you, you will enjoy yourself. If you need a spare, tightly-knit, well-integrated piece, you won’t.  Miriam Buether (A Doll’s House, Part 2) designed the set and costumes. James Macdonald (Top Girls, Cloud Nine) directed. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

Describe the Night

B+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting the New York premiere of Rajiv Joseph’s (Guards at the Taj, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) play that blends fact and fiction, realism and surrealism in an intricate story covering the period between 1920 and 2010 in Russia, Poland and East Germany. With only eight characters, it may not qualify as an epic but it is certainly an ambitious and complex work. Four of the leading characters are based on historical figures: famed Russian writer Isaac Babel (Danny Burstein), Soviet Secret Police chief Nikolai Yezhov (Zach Grenier), Yezhov’s wife Yevgenia (Tina Benko) and an ambitious young KGB agent nicknamed Vova (Max Gordon Moore). Babel and Yezhov meet in Poland in 1920 and become unlikely friends. Sparks fly when Babel meets Yevgenia. We also meet Feliks (Stephen Stocking), a car rental agent, and Mariya (Nadia Bowers; The Farnsworth Invention), a journalist, who are witnesses to the mysterious plane crash in 2010 that wiped out most of the Polish government. Mrs. Petrovna (Bowers again) is Mariya’s landlady. Urzula (Rebecca Naomi Jones; Marie and Rosetta, Big Love) is a young East German singer who wants to escape to the West in 1989. The playwright follows the basic facts of the relationship between Babel and the Yezhovs fairly closely up to 1940, but puts his own fantastical spin on the Yezhovs’ fate. The story jumps around in time and place and challenges the audience to follow along. There are scenes that are quite dramatic, others that are very funny and a few that don’t have much impact but are necessary to connect the dots. The title of the play comes from Babel’s direction to himself in his writing journal. The travels of this journal over 90 years form the backbone of the play. To say more about the plot would risk spoiling the pleasure of discovery. Zach Grenier (33 Variations, Storefront Church), Tina Benko (The Crucible, Scenes from a Marriage) and Max Gordon Moore (Indecent, Man from Nebraska) are a pleasure to watch. While I admire Danny Burstein (Fiddler on the Roof, Golden Boy) for his willingness to take risks, he seems miscast here. The main design feature of the set by Tim Mackabee (The Penitent, Guards at the Taj) remains unused for most of the play. The period costumes by Amy Clark (Chaplin) are excellent. Giovanna Sardelli (Animals out of Paper) directs with a sure hand. While I found the play intellectually satisfying, it did not engage me fully at the emotional level. The characters seem more like pieces of a puzzle than individuals worthy of empathy. Nevertheless, it offers a stimulating theatrical experience. Running time: two hours 55 minutes including two intermissions.