“Hopefully, Richard Roy’s and Eric Webb’s commendable effort will result in a heightened awareness of the deplorable brokenness and systemic racism of America’s prison system.”
Read More“One wishes for a more coherent story with a more cathartic and realistic ending. A story more fitting for the assembled “rock stars” of the theatre.”
Read More“What could go wrong at a private school whose board of directors (all five of them) make all decisions based on consensus and have only what benefits the community at heart? “
Read More“Writing a play about two iconic figures like Paul McCartney and John Lennon is risky business. Bob Stevens’s “Only Yesterday” currently running at 59E59 Theaters falls victim to taking such a risk.”
Read More““Tech Support” – despite its well qualified and talented cast – barely rises above the rigorous and well-established standards for community theater.”
Read MoreKeith Hamilton Cobb, under Kim Weild’s sagacious direction, takes on these societal false securities with an enormous passion and a deep desire for healing.
Read MoreAfter a successful run at the Public’s Newman Theater earlier this year, “Sea Wall / A Life” by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne opened at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre on August 8th, 2019. Both are haunting and unforgettable plays, each performed by a brilliant actor.
Read MoreCurrently running at Theatre Row, Ma-Yi Theater Company’s “Felix Starro” launches the Company’s 30th Anniversary Season. The musical is based on Filipino-American writer Lysley Tenorio’s short story of the same name that appeared in his 2012 collection “Monstress” in which “a famous Filipino faith healer and his grandson Junior conduct an illicit business in San Francisco, though each has his own plans for their earnings.”
Read MoreIn the first forty minutes of “Make Believe,” under Michael Greif’s careful direction, the young cast of four successfully provides the needed exposition for the success of the final 40 minutes populated by the adults.
Read MoreThe rich and enduring questions raised in “Rinse, Repeat” transcend the content of this important play and are relevant to all decisions that affect the sustainability of life and the integrity of the ego strength required to experience healthy psychological growth.
Read MoreDespite the challenges of the script, the three fine actors transcend the material to offer glimpses into the often-undisclosed problems facing three generations of women caught in restrictive matrices of expectation and oppression. It was wonderful to see Marsha Mason’s craft coalesce the threads of the three women-in-waiting to a settling down to sleep and all that metaphor encompasses.
Read MoreThe one act opera in three parts celebrates the lives of ten disparate and, in a variety of ways, desperate characters who, having each reached their tipping points, decide to visit the mob-owned Stonewall Inn which is about to reach its own tipping point during the pre-ordained and politically motivated raid on the only “safe haven” for the members of the LGBTQ+ communities.
Read MoreO’Casey’s themes of nationalism, divisiveness, religious freedoms and “rights,” the merits of socialism, and fantasy versus reality (fake news, alternate facts) counterpoint powerfully with the current political climate in the United States and throughout Europe.
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David Roberts, Chief New York Critic, Outer Critics Circle/Drama Desk Member
Last season, two off-Broadway plays – “Daddy” and “Slave Play” (both by Jeremy O. Harris) – highlighted significant issues about the self-identity of young black gay and queer men and raised rich and enduring questions about the role of family, friends, culture, and “indifferent yet fetishizing white gays” in that process of discovery. This season, Michael R. Jackson’s original musical “A Strange Loop,” currently playing at Playwrights Horizons, similarly “sorts through layers of self-perception and the perceptions of the world around him” as his protagonist Usher (an impressive and transparent Larry Owens) explores “what it can feel like to be a ‘self’ in general and a black queer self in particular.” Usher’s quest is further complicated by his thoughts that interrupt his writing of a musical about his self-perception.
Usher’s inner cogitations are shared with the audience through the words and songs of six on stage “Thoughts” (Antwayn Hopper, James Jackson, Jr., L Morgan Lee, John-Michael Lyles, John-Andrew Morrison, and Jason Veasey). This gifted ensemble cast batters Usher with his obsessive reflections about self and world as both individual and cacophonous choral thoughts and creates a fascinating and original “conversation” with the one having the apprehensions. The actors not only sing through Usher’s thoughts but portray all the characters inhabiting those thoughts. Montana Levi Blanco’s costumes bring appropriate energy to each character.
Usher “thinks” about changing his life forever, his relationship with his loving religious mother who worries for Usher’s soul, his homophobic and verbally abusive alcoholic father, his “inner white girl,” his doctor who thinks he should have more sex, online sex sites, sex role stereotypes, fetishes, HIV/AIDS in the black community, Tyler Perry constructs of black “America,” the white Inwood Daddy who likes boys of color, and the possibility that his “sense of self is just a bunch of meaningless symbols moving from one level of abstraction to another but ending up back where they started” (cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter’s “strange loop”).
Usher’s self-identity “crisis” is parsed by layers of rich and enduring questions that reverberate with deep authenticity and believability. Under Stephen Brackett’s direction, Larry Owens and the cast of “Thoughts” determine whether Usher is capable of change, needs to change, or is simply “stuck” with who he is. They raise the rich question of whether Usher’s struggles are unique to the black queer community or have connections and relevance beyond that specific community. Arnulfo Maldonado’s “multiple doors” set, and Jen Schriever’s lighting give the “Thoughts” the perfect to “express” themselves.
Despite the importance of the discussion Michael R. Jackson initiates with “A Strange Loop,” the play’s repetitive style and content and its dependence on what might seem unnecessary vulgarity often detract from the inner strength of the script. The final scenes in Usher’s home and in the church are overwrought and depend too heavily on lavish and expensive sets. There is enough genuine grit in Michael R. Jackson’s script to carry his important conversation with the minimalism suggested by the multiple subtle explosions across Usher’s cranial synapses that bring his inner world to outer examination.
A STRANGE LOOP
The cast of “A Strange Loop” features Antwayn Hopper, James Jackson, Jr., L Morgan Lee, John-Michael Lyles, John-Andrew Morrison, Larry Owens, and Jason Veasey.
The creative team includes Arnulfo Maldonado (Scenic Designer), Montana Levi Blanco (Costume Designer), Jen Schriever (Lighting Designer), Alex Hawthorn (Sound Designer), Cookie Jordan (Hair, Wig and Makeup Designer), Charlie A. Rosen (Orchestrator), Rona Siddiqui (Music Director), Michael R. Jackson (Vocal Arrangements), Tomoko Akaboshi (Music Coordinator), and Erin Gioia Albrecht (Production Stage Manager).
“A Strange Loop” runs at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street) through Sunday July 7, 2019. For more information, including the performance schedule and ticketing information, visit https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/. Running time is 1 hour and 45 minutes without intermission.
Jason Veasey and Larry Owens in “A Strange Loop.” Credit: Joan Marcus.
With a nod (intentional/unintentional) to the genre of disillusioned youth represented by Kenneth Lonergan’s 1996 “This Is Our Youth,” Carla Ching’s “Nomad Hotel” currently running at Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2 dives headlong into the lives of a triangle of vagabond California youth yearning to belatedly separate and individuate from adults who have been less than successful in providing safe and secure environments and unconditional-nonjudgmental love.
Read MoreUnder the playwright’s direction, the cumbersome play raises more questions than it answers and leaves the inquiring audience member desperately flipping through The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to sort out the dysfunction displayed on stage.
Read MoreKate Hamill’s retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” plays at Primary Stages at an auspicious time. Amid unprecedented national and political division, issues of gender identity, gender equality, and gender protection continue to be critically important.
Read MoreUnder Arin Arbus’s exquisite direction (Broadway debut), Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon play to perfection the EveryMan, EveryWoman, EveryOne seeking to overcome their finitude and fallibility to connect with another person in a meaningful way and establish a non-judgmental relationship against all odds.
Read MoreMargot Bordelon directs “Something Clean” with the briskness of a broom that sweeps across Reid Thompson’s relatively expansive set in the Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre. He cleverly divides the spaces between the Center and the Walker homestead with carpet tiles of differing subdued colors and provides three exits for the actors to accommodate the play’s rapid-firing short scenes.
Read MoreThe LGBTQ+ communities have undergone significant and healthy upheaval since Elise Forier Edie developed “The Pink Unicorn” in 2011 at The Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. Although the playwright has attempted to update the script, its present incarnation currently running at the Episcopal Actors’ Guild falls short of reflecting the rich complexities of gender identity and gender expression, choosing instead a barrage of stereotypes and sometimes offensive diction. This despite an impressive performance by Alice Ripley as a conservative Texas mom who daughter announces she is ‘gender queer.’
Read MoreBlog dedicated to show reviews of Broadway and nationwide Community Theater. Blog also discusses theatre water cooler topics and stories from personal theatre experience.
