David Ireland’s “Cyprus Avenue” currently running at The Public’s LuEsther Hall sneaks up on the audience like a cat burglar armed with an AK-15 assault rifle. What one assumes will be lost is far less than the devastation left behind by the action in Ireland’s disquieting play. The detritus remaining after Eric Miller’s (Stephen Rea) violation of his wife Bernie (Andrea Irvine), their daughter Julie (Amy Molloy) and their granddaughter Mary-May is almost unbearable and not predictable. This all begins with Eric stepping onto the stage (after a considerable pause) and sitting on a chair in his living room in Cyprus Avenue, East Belfast. Bernie enters and asks, “What are you doing sitting there doing nothing?” Eric stares back dumbfounded. The next scene begins with Eric in the office of his psychotherapist Bridget (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo).

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It is difficult to parse David Byrne’s “Secret Life of Humans,” currently running at 59E59 Theaters, without issuing spoiler alerts. As the eighty-five-minute play unfolds, three “stories” – one lasting a single night, one across a lifetime, and one that spans humanity’s sixty-million-year history, collide in a cathartic resolution that jangles the senses. Inspired by Yuval Harari's “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” David Burns tackles the essential questions about science, philosophy, and what it means to be human. Produced previously at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Mr. Burns’ play arrives at 59E59 at part of its annual Brits Off Broadway series.

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After its previous three-time extended sold out run at the York Theatre Company, “Desperate Measures” is back Off-Broadway and the antics of rabble-rousing Johnny Blood are as bodacious and bawdy as ever. Although billed as being “loosely based” on the classic Shakespearian comedy, “Desperate Measures,” currently playing at New World Stages, has the “guts” of “Measure for Measure” with the charm and appeal of a traditional Broadway musical. Peter Kellogg and David Friedman are to be commended for achieving this feat and bringing this clever retelling back to the stage.

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Eve Ensler’s commitment to ending violence against cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming women and girls globally (V-Day: A Global Movement to End Violence Against Women) has been unwavering since “The Vagina Monologues” premiered at HERE in 1996. Ms. Ensler attempts to continue that commitment in “Fruit Trilogy,” Abingdon Theatre Company’s final mainstage production of its twenty-fifth anniversary season. Currently in its “New York premiere” at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, “Fruit Trilogy” was produced outside of New York City as early as 2016 in Leeds, England.

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In an October 17, 2015 “New York Post” article, Michael Goodwin raises the rich, albeit uncomfortable, proposition of James Piereson in his July 2015 book “Shattered Consensus: The Rise and Decline of America’s Postwar Political Order;” namely, “America is due for a revolution.” In the “Post” article, Mr. Goodwin summarizes Mr. Pierson’s argument thusly: “there is an inevitable “revolution” coming because our politics, culture, education, economics and even philanthropy are so polarized that the country can no longer resolve its differences.”

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It is one thing to have an imaginary friend, created to be summoned at will for conversation, company, and surcease from sorrow. It is quite another thing to have an alter ego, perhaps once created, but able to appear at its will and on its terms. In “Woman and Scarecrow” at Irish Repertory Theatre’s W. Scott McLucas Studio Stage, Woman’s (Stephanie Roth Haberle) alter ego Scarecrow (Pamela J. Gray) – who has appeared sporadically throughout Woman’s life – “takes up residence” in Woman’s bedroom as she reflects on life and as she faces the fast-approaching death that seems to loom in the wardrobe at the foot of her bed.

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