NYTHEATRE REVIEWS

Kitsch, or Two for the Price of One: The concept of Kitsch, or Two for the Price of One, is actually quite brilliant. Playwright Trav S.D. has taken Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (along with its source material, Plautus's Menaechmi) and grafted it onto a new set of characters and circumstances in Berlin at the very moment that the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. He's also doubled the number of twins (hence his title), so that instead of there being two sets of mismatched brothers, in Kitsch there are four.
Read the full review by Martin Denton

Wolves at the Window: If you are familiar with the devilishly delightful stories of Saki (H.H. Munro) then you already know what a treat is in store for you at Wolves at the Window, a new offering from London's Arcola Theatre and Fledgling Theatre, now on stage at 59E59 as part of their annual Brits Off Broadway festival. If, like me, you have not read Saki's work, well, you are lucky indeed! This charming new play is a splendid introduction to this very entertaining writer who had such singular senses of fun and humor, and you don't have to turn any pages to enjoy about a dozen of his signature tales.
Read the full review by Martin Denton

Prima: Presented by LeeSaar The Company in a vast performance venue at Performance Space 122, Prima features four lithe and distinctly modern female dancers in a 45-minute presentation that combines elements of ballet and jazz with krump, rave, and dance styles of an indefinable nature. The choreography is attributed to Lee Sher and Saar Harari, yet a highly organic aesthetic suggests a more collaborative nature of the work, as does the crediting of the ensemble as "creating dancers."
Read the full review by David Ian Lee

Agamemnon: Extensive program notes from Alexander Harrington, artistic director of The Eleventh Hour Theatre Company, explicate the argument for their current adaptation of Aeschylus's Agamemnon, for which Harrington serves as director and translator. Embracing Aristotle's insistence that tragic dialogue play in iambic trimester, Harrington has crafted a production intended to be severely faithful to Aeschylus's original linguistic intent. Openly acknowledged as "an experiment in what adhering to the meters will yield," this adaptation suffers from a largely unintelligible presentation.
Read the full review by David Ian Lee

My Wonderful Day: Alan Ayckbourn has bent the conventions in a variety of ways in his 72 plays. One takes place in three bedrooms. Another takes place on three consecutive Christmas Eves. A number of them take place concurrently in a variety of locations and are performed either simultaneously or one after the other. Number 73, My Wonderful Day, isn't so much of a convention bender as it is a different look at the world. Specifically, it's a look at a single day from the perspective of a nine-year-old African-Caribbean British girl named Winnie, who has accompanied her pregnant single mother Laverne, a house-cleaner, to work.
Read the full review by David Gordon

Peter and the Wolf: In the Wings, a company dedicated to producing family-friendly dance productions with live music, brings its version of Peter and the Wolf along with a new untitled prequel to the New Victory. The emphasis in this performance is on the visual, with music one of many design and storytelling elements, rather than the central focus.
Read the full review by Rohana Elias-Reyes

Sholem Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears: Theodore Bikel's one-man show Sholem Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears is an amalgamation of tales by the famed Yiddish storyteller with some incidental material about Aleichem's history and Bikel's as well, along with nine Yiddish songs. The theme of the show seems to be about preservation of the past--of traditional Jewish ways and values and of the Yiddish language. I'm not sure that Aleichem or Bikel finally make a very compelling case for this position, however.
Read the full review by Martin Denton

The Brother/Sister Plays Part 1 and 2: Tarell Alvin McCraney's trilogy The Brother/Sister Plays proves that this young writer is a significant artist of ample talent, scope, and expressivity. His main strength is his ability to create uniquely colorful and rich worlds that capture present day social realities while providing a strong mythic foundation, spiced up with dreams and poetry, and wrapped up in compelling storytelling.
Read the full review by Saviana Stanescu

Loaded: The idea of Loaded is that Patrick is in his late 40s and Jude is in his mid 20s, and that this generational difference will make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to develop a loving and respectful relationship. While the inherent differences between gay men born in the 1960s and gay men born in the 1980s (mostly surrounding the AIDS epidemic) are certainly touched upon ad nauseam in Loaded, I concluded that the reason Patrick and Jude's affair is doomed is because both of these men are selfish, small-minded, intolerant, and, on some level, self-loathing.
Read the full review by Martin Denton

Circumcise Me: Circumcise Me, the hilarious one-man show written by Yisrael Campbell, charts Campbell's passage from alcohol abuse and a Catholic upbringing to familial salvation and (multiple) religious conversions, Circumcise Me is at once steeped in Jewish culture and laced with Yiddish nuance, yet immediately accessible to even the most goyische of audience members.
Read the full review by David Ian Lee

The Lesser Seductions of History: Following a group of diverse characters through the decade year by year, The Lesser Seductions of History promises a dramatic snapshot of the time, with the benefit of 2009 hindsight. However, with an excessive cast and overly ambitious historical scope, the project takes on more than it can deliver, despite clocking in at over two hours.
Read the full review by Megin Jimenez

Mine: With Mine, Bekah Brunstetter, an up-and-coming playwright with an exciting original voice, delves only partially into the original in discussing the subject of unrequited love.
Read the full review by David Gordon

The Common Air: There are several themes at play in The Common Air, and the majority of them are presented in the first five minutes by the Iraqi cab driver--billed as "The Immigrant"--who opens the show. Waste is one of them: "It is obscene wasta-ful-ness. An uttarh disregard of abundancy, and it is my favorite tink about America." So is Choice: "We have in this country, the most choices. So many, we trow some to the garbazh! But no regrets! Forgive yourself sir. It is easy."
Read the full review by Robert Weinstein

On the Town: Not having seen the film or any production of On The Town before I was simply enchanted by the production now playing at Paper Mill Playhouse. Wow! What an astonishingly nostalgic (for us) dance-centric, musically comedic theatrical extravaganza! It was such a pleasure to hear the magnificent full orchestra playing Leonard Bernstein's lush musical score and such a tremendous joy to see these talented energetic dancers take over the stage and the evening's 17 scenes and 22 musical numbers.
Read the full review by Lynn Marie Macy

She Turned on the Light: She Turned on the Light is a one-woman show, written and directed by Wendy Woodson and performed by Marina Libel. Presented at La MaMa E.T.C., the piece explores themes of memory, loss, love, and reconciliation. We are confronted with the question: Do strangers share memories? Composed mainly as a dialogue between Lila, a young American woman, and Noon, an "Old World" refugee, She Turned on the Light evokes the potency of storytelling and its evolution through the generations that separate these two women.
Read the full review by Shelley Molad