There are standout exceptions, but this was largely a disappointing season on Broadway, with the nominating committee challenged to fill all the Tony Award categories. In general, the revivals were better than the new work, in both plays and musicals. Here is my report from a week in New York, where I saw 14 shows in 10 days (Oh, the things I put myself through for you … [Read more...]
Dramaworks’s ‘Equus’ packs powerful punch
From a small newspaper item about a teenage boy who inexplicably blinded a stable of horses, playwright Peter Shaffer spun a tale of psychology and mythology, of passion and pain, a detective story that seeks the teen’s motives but becomes just as interested in the demons plaguing the doctor who tries to wean him to normalcy. The play is Equus – the Latin word for … [Read more...]
Dramaworks closes out season with Shaffer’s powerful ‘Equus’
Peter Shaffer’s 1973 stylized drama Equus takes the form of a detective story, as child psychiatrist Martin Dysart tries to learn what caused 17-year-old Alan Strang to brutally blind a group of horses. With heightened theatricality, it becomes not a whodunnit, but a whydunnit. And in the course of trying to understand the boy’s motives, Dr. Dysart wrestles with his own … [Read more...]
Summer season preview: Theater plentiful in the hot months
It has been quite some time since summer in South Florida meant a theatrical drought. Yes, a few theaters still do take the season off to recharge their batteries, but many others produce shows aimed specifically at summer audiences and some stay open year-round, producing on a 12-month schedule. Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables is one of those year-round companies, so … [Read more...]
Wick’s ‘Jerry’s Girls’ iffy, but Herman’s songs hold up
In its five seasons of existence, The Wick Theatre has gone to the well of composer-lyricist Jerry Herman and his audience-friendly shows four times, but with mixed results. Its current production, the musical revue Jerry’s Girls, is aided considerably by the rewriting and restructuring from its director, Lee Roy Reams, only to be let down by its ostensible box office star, … [Read more...]
Fine performances lift new ‘Accident’ at Primal Forces
“Write what you know,” goes the old adage to playwrights, so Lydia Stryk wrote a play about the aftermath of a debilitating car accident. Like her fictional character Libby, Stryk was the victim of a collision between herself and an automobile driver. Or as Libby puts it with her dark, bitter humor, she met Anton by accident. In An Accident, the latest area … [Read more...]
‘Something Rotten!’ a delightful, funny spoof at the Kravis
It is called musical comedy, but you can count on two hands the number of shows that are genuinely funny. Something Rotten!, a stew of Elizabethan foolishness, is certainly one of them. Where most new musicals these days are based on movies, Something Rotten! is an original story and its premise should get you giggling quickly. It concerns the Bottom brothers – Nick and … [Read more...]
So-so Broadway season still yields some Tony suprises
By all accounts, this was not a season of quality on Broadway, but you would never know that from the Tony Award nominations announced this morning. The nominating committee must have wracked its brains, but it came up with five nominees to fill the Best Play category, even though four of them have long since closed. And the committee was either instructed to nominate … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway, No. 6: “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical”
Expectations mean a lot to one’s enjoyment of theater, so I guess it was good that my expectations were subterranean for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. This biographical songfest divides the role of the disco queen into three parts – Diva Donna (LaChanze), Disco Donna (Ariana DeBose) and Duckling Donna (Storm Lever) – a trio of powerhouse vocalists who rip through nearly two … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway, No. 5: ‘The Band’s Visit’
There is no better illustration of the gulf between reviewers and theatergoers than this season's musicals on Broadway. The reviews for Frozen and Mean Girls were unenthusiastic at best, but audiences are going crazy for both shows, which are virtually selling out in their early weeks. On the other hand, no musical received better reviews than The Band's Visit, the new David … [Read more...]