She frequently stumbles when reaching for the right word in conversation, and don’t bother trying to talk to her when she doesn’t have her hearing aid in. Still, for a 91-year-old, Vera Joseph is a remarkable woman. Based on playwright Amy Herzog’s own grandmother, she is the central character of 4000 Miles, an acclaimed off-Broadway work and Pulitzer Prize finalist from 15 … [Read more...]
It’s all about family: ‘4000 Miles’ opens Dramaworks season
Talk about an odd couple. Consider 21-year-old Leo, nearing the end of a cross-country bicycle trip, concluding in New York’s Greenwich Village, where his 91-year-old grandmother, Vera, lives. Arriving unannounced and unexpected at her apartment in the middle of the night, Leo embarks on a journey of discovery with a relative he hardly knows, an emotional trek at least … [Read more...]
World premiere ‘The Duration’ at Dramaworks takes on 9/11 legacy
As we continue to deal with the dark cloud of the COVID pandemic, Palm Beach Dramaworks wants us to look back 20 years to another tragic time in our history — September 11, 2001 — the day two airplanes flew into the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan and 3,000 lives were lost. It is the event that motivates Bruce Graham’s drama The Duration, receiving its world premiere at PBD on … [Read more...]
‘Almost, Maine’ at Dramaworks: Dramatic fare takes pleasant backseat to whimsy
Palm Beach Dramaworks likes to say that it traffics in “theater to think about.” But if you are looking for an entertaining night out without much thinking required, the West Palm Beach stage company has a lightweight slice of whimsy on view now that certainly fills that bill. Called Almost, Maine, it consists of nine brief vignettes on the subject of romance, … [Read more...]
Dramaworks opts for lightness, warmth with ‘Almost, Maine’
Almost, Maine, is a tiny rural town in the northern part of the state, about 150 miles from the coast. But do not look for it on a map, for it exists only in the imagination of playwright John Cariani and, for the next two-and-a-half weeks, onstage at Palm Beach Dramaworks. (Because of production complications from COVID-19, the first show has been moved back three days, to … [Read more...]
Maltz cast shines in Simon’s ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’
There has never been, and in all likelihood will never be, an American playwright as commercially successful as the late Neil Simon. From his Broadway debut in 1961 with Come Blow Your Horn, he has convulsed audiences in laughter season after season. But it wasn’t until 22 years later, with Brighton Beach Memoirs, that he eased up on his joke reflex, explored his own … [Read more...]
Actors ready to ride Williams’ iconic ‘Streetcar’ for Dramaworks
Of the many plays by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire is considered his most popular work and, arguably, his best. “I think it’s one of the most brilliantly constructed plays I’ve ever been able to work on,” says Kathy McCafferty, who will be playing Southern belle Blanche DuBois at Palm Beach Dramaworks, … [Read more...]
Lead actors keep madness of ‘Blue Leaves’ in canny check at Dramaworks
By Dale King The House of Blue Leaves, the darkly seriocomic John Guare play, is appropriately apt as the finale for Palm Beach Dramaworks’ 19th season. The show that packed the West Palm Beach venue on opening weekend homes in on characters who desperately want their hopes and dreams to work. But a realistic assessment says they probably won’t happen. The Obie … [Read more...]
Nora’s back: Ibsen revisited, at the Maltz
In 1879, when feminist Nora Helmer – the main character in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House – slammed the front door and walked out on her husband and family, it is generally agreed that she opened another door, to the start of modern drama. Ibsen’s play ended there, but what happened to Nora afterwards, as she tried to forge a life as a single woman in a Norwegian society … [Read more...]
‘Indecent’ opens Dramaworks season in powerful style
“Indecent” is both the title of Paula Vogel’s impressionistic chronicle of a 1907 melodrama by novice playwright Sholem Asch, as well as the critical and legal opinion of the work once it arrived on Broadway in the early 1920s. While Vogel’s play serves as a production history of Asch’s God of Vengeance, it is also much more – a portrait of survival of a piece of … [Read more...]