DRAMA QUEENS FROM HELL

NOT RECOMMENDED

Significant trimming and tweaking is needed to make Peter Lefcourt’s Hollywood-spoofing Drama Queens From Hell the comedy hit it aspires to be despite some occasional insider hilarity and several deliciously scene-stealing performances.
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THE MONGOOSE

NOT RECOMMENDED

Acting, direction, and design are all Grade A in The Mongoose, but what on earth prompted The Road Theatre Company to give Will Arbery’s head-scratcher of a script the go-ahead?
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FRONT DOOR OPEN

NOT RECOMMENDED

An improbable script, grating characters, problematic performances, lackluster direction, and above all the trivialization of a crippling anxiety disorder afflicting over three million Americans make Tom Baum’s Front Door Open a World Premiere production not worth leaving your house for.
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SOMETHING TRULY MONSTROUS

NOT RECOMMENDED

Even the best efforts of the finest theaters can misfire, although given The Blank Theatre’s stellar track record, I wasn’t expecting to find Jeff Tabnick’s Something Truly Monstrous such a disappointment.
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GHOST LIGHT

NOT RECOMMENDED

Deborah Puette is luminous, but the four vignettes that comprise Tommy Smith’s Ghost Light add up to a rather low-wattage half-hour solo show.
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THE GREAT DIVIDE

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Elephant Theatre goes out with a fizzle instead of a bang with the World Premiere of Lyle Kessler’s family dysfunction-fest The Great Divide, a play so credibility-defying that not even the best efforts of director David Fofi and an excellent cast can save it—and its audience—from the dull-drums.
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OFF THE KING’S ROAD

NOT RECOMMENDED

Several bright supporting performances and a topnotch production design are not enough to rescue Off The King’s Road from its lackluster script, languorous pacing, and a numbingly dull lead performance, though truth be told it would take an actor with the charisma and star power of the late James Garner to stir up any interest in playwright Neil Koenigsberg’s sad sack protagonist.
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CIRCUS UGLY

NOT RECOMMENDED

Some plays are so unexpectedly marvelous and/or so deeply thought-provoking that you can’t stop talking about them long after the house lights have gone back up. Gabriel Rivas Gomez’s Circus Ugly, the latest from Playwrights’ Arena, is likely to inspire almost as much post-performance conversation as those, but for a different reason. Yes, several of its performers manage to impress and so does a topnotch production design, but not even a lukewarm recommendation is possible for a play that still has me scratching my head and wondering, “WTF was that?!”
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