Writing about New York during the summer of 1943, James Baldwin recalled that Black soldiers received their military training in the south: thus, “the people I knew felt, mainly, a peculiar kind of relief when they knew their boys were being shipped out of the south, to do battle overseas.” Death at the hands of […]
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Fefu (Amelia Workman) hosts a group of friends at her New England home, ostensibly to rehearse for an upcoming educational fundraiser. The rehearsal, however, takes up little of the action in Fefu and Her Friends, María Irene Fornés’ witty, experimental play from the ‘seventies about a group of unfulfilled women who unwind and unload for […]
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Chris has a crappy childhood—several, actually. First dad dies, then mom, and then a diving accident lands Chris in the hospital. The legal guardian takes off with an ex-boyfriend, and Chris is adopted by the doctor assigned to treat the concussion. But The Underlying Chris, a new play by Will Eno, is a cradle-to-the-grave affair, […]
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Will Kidder (Aidan Quinn), the subject of quite a few plays by Horton Foote, is a classic American loser, the kind of naïve and disappointed optimist who has populated mid-century works by the likes of Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, and Lorraine Hansberry. Will, however, has seen quite a bit of success in his life—he has […]
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“It’s never worked,” says Tony Kushner (Jonathan Hadary), now a character in a revised version of A Bright Room Called Day. The play, about a group of Berliner artists watching their country fall to Hitler in 1932 and 1933, has suddenly received renewed interest. “I have offers!” he cries, incredulous. This is in no small […]
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In All the Way, playwright Robert Schenkkan followed LBJ through his first year in office: the accidental presidency, the landslide victory against Goldwater, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In its sequel, The Great Society, he picks up right where he left off: battling with Martin Luther King (Grantham Coleman) and […]
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Once again, Edmond Rostand’s enduring comic tragedy Cyrano de Bergerac has been adapted into a musical. Writer and director Erica Schmidt—who was responsible for last season’s thrilling adaptation of Mac Beth—has rid the famous wit of his elongated nose. Instead, Cyrano (Peter Dinklage) is simply less attractive that his fellow cadet, Christian (Blake Jenner), and […]
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The brash and unapologetic Bella Abzug has a personality primed for cultural reproduction. As yet, however, the congresswoman from New York has not secured the kind of legacy enjoyed by her fellow National Women’s Political Caucus co-founders Fannie Lou Hamer, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem. The actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein attempts to […]
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The stage is in the round, with some audience members sitting right up next to the performers. When one of the cast speaks, the remaining six sit and watch, rapt. Each of their dresses (created by Toni-Leslie James) is printed with the face of a female relative, blurring the distinction between their lives and their […]
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