Old Testament history has been amply recreated on the stage and in film—enslavement in Egypt, the Hebrews’ 40-year desert trek to Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments, transmission of Jewish laws, and a passionate yearning for the Promised Land. In Two Jews, Talking, playwright Ed. Weinberger loosely and innovatively paints both this saga, a “revisionist” desert adventure, and its cemetery-centered finale, with a very broad brush. He does so with the aid of veteran actors Hal Linden and Bernie Kopell, whose characters face off against each other theologically and temperamentally yet find comfort in each other’s company.
Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom
James Joyce’s Ulysses is a brilliant but dense and sometimes inaccessible work. Aedin Moloney’s solo performance in Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom is adapted from Molly's “Yes!” soliloquy at the end of Joyce’s novel. Co-created by Moloney and acclaimed Irish author Colum McCann, the show is a remarkably ambitious collaboration, a welcome contribution to understanding the complexities of Molly Bloom (wife of Ulysses’ protagonist Leopold “Poldy” Bloom), and a consummate one-woman show.
Jews, God, and History (Not Necessarily in That Order)
Can an atheist serve as a guide to the history, customs, and longevity of the Jewish religion and its adherents? Moreover, how can an atheist recognize that a man who has just died is with God? At first glance, this seems quite absurd. Yet neither for Michael Takiff nor for his audience does it appear to be a problem. Jews, God, and History (Not Necessarily in That Order), Takiff’s one-man show, is a roller-coaster ride through Jewish belief, identity, and practice.
¡Americano!
If Antonio (Tony) Valdivinos, the hero of the new musical ¡Americano!, had been born before the millennium, and especially before World War II, the chances his true story would reaching a wide audience would have been slim to none—and even less likely echoed in an Off-Broadway musical with the momentum of a Broadway hit. But ¡Americano! is a vehicle that delivers the messages behind Tony’s story and those of other “dreamers” and serves as a catalyst for activism. Under the direction of Michael Barnard, the production reflects the uncertainty and frustrations facing dreamers, particularly those desiring to serve their new homeland as true Americans.
H*tler’s Tasters
Much about Adolf Hitler was incongruous. Infatuated with his own greatness and that of the “Fatherland,” he pontificated about Aryan superiority, order, and sacrifice, yet his life was chaotic, fueled by anger and drug-induced delusions; he was obsessive and paranoid. In H*tler’s Tasters, playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks has brilliantly adapted the true story of 15 women who were employed to taste the paranoid leader’s food. It’s a timely drama with dark humor and music.
How the Hell Did I Get Here?
For Downtown Abbey aficionados, it is an unlikely stretch to imagine Lesley Nicol as anyone other than the series’ jovial, wise cook, Mrs. Patmore. The leap of imagination that transforms Patmore into a painfully shy, insecure, aspiring and often overlooked actress is a dilemma with which the audience for How the Hell Did I Get Here? must grapple. Ironically, Mrs. Patmore and Ms. Nicol may share a Northern British accent, but that’s where any comparison ends. The former’s “extreme makeover” as fashionable Lesley Nicol is not a makeover at all, but an internal and external transformation from her early childhood. Isn’t that what good acting is all about?
A Touch of the Poet
Written in 1942, Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet was intended to be the first of multiple plays about the Irish experience in America. O’Neill’s cycle was never completed, and the play was produced posthumously, in 1958. The Irish Repertory Theatre’s revival, masterfully directed by Ciaran O’Reilly, is a gut-wrenching drama that focuses on the Irish American Melody clan in the Boston of 1828. Led by Con (for Cornelius) Melody (Robert Cuccioli), a ne’er-do-well immigrant and inn owner who recites Lord Byron’s poetry, most of the characters live in a world full of delusions.
Space Dogs
It seems a near-impossible task to take on an historical, highly politicized, and contentious international topic, and successfully morph it into a high-tech, semi-satirical pop-rock musical. Nevertheless, with Space Dogs, playwrights-composers-lyricists Van Hughes and Nick Blaemire have done exactly that. They have etched out the broader landscape of what was perhaps the most frightening, longest-running, and potentially deadliest conflict of the late 20th century—the Cold War.
Just for Us
Despite Alex Edelman’s opening caveat that “my comedy barely works if you’re not a Jew from the Upper East Side,” he is one of the rare, masterful stand-up comics who can “cast out” and then successfully “reel back in” a diverse audience. He can take his monologue way off-topic, on a tangent that itself could be a stand-alone show. Although the thrust of Just for Us is his attendance at a white-supremacist gathering, along the way he signs and mimics the distress of a gorilla at Robin Williams’s death (the gorilla really grieved), then quips that Brexit should be called “The Great British Break-Off,” and lovingly, yet mercilessly, spears his family, their Hebrew names, his brother’s Winter Olympics prowess as part of the Israeli skeleton team, and his Orthodox Jewish parents’ finessing of Christmas (including a decorated tree in the garage) to comfort a bereaved Christian friend.
A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet
What do you get when you throw two struggling souls in search of success together in a high-stakes campaign to rebrand an assertive, middle-aged, ex-pop icon named Regina Comet? You get two talented but anxiety-ridden young men, reaching for the stars and stumbling all over each other in semi-slapstick style. They also search for their own awakened, perfected selves as they strive to create the ideal jingle to launch Regina—and her fragrance line—back into the mainstream.
Brecht on Brecht
German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a world traveler—not by choice, but by conviction. His larger-than-life, highly controversial career caused him to flee Nazism and take refuge in several countries before he was granted permission to settle in the United States. The Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB) production of Brecht on Brecht tracks the playwright’s odyssey using his songs and writings, which include The Threepenny Opera, The Life of Galileo, and Mother Courage and Her Children.
Friends: The Musical Parody
If you’ve never watched Friends, the TV megahit that aired from 1994–2004, that wouldn’t preclude you from enjoying Friends: The Musical Parody. It’s hysterically funny, and concisely captures the idiosyncrasies of every one of the six characters who provokes, pairs off with, or parts ways with another.
Chasing the River
Jean Dobie Giebel’s Chasing the River follows the post-incarceration difficulties of Kat (Christina Elise Perry), who returns to her childhood home to seek closure on a disrupted life. Playwright Giebel delays explaining, until the play’s conclusion, the reason Kat went to prison, and that choice is a double-edged sword. Although it creates suspense as to what really took place in her family home, keeping Kat’s crime and the backstory shrouded in mystery poses a problem for the actor who must sustain the anguish of a past life and bring it to a crescendo at the end.
Brecht: Call and Respond
An evening of one-act plays, such as those in Brecht: Call and Respond, presents considerable challenges. Playwrights and actors must develop and sustain their characterizations quickly and intensely over a shorter period of time. The umbrella title for three works, Brecht: Call and Respond includes The Jewish Wife by Bertolt Brecht, Sunset Point by Arlene Hutton, and Self Help in the Anthropocene by Kristin Idaszak (the last two were commissioned by New Light Theater Company in 2019).
Romeo and Bernadette
It’s rare that a musical synthesizes genres and influences from popular and high culture and succeeds at integrating them all, but Romeo and Bernadette does. With book and lyrics by Mark Saltzman, and music adapted from traditional Italian melodies, this show incorporates elements of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, with a bit of The Sopranos to boot. Northern vs. southern Italian (Sicilian) class prejudices and contemporary renditions of classical Italian operas are thrown into the mix for good measure.
Anything Can Happen in the Theater
Be prepared for an evening of delight at Anything Can Happen in the Theater, a revue that features the music and lyrics of acclaimed Broadway composer Maury Yeston. The numbers, primarily chosen from Yeston’s shows—Nine, Grand Hotel, Titanic, and In the Beginning—run the gamut from whimsical, poignant, upbeat, and celebratory to seductive, satirical, and altogether charming.