AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

February 17, 2009 updates:

New York Magazine

Misery Times Two
Uncle Vanya’s jumpy, star-studded Russian melancholy, and Lynn Nottage’s grimly lyric Ruined

Wall Street Journal

In the Land of Nightmares
"Ruined," which chronicles the terrible realities of Congolese life, leaves no doubt that Lynn Nottage is one of the best playwrights we have...

Time Out New York

Review: Ruined
Lynn Nottage plunges deep into the Congo for her shattering new drama.

Edge New York

Ruined
A co-production of the Manhattan Theatre Club and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Lynn Nottage’s "Ruined" is a brilliant, morally complex play about Congolese women trying to survive a civil war that is certainly not being fought for their benefit.

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AmericanTheaterWeb

Review - Ruined - A Woman of Courage, and Business, Surviving in the War-Torn Congo
New York Times

War’s Terrors, Through a Brothel Window
Lynn Nottage’s strong and absorbing new play is a comfortable, old-fashioned drama about an uncomfortable of-the-moment subject.
* Audio Slide Show

New York Daily News

'Ruined' women fight for survival
In Lynn Nottage's stirring and sometimes startling new work, “Ruined,” the Brooklyn writer casts her gaze at the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Ruined
“The war's an ugly, messy, incomprehensible puzzle, punctuated by spurts of unfathomable violence and many false endings. It's often been said that it's the most deadly conflict since World War II, and unfortunately the bodies of women have become part of the vast battlefield.”

Newsday

Review: 'Ruined'
...Lynn Nottage's beautiful, hideous and unpretentiously important play with music that opened last night ...

New York Post

Moving 'Ruined' fixed on war-torn Congo
In "Ruined," Lynn Nottage's devastating new play set in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, the title takes on a freshly horrifying meaning that will forever sear itself onto...

ny1

Time Out Theater Review: "Ruined"

Associated Press

'Ruined' puts a human face on monumental tragedy

Bloomberg.com

Mama Nadi Eats First in `Ruined' Brothel as Congo War Rages: Jeremy Gerard The faces in Lynn Nottage’s powerful new drama, “Ruined,” mask the unspeakable violence these women have survived. One that still stays with me belongs to a willowy girl named Sophie, whose visage has been wiped clean of expression. Her staring eyes are placid as death.

Variety

Review: Ruined
Sexual violence against women as a side effect of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the kind of subject most of us read about in a Nicholas Krystof column or watch on a CNN report, shaking our heads in horror before moving on.

Back Stage

Ruined reviewed by David Sheward
Rarely does a play take you to a corner of the world you hardly ever think about and force you to care fiercely for the people in it.

TheaterMania

Review: Ruined
Lynn Nottage's emotionally devastating and spellbinding new play succeeds spectacularly both as potent political statement and as riveting drama.

CurtainUp

Review: Ruined
While polemical in its intent this is not agiprop but gripping theater with an outstandig cast to bring its characters to vigorously meaningful life.

 

February 17,2009 updates:

Edge New York

Shipwrecked! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself)
A mildly captivating yarn about a journey that is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

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February 12, 2009 updates:

Time Out New York

Review: Shipwrecked!
Donald Margulies spins an old-fashioned yarn full of danger and thrills.

Bloomberg.com

True Tale of Faked Trip Makes `Shipwrecked' Fantastic Voyage: John Simon
“Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself),” running at New York’s 59E59 complex, is equally effective as rousing adventure tale for youngsters and challenging comedy for adults.

nypress

Liar, Liar
Shipwrecked hoists its mast

 

February 11, 2009 updates:

New York Times

An Adventurer Afloat on an Ocean of Story
Donald Margulies scampers to the defense of good old-fashioned yarn spinning with this kid-friendly comedy

Hartford Courant

New York Stage: Donald Margulies' 'Shipwrecked' Is Heroic Adventure

Associated Press

'Shipwrecked!' Salutes the Power of Imagination
Let your imagination loose and hearken back to a gentler time, when there was no television, radio or YouTube. Victorian-era stories were printed serially in newspapers and magazines, or in hardcover books, and readers and listeners created pictures in their minds.

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AmericanTheaterWeb

Review - 'Shipwrecked!' - Seafaring Tales Brought to Life With Charm

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Shipwrecked! An Entertainment
The expansive title of Donald Margulies’ new play – “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment -- The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself)” – matches the larger-than-life ambition of its epic storytelling. However, its physical size is far smaller.

New York Post

Length almost wrecks show
The title of Donald Margulies' new play - "Shipwrecked! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougement (As...

Variety

Review: Shipwrecked! (An Entertainment)
...this slight, but nonetheless enchanting feat of old-fashioned storytelling can be staged anywhere and on a dime, with minimal props, a couple of assistants and a bit of imagination.

Back Stage

Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself) reviewed by Lisa Jo Sagolla
Margulies' cleverly crafted play underlines the contrived essence of theatrical storytelling, with de Rougemont (Michael Countryman) shifting back and forth between narrating and acting out his made-up escapades.

TheaterMania

Review: Shipwrecked! An Entertainment
Primary Stages offers up a beautifully acted and directed production of Donald Margulies' amazing adventure-filled tale.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Shipwrecked! An Entertainment
The diminutive, dumbed-down theatrical epic must be here to stay. First came The 39 Steps, in which four actors made a two-hour joke of a serious Hitchcock film. Then came Around the World in 80 Days, in which five actors made a two-hour joke of a serious Jules Verne novel. ...

CurtainUp

Review: http://www.curtainup.com/shipwreckedny.html
The degree to which you'll be astonished by this tall tale depends on your willingness to tap into your eight-year-old self

 

February 17, 2009 Updates:

Edge New York

Uncle Vanya
Behind the marquee names, a heartfelt and modern production of Chekhov’s melancholy masterpiece.

New York Magazine

Misery Times Two
Uncle Vanya’s jumpy, star-studded Russian melancholy, and Lynn Nottage’s grimly lyric Ruined

ny1

NY1 Theater Review: "Uncle Vanya"

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AmericanTheaterWeb

Review - Uncle Vanya - There Are Moments to Savor in This Uneven Chekhov

New York Times

Provincial Russians, Getting Very Physical
Nothing feels settled in Austin Pendleton’s hyperkinetic new production of “Uncle Vanya,” starring Denis O’Hare, Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

New York Daily News

Chekhov revival is 'clueless'
The revival of "Uncle Vanya" now adrift at the Classic Stage Company is star-studded but rudderless.

Newsday

Review: 'Uncle Vanya,' with Maggie Gyllenhaal
We can feel the space close in on the people in "Uncle Vanya," which opened last night at the tiny Classic Stage Company with a bewitching Maggie Gyllenhaal as the languorous, dangerously bored Yelena.

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Uncle Vanya at Classic Stage Company
It’s a great time to be Anton Chekhov. In the fall, an English revival of “The Seagull” starring Kristin Scott Thomas received critical acclaim and, more unexpectedly, financial success. At Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sam Mendes’ production of “The Cherry Orchard” with Ethan Hawke and Simon Russell Beale is still running. At Harlem Stage, “Three Sisters” is now in previews.

New York Post

'Uncle' relatively minor revival
The marquee attractions of the new off- Broadway produc tion of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" are Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard (our local equivalent to Brangelina) and Tony Award winner Denis O'Hare ("Take Me Out") in the title role. But the revelation of this revival by the Classic Stage Company is Mamie Gummer...

Hartford Courant

Chehov's 'Uncle Vanya" In Fine Revival

Bergen Record

Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya': Love in all the wrong places

Associated Press

'Uncle Vanya' returns with its sorrow intact

Bloomberg.com

Stymied Gyllenhaal, Miscast O'Hare, Star in `Vanya' Revival: John Simon
A revival of Anton Chekhov’s masterly “Uncle Vanya” by the Classic Stage Company in the East Village proves yet again that the presence of big stage and screen stars doesn’t assure a classic’s success.

Wall Street Journal

In the Land of Nightmares
"Ruined," which chronicles the terrible realities of Congolese life, leaves no doubt that Lynn Nottage is one of the best playwrights we have...
[Also, 'Vanya', 'Aristocrats']

Variety

Review: Uncle Vanya
...Austin Pendleton's helming is physically energetic and far less gloomy than the customary theatrical take, allowing a sterling ensemble to exercise its comedic chops on the scribe's complaining privileged classes. Among these 19th century whiners, Denis O'Hare's Vanya uses an arsenal of neurotic tics to convey his generation's lost dreams and hopeless aspirations.

Back Stage

Uncle Vanya reviewed by David Sheward
Director Austin Pendleton, himself a distinguished interpreter of the title role, wisely avoids the trap of having the inhabitants of the country estate lounge around lazily while moaning about how boring and pointless their lives are

TheaterMania

Review: Uncle Vanya
Denis O'Hare gives a towering performance in Austin Pendleton's near-perfect production of Anton Chekhov's melancholy comedy.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Uncle Vanya
As if Ivan Petrovich didn’t already have enough to worry about! He fritters away his life as a caretaker on an ungrateful professor’s estate. He falls in unrequited love with a young girl who becomes that professor’s wife. Now he can’t even step to the forefront of the play that’s supposed to venerate him in our eyes. Some guys can’t catch a break. . .

nytheatre.com

Review: Uncle Vanya

CurtainUp

Review: Uncle Vanya
This is one of those plays that continues to grow on one so that it will be affective even if a production doesn't live 100% up to one's expectations. The CSC production is no exception.

 

AmericanTheaterWeb

Review - 'Love/Stories' - Romance, Art of Theater Shrewdly Explored

New York Post

Flea puts on some one-acters with market value
Other than delivering a cutesy pre-curtain announce ment, playwright Itamar Moses doesn't actually appear in "Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used to It)," an evening of short one-acts at the Flea. But he's a dominant presence nonetheless, constantly letting us in on - as one of the play's titles puts it - his "...

Variety

Review: Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used to It)
With his new showcase at the Flea Theater, Itamar Moses risks serious abuse on the subject of gender politics. But the final word on the writer's five-play mini-marathon is that it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Back Stage

Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used to It) reviewed by Leonard Jacobs
These five one-acts by Itamar Moses suit the Flea Theater's downstairs venue because its wide, shallow space renders the fourth wall into a silly convention — like the much of the piece itself.

nytheatre.com

Review: Love/Stories (or, But You Will Get Used to It)

 

Itamar Moses' Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used To It), which opened last night at The Flea Theater in Tribeca, might very well be one of the smartest comedies theatergoers will find on stage in New York this winter. A series of five short plays that examine the nature of love and relationships, "Love/Stories" might sound like a new stage version of the late 1960s television show, Love, American Style, but Moses goes much further than this show ever did, and these plays shrewdly examine the nature of theater even as they inspire gales of laughter.

Moses' best zinger might be in the show's third playlet, Authorial Intent. A series of three scenes, "Intent" introduces theatergoers to a woman and a man, known only as A (Laurel Holland) and B (Michael Micalizzi), who've just moved in together. After watching the events of a momentous evening for the couple unfold, theatergoers are treated to the same scene, but this time, with "sidebars" in which the actors describe what their characters want and how they intend to get it. The third scene in "Intent" takes place after the play in which "A" and "B" are characters has finished. As "Lauren" and "Mike" discuss the show, he tries to get her to go out for a drink, and as the cat-and-mouse game continues, he says something about his non-standard looks and intelligence. As a press performance, the line, and Micalizzi's pitch-perfect delivery sent an entire audience into convulsions.

Micalizzi demonstrates his ability to elicit laughs in another segment of "Love/Stories," although in this instance he does it without saying a word. In "Temping," he plays a temp who's stuck listening to a co-worker (Maren Langdon) as she has a vituperative phone call with a very recent ex. While Langdon scores some laughs with the increasingly frantic call, and a subsequent one to a good friend in which she recounts the battle, Micalizzi, pushing papers, silently responds to each salvo in the one-sided conversation in both sympathy, annoyance, and increasing relief, making it quite clear that this man hopes the result of the calls will be that he will have a chance to date the woman at the next desk. It's a marvel of physical and verbal timing that's been expertly choreographed by director Michelle Tattenbaum.

As with "Intent," the art of creating theater and the sometimes incestuous world that artists inhabit comes under scrutiny in two other pieces in "Love/Stories." In the opening piece, an actor auditioning for a show finds his work undermined by the playwright, who's none too keen that the performer who wants to appear in his play also happens to be dating his ex-girlfriend. In this piece, Langdon delivers a marvelously understated performance as a strong-willed director, Felipe Bonilla scores laughs as the neurotic and vindictive writer, and Holland balances sweetness and edge as the young actress who's helping with the audition process.

In the evening's penultimate piece, "Szinhaz" a Russian theatrical auteur (Bonilla) answers questions at a symposium, moderated and translated by a young Russian woman (Langdon), with an uneasy grasp on the English language. While her mistranslations of Chekhov titles are priceless, and his arty constructs are comic gems, it's an unexpected twist that gives this piece its heft.

Unfortunately, Moses concludes "Love/Stories" with his most indulgent piece. In "Untitled Short Play," an author (played with a keenly comic sense of authority by John Russo) describes the process of writing a two-character scene, and the pitfalls and omissions that are inherent with the act of creation. It's certainly smart, but it also feels overlong and something like an excuse from Moses or an act of self-justification, ending the evening on an almost pedantic note.

Excluding the piece from the evening as a whole would be unfortunate as the themes it addresses add gracefully to the evening as a whole, but a gentle pruning and a different placement in the show might be all that's needed to transform "Love/Stories" from a perfectly satisfying evening to something that leaves the audience not only breathless from laughter, but quietly contemplating romance and its depiction on stage.

---- Andy Propst

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Love/Stories (or ButYou Will Get Used To It) plays at The Flea Theater (41 White Street). Performances are Friday and Saturday at 9pm and Sunday at 3 and 7pm. Tickets are $20.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101 or by visiting www.TheFlea.org.

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