State of the Art

"Cats: The Jellicle Ball" is so freaking smart it's not even fair. This may be the only concept that could make "Cats" function as a narrative driven piece with applications for our own lives.  For anyone who doesn't know, "Cats" is a famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical which was part of the "McMusical" era of Broadway in the 1980's and 1990's. Adapted from the poems of T. S. Elliot, the show skyrocket to superstardom thanks to: 1.) It's incredible dancing and choreography, 2.) The hit song "Memory" and 3.) The fact that it was one of (if not THE) first shows that easily catered to foreign, non-English speaking, tourists. You do not need to understand anything being said or sung onstage to enjoy "Cats". In fact, it might be better if you don't. "Cats" (as Lloyd Webber said to Hal Prince when trying to convince him to direct it) is "about cats." There's no metaphor going on here. W...

Watching "& Juliet" is like eating a box of Twizzlers. Yeah, it might be fun...it may result in a hyperactive sugar rush, but there's no question that it has absolutely no substance and, if you're really honest with yourself, it just tastes of plastic.  The attraction of "& Juliet" is the energy, dance, chance to experience fun pop songs and eye popping design elements (namely the costumes.) But the story feels like it was written by a five year old who once looked up "boss bitch" in the dictionary and has most definitely never read "Romeo and Juliet."  The plot is, on the surface, simple and yet so convoluted it is literally painful trying to make sense of it. The surface level is this: Willam Shakespeare is about to debut his new play, "Romeo and Juliet." His wife, Anne Hathaway, blessed with a rare night off from taking care of the kids, has come to Stratford to see the premiere. Shakespeare has just finished the endi...

OH. MY. GOD. I had no desire to see "Stranger Things: The First Shadow." It felt like another obnoxious cash grab in the "Which IP are we going to adapt for Broadway next?" catalogue. Up next: Netflix's offering. And of all the things to adapt - a retro sci-fi/horror show that was fantastic in it's first season but has gotten progressively worse (with some improvements in season four) leading up to the, as yet still unreleased, fifth season (due to be released imminently). Not a genre "born for the stage" as it were, even in the best of circumstances. And the T.V. show isn't currently in the "best of circumstances." But after seeing "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" (which I reviewed for State of the Art ( https://stateoftheartreview.blogspot.com/2025/10/harry-potter-and-cursed-child-on.html ) I wanted to see what else the brilliant illusion team had up their sleeve. At intermission for "Stranger Things" I texted...

  "The Queen of Versailles" is not a perfect musical. But it is, perhaps, the musical we need. The show is based on the film documentary of the same name, which chronicles Jackie Siegel and her insanely wealthy husband David's building of the "Biggest House in America" which they modeled after, and named "Versailles." The documentary lucked out in being filmed at just the right place and time to document the housing market bubble burst - which coincided with the Siegels being in the middle of construction and losing everything. Their story became a parable about our world and, particularly the U.S.'s hubristic obsession with wealth. The musical, however, lucks out in its own way by being able to chronicle what happened to the Siegels in the ten years (+) since the documentary came out. And what happened after is, in a way, poetic justice on the level of a master storyteller. There couldn't be a more poignant ending if it had been invented by th...

  "Cursed Child" has always been exactly what I expected - and that's both a wonderful and a...meh...thing. Warning: Spoilers Ahead (Though, in all fairness, the show has been out for years and the published script almost longer...) To sum it up: GO FOR THE TECH! In the early 2000's (just after "Wicked" opened) there was a huge backlash against "spectacle" on Broadway. Disney's "Little Mermaid" infamously made headlines when, in response to said spectacle criticism, they announced that when their show opened there would be "No water and no wires." The theater world was intrigued and excited. Ironically it was this dull, lackluster "Little Mermaid" that made the theater world rethink: "Actually we'd really love some water and wires...maybe spectacle isn't such a bad thing after all..."  The problem with spectacle isn't spectacle itself. It's with two sometimes adjacent things: 1.) Spectacle...

  "Liberation", the beautiful new play by Bess Wohl that just opened on Broadway, is the kind of timely piece we need in the commercial theater.  Framed right off the bat as a memory play, "Liberation" is an exploration by Wohl, through her onstage surrogate (played by the wonderful Susannah Flood) of the women's lib movement in America in the 1970's and, namely, why it not only never fully succeeded, but, just as importantly, how on earth we've come to find ourselves moving backwards forty years later. Her mother's generation fought for (and attained) Roe V. Wade. Her generation has watched it be taken away. Wohl's mother, Lizzy, was the catalyst for Wohl writing the play. In the 1970's Lizzie, also primarily played by Wohl, a struggling journalist relegated to weddings and obituaries (she had to fight for obituaries) and desperate to write about politics, started a women's lib group in the basement of an Ohio rec center. There she made ...