State of the Art

  "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 ...

  Photos by Matthew Murphy Just give them all the awards. Thank God something truly good has opened on Broadway!  "The Roommate" is a brilliant example of the magic that can happen when a director gets out of the way and lets brilliant actors do their thing. This is not a jab at director Jack O'Brien, but a high compliment. Clearly O'Brien is a strong, intelligent captain of the ship... and the best captains know that their job is to help everyone else to THEIR job to the best of their ability... not let their ego get in the way and try to make it all about them. The best direction is the direction that doesn't advertise itself. The actual script of "The Roommate" (written by Jen Silverman) is...fine. And I don't mean that as a criticism either. If I picked it up in Drama Bookshop would I be captivated? No. But it does its job, which is far more than I can say for the majority of new plays I've seen recently.  The reason for this play's exist...