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theater review
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Originally published 03/30/2018
They Make a Fun and Exciting Show out of Medieval Life
Bruce Chadwick
It is different from anything you’ve ever seen.
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Originally published 03/19/2018
A Nuremberg Judge Looks Back: A Play About Attorney General Francis Biddle and His Secretary
Bruce Chadwick
You want true history? How much truer can it get than this?
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Originally published 03/12/2018
If You Like Damon Runyon, You’ll Love the New Play “Three Wise Guys”
Bruce Chadwick
It’s about a 1932 Mafia Christmas and it couldn’t be more fun.
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Originally published 02/23/2018
Jerry Springer: A Good Fight and a Bumpy Opera
Bruce Chadwick
It is a good look at television history, but it’s not exactly "Madame Butterfly." The language is obscene.
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Originally published 02/06/2018
When Is a War Hero Not a War Hero? (Play Review)
Bruce Chadwick
See "American Hero." It will make your soul shudder.
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Originally published 01/26/2018
Teachers Tackle a Fund Raiser for a Dead Girl: Trouble Up Ahead (Play Review)
Bruce Chadwick
"Miles for Mary" is an often very funny play about corporate and organizational meetings (we’ve all sat through them) that go nowhere and set the participants against each other.
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Originally published 01/12/2018
Ring Lardner's America: A One-Man Show Starring John Lithgow
Bruce Chadwick
Now playing on 42nd Street!
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Originally published 12/29/2017
Frankenstein Is Back Again, but This Monster Won’t Scare Anybody
Bruce Chadwick
In the latest NY production starring Robert Fairchild he is part monster, part ballet dancer and all gorgeous.
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Originally published 12/18/2017
The Fabled Hollywood Sign and a Great Depression Tragedy
Bruce Chadwick
A review of a play about “Peg” Entwistle, a young actor who killed herself in 1932 by jumping off the H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D sign.
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Originally published 12/06/2017
Whether Real or Fiction, the Soviet Leaders Were, and Are, Brutal
Bruce Chadwick
A review of the play “Describe the Night,” a sprawling saga about Russian history that opened in New York this week.
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Originally published 12/04/2017
Living on the Edge of a Race Riot
Bruce Chadwick
A review of Seth Zvi Rosenfeld’s new play, “Downtown Race Riot.”
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Originally published 11/10/2017
Killing Billy the Kid
Bruce Chadwick
There's a new play about Billy the Kid produced by Bruce Willis. Our reviewer was not impressed.
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Originally published 11/06/2017
The Financial Bandits of the 1980s Ride Again in the New Play "Junk" (As in Junk Bonds)
Bruce Chadwick
The play is colorful, it is rich, and, oh boy, is it ever savage.
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Originally published 10/16/2017
Trying to Love "Shakespeare in Love" (The Play)
Bruce Chadwick
The success of the movie has propelled others to turn it into a stage play. This year, it will be the most produced play in the United States.
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Originally published 10/09/2017
Ralph Kramden Is Back! (This Time as a Play.)
Bruce Chadwick
The play is so good that the Loyal Order of the Raccoons, Ralph and Ed’s fraternal lodge in Brooklyn, would stand up and wave their raccoon pelt hats for it.
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Originally published 09/25/2017
Time Stands Still for A Clockwork Orange and Street Gangs
Bruce Chadwick
The Clockwork Orange has been brought back as a play. The play is sensational, an absolutely electric production that shakes you to your core with terrific actors.
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Originally published 09/18/2017
Peter Pan Finally Gets Off the Runway
Bruce Chadwick
A new version of the play has debuted in New York in time for the 70th anniversary of Peter Pan. The final third is great! The first 2/3rds? Ugh.
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Originally published 09/11/2017
The Mega Star of the 1930s and 40’s: Marlene Dietrich Rides Again
Bruce Chadwick
"Dietrich Rides Again" is a sprightly show that tells you a lot about Dietrich that most people already know but gives some intriguing glimpses into her personal life with which people, even fans, are not familiar.
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Originally published 08/14/2017
The Vietnam War that Never Goes Away
Bruce Chadwick
A review of the hit revival, Miss Saigon." It holds up well.
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Originally published 07/28/2017
The Real Animals at a 1950s Zoo: Review of the Edward Albee Play
Bruce Chadwick
"At Home at the Zoo" is a very strong play, highlighted by astonishingly good acting, and calls into question much about our lives.
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Originally published 07/25/2017
Why You Don’t Want to Marry Your Pen Pal
Bruce Chadwick
A review of "Intimate Apparel," a long, gripping saga about race, class and gender in turn-of-the-century America, a time when the nation was bursting with yet another wave of immigrants, rising crime and political upheaval.
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Originally published 07/18/2017
How Shakespeare Imagined Julius Caesar's Invasions of Britain
Bruce Chadwick
The play is Cymbeline. The latest production is being staged in the Berkshires.
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Originally published 07/15/2017
Should Smart Black Students Be Sent to Special Schools?
Bruce Chadwick
That's the question addressed in a new play, "Pipeline," running at Lincoln Center.
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Originally published 06/13/2017
A Playwright Set Out to Draw Attention to the Overlooked Larger-than-Life Black Characters in the Old West
Bruce Chadwick
Alas, Bella: An American Tall Tale, is a struggle to sit through.
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Originally published 05/30/2017
Mary Poppins Soars Again in 1910 England
Bruce Chadwick
See the Paper Mill’s Mary Poppins. It is, in a word, adorable.
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Originally published 05/01/2017
Forget Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller: This Band Can Really Play the Music of WWII
Bruce Chadwick
A dynamic new musical not only recreates the big band sound of the 1940s with all new music, but provides a fascinating look into the lives of the returning soldiers and the women and friends they left behind them when they went off to war.
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Originally published 04/24/2017
Murdering the Tsar and His Family – Set to Music
Bruce Chadwick
The new Broadway musical "Anastasia" tells the story of the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia. The play is dazzling – one of the best musicals of the year, a historical thriller and a sure-fire multiple Tony nominee.
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Originally published 04/24/2017
The Politician Who Lets His Conscience Get the better of Him (No Silly, It's a Play)
Bruce Chadwick
It's worth a trip to the theater and if you are a political junkie, you will really enjoy it.
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Originally published 04/18/2017
A Play about a Play? Yes, When the Play Is About Jews and Gays and the Police Shut It Down
Bruce Chadwick
It happened in 1923.
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Originally published 04/14/2017
The PLO and the Israelis behind Closed Doors in Oslo: The Play
Bruce Chadwick
Can you make a good drama out of secret political peace talks in which there are no car chases, homicidal threats or a love story? You can if you are playwright J.T. Rogers.
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Originally published 04/03/2017
ABBA, a Greek Island, a Dancing Queen. Mamma Mia and Music History
Bruce Chadwick
"Mamma Mia!" is a nice look at the music of ABBA and, in a way, the history of music in the mid-1970s.
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Originally published 03/31/2017
"Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" – A Dazzling Look at Russian History
Bruce Chadwick
A play about a rich and yet troubled era in the history of Russia, when the country was ruled by the Czars, dominated by the rich and fighting for its life against Napoleon.
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Originally published 03/27/2017
The Toll the Great Depression Took
Bruce Chadwick
That's the story Arthur Miller tells in "The Price," now back on broadway starring Danny DeVito.
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Originally published 03/20/2017
First Class Travel on the Orient Express
Bruce Chadwick
The play is just as good as the stellar movie version of the story produced in 1974.
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Originally published 03/13/2017
A Play About the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair
Bruce Chadwick
The tragedy here is that the 1893 fair was a marvelous piece of Chicago and U.S. history, yet none of its highlights are mentioned prominently.
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Originally published 03/10/2017
"The Glass Menagerie": It's a Trip to the 1940s (And Still Worth Making)
Bruce Chadwick
See "The Glass Menagerie." It is produced every few years somewhere and remains a classic story with memorable characters, even the battered Unicorn in Laura’s glass menageries itself.
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Originally published 03/06/2017
Behind the Scenes in the Early Women’s Movement as Seen Through the Eyes of a Playwright
Bruce Chadwick
What really stands out about "Bull in a China Shop" is the history. The audience learns a great deal about the women’s movement, from 1899 to the start of World War II.
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Originally published 02/27/2017
What Was It Like to Be a Jew in the Past? How a New Play, "If I Forget," Answers this Question.
Bruce Chadwick
The story, full of very funny dialogues and deep, finely etched characters, is a wrenching family story and a nice look at a religion in which many of its members worry. And worry. And worry.
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Originally published 02/20/2017
Americans Sons and the Police: The Play
Bruce Chadwick
"American Son" is an explosive, scalding drama.
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Originally published 02/20/2017
"A Comedy of Tenors" Is Off Key
Bruce Chadwick
You want to hear good music? Buy a Pavarotti CD.
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Originally published 02/15/2017
Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr.: The Play
Bruce Chadwick
The play about him is a nice story about Powell’s achievements in his lifelong battle against racism in which he represented Harlem for nearly three decades in Congress. It leaves out the bad parts.
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Originally published 02/06/2017
An Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot … Piece of History
Bruce Chadwick
The girls, and the old music, tear up the boardwalk.
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Originally published 01/30/2017
WWII’s Flying Tigers Run Out of Fuel
Bruce Chadwick
Fascinating history told in an unfascinating way, alas.
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Originally published 01/27/2017
A Play About Open Marriage and Sex Galore in Quiet Old 1933 Great Britain
Bruce Chadwick
"Unfaithfully Yours" is a delightful play plucked from the files of British playwright Miles Malleson and brought it to life after all these years – skimpy towels and all.
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Originally published 12/16/2016
Guilty or Innocent? Martin Luther on Trial on Times Square
Bruce Chadwick
Somewhere between heaven, hell and Times Square, they are putting Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church in the early 1500s, on trial for blasphemy with eternal damnation the punishment if the truculent monk is found guilty.
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Originally published 12/12/2016
London, 1843: A Merry Christmas and a Stingy Ebenezer Scrooge
Bruce Chadwick
This latest version of the play is terrific and even better than the last.
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Originally published 12/05/2016
A Christmas in Wales Is Like Christmas Anywhere in America
Bruce Chadwick
We have a number of wonderful Christmas plays and movies to keep us warm during the holidays. Poet Dylan Thomas’s "A Child’s Christmas in Wales" usually does not find its place on that list and it should.
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Originally published 12/05/2016
Daddy Long Legs
Bruce Chadwick
Jerusha Abbott is an orphan at the John Grier asylum in New York in the early 1900s in this play about a wealthy benefactor who wants to pay for her entire college education.
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Originally published 11/11/2016
A Happy Nod to the Queen of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s
Bruce Chadwick
Her name was Zora Neale Hurston and she was one of the most talented African American writers in this country’s history.
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Originally published 11/07/2016
The Election of 493 B.C.: Make Rome Great Again
Bruce Chadwick
If you like Shakespeare, see this play. If you like politics, see this play. If you enjoy history, see this play.
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Originally published 11/07/2016
Remembering Apartheid in South Africa with a Chill
Bruce Chadwick
"Master Harold and the Boys" is a dramatic masterpiece, a splendid piece of theater that does what theater has always been meant to do – scorch your emotions.
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Originally published 10/24/2016
The Never Ending Story of Lee Harvey Oswald
Bruce Chadwick
In a new play Oswald's mama is blamed for many of his problems. The play winks at conspiracy theories, but says flat out that Oswald shot the president.
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Originally published 10/17/2016
Remember the Movie "Holiday Inn"? Now It's a Play.
Bruce Chadwick
Go back in time to post-war Connecticut, book your rooms early and get yourself to "Holiday Inn" for a holiday of fun.
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Originally published 10/10/2016
Donald Trump, Richard III and Other Lazy Day Comparisons
Bruce Chadwick
What we can learn from a play about an aggrandizing and ruthless king set in a modern context.
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Originally published 10/10/2016
The Underground Railroad Game: Try Monopoly Instead
Bruce Chadwick
If he saw this Civil War play, General Lee would have fallen off his horse Traveler and General Grant would have really started drinking.
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Originally published 10/05/2016
Texans Yearning for Home in the Roaring Twenties
Bruce Chadwick
"Roads to Home" is a gauzy and loving play about life in Texas, in America, in the 1920s.
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Originally published 08/29/2016
A Day by the Sea, from 1953, Is a Refreshing High Tide
Bruce Chadwick
The story seems like it took place in America yesterday. This is the land of layoffs, buyouts, half-jobs, downsized workers, forced retirees, interim employment and millions of temps.
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Originally published 08/15/2016
A King Who Serves for 400 Years?
Bruce Chadwick
That's the premise of Eugene Ionesco’s 1962 play "Exit the King." Alas, it doesn't make for a great production.
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Originally published 07/24/2016
Women Soldiers: When They Come Home Broken
Bruce Chadwick
Review of "Ugly Lies the Bone," a play that reveals the stark life of a soldier who comes home from war disfigured, depressed and angry.
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Originally published 07/24/2016
America’s Skid Row Will Never Be the Same
Bruce Chadwick
A review of the latest version of "Little Shop of Horrors."
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Originally published 07/17/2016
Three Women Locked in a Washington, D.C. Hotel Room, the 1787 Constitutional Convention and William Shakespeare … Oh, and Miss Georgia, too…
Bruce Chadwick
A play. Sorta.
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Originally published 07/11/2016
The Merchant of Venice Meets Rodgers, Hammerstein and Donald Trump
Bruce Chadwick
Donald Trump in Venice in the early 1600s? You have just got to love this play.
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Originally published 07/11/2016
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in a Hot New Staging
Bruce Chadwick
If you can, catch this hot, hot production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
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Originally published 07/01/2016
The Wacky World of William Shakespeare (abridged, revised, edited, whew!)
Bruce Chadwick
Have a night of blistering fun and go see a play by William Shakespeare. Uh oh. Really? Well, yes, really.
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Originally published 06/27/2016
Yes, Yes to "No-No Boy," the New Play About a World War II Japanese-American Who Faces a Wrenching Decision in an Internment Camp
Bruce Chadwick
"No-No Boy," a play by Ken Nagasaki, tells a troubling, scorching story of one Japanese-American’s decision to refuse to join the U.S. Army while he lived in one of the camps.
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Originally published 06/20/2016
1950s Paris, Set to the Music of the Everly Brothers
Bruce Chadwick
From the first to last moment, "Out of the Mouths of Babes" is an hysterically funny, and yet loving and tender, play about four gritty women who spin stories of history in Paris and several American cities, too.
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Originally published 06/13/2016
Jets and Sharks Rumble Again in West Side Story of the ‘50s
Bruce Chadwick
What is it about the 1957 play "West Side Story" that has made it one of the most powerful musicals of all time?
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Originally published 06/06/2016
Grandpa’s World War II Secret
Bruce Chadwick
"War" is a moving play about what happened to so many thousands of GIs who fell in love with women in Germany, and later Japan, and in allied nations, in the World War II era (and in Vietnam later).
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Originally published 11/23/2015
A Story about a 1980s Captive Who Goes through Much ‘Misery’
Bruce Chadwick
This new version of Misery, at the Broadhurst Theater on West 44th Street, is a good play, full of suspense and intrigue.
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Originally published 01/27/2013
A Gay Man, a Housewife, and Mussolini
Bruce Chadwick
Working on a Special Day 59 E. 59 Theaters 59 E. 59th Street New York, N.Y.How do you turn a movie that was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and starred Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren into a successful play?Very carefully.
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Originally published 01/27/2013
Jam On
Bruce Chadwick
The Jammer Atlantic Stage 2 330 W. 16th Street New York, N.Y.It's Brooklyn, circa 1958. The Dodgers have been gone for two years, Eisenhower is president and rock and roll music is sweeping the nation. It's nighttime at a local sports arena, time for outlandishly dressed men and women to crash over rails, leap over fallen skaters and elbow each other. It is time for fans to lose their sanity and yell and scream at the top of their lungs for the hometown team.It is time for roller derby.From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, the brazen men and wild women of roller derby were skating in smoky arenas all over America on wooden ovals in a frantic race for points and time. Teams from New York to San Francisco drew crowds as large as 50,000 fans at indoor and outdoor arenas and millions more watched on television.The roller derby skating teams, with names such as the Jolters and Bombers, gave the country a very rowdy, fast paced sport, supposedly a little fixed at times. It was like professional wrestling, with roaring crowds, bigger than life stars and non-stop violence.
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Originally published 01/18/2013
"Phantom of the Opera" Showcases Rich Parisian History
Bruce Chadwick
Phantom of the Opera Majestic Theater 247 W. 44th Street New York, N.Y.The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running play in American history, celebrates its 25th anniversary in New York Saturday night. There will once again be “oohs” and “aahs” when the huge chandelier falls on stage, scary moments when the Phantom threatens people and, start to finish, some of the most luscious music ever written for the stage.Theatergoers will see the enchanting musical, as good as ever after all these years, and shudder as the ogrish Phantom takes the beautiful actress Christine across the foreboding lake beneath the Paris Opera House to his lair. They will revel in French history, with all of its odd turns, that set the stage for the 1911 novel Le Fantome de L’Opera, by Gaston Leroux, and the hit 1925 silent movie version of it, starring the hideously made up Lon Chaney. While it was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wonderful music, and the character of the Phantom, that made the musical so successful, it was the history that always gave it strength, whether in 1925 movie theaters or in the 148 cities in 28 countries where the musical has been staged.
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