Adriano Shaplin's gonzo epic Sarah Flood in Salem Mass blends Our Town and The Crucible with verve, slang, and hallucinogenic beaver stew. (Yes, the Wooster Group did it first--minus the beavers--but that was 30 years ago.) The 18-character play at ...
If the effigies of famous Yankees sluggers at Madame Tussauds aren't lifelike enough for you, cross 42nd Street to watch Eric Simonson's Bronx Bombers, a veritable walking-talking wax museum of baseball greats--with about as much psychological compl...
If Broadway musicals had trailers like movies, the one for Big Fish might go something like this: Meet Edward Bloom! He's a father and a husband with a big heart--and some tall tales. He tells one about being a wartime hero who saved a commander. He...
Jonas Wood's new paintings present seemingly straightforward scenes--rooms devoid of people, a poker tournament on TV--that front for dazzling formal invention. In some pieces Wood focuses on his childhood home, yet he offsets any sentimentality ...
"Confidential." That was the beguiling subject of an e-mail seemingly randomly addressed to the Village Voice in mid-September. "I represent the artist Banksy," the message began, "and I would like to talk to you at your earliest convenience."...
There's something stupid about the ongoing condemnation of Millennials happening now in our culture. You know, the one that asks questions like: "Why are Generation Y yuppies so unhappy?" and then suggests that the answer is because Millennials are ...
What happens to a political play that's three decades old? Can it keep its emotional charge, or does it wither when its social relevance fades? You may be asking these questions after seeing the Keen Company's revival of The Film Society, a play by ...
Provocations don't come much gentler than Ain Gordon's Not What Happened, which concluded a brief run at BAM's Next Wave Festival. A meditation on truth and historical accuracy, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, it concerns a 19th-century farmwife, Silen...
You might assume that the Photoshop fantasias of our age would make the visual conundrums of Ren Magritte's pre-war paintings feel quaint. Certainly the beguiling originality of his fractured figures and enigmatic objects has been obscured over the...
The theater is a swindle, an exercise in sham. Every play operates on principles of treachery: Flimsy set pieces substitute for solid spaces; people assume names and accents other than their own. Even the sincerest dramatic effort makes a three-card...
Who knew Supreme Court justices have such complicated, libidinous inner lives? Anthony Kennedy muses on adults-only car washes. Sandra Day O'Connor contemplates pornographic videos. Antonin Scalia obsesses over nude opera. These racy reveries appear...
What homeless diva recently threatened to commit suicide if her rich patrons didn't cough up $20 million by the end of the year? That's right--the New York City Opera. So if you find it incongruous that the organization's potential (and possibly tem...
The ardor animating the latest Romeo and Juliet seems less the marriage of true minds than the commingling of hot bods. In David Leveaux's revival at Broadway's Richard Rodgers, Orlando Bloom, 34, and Condola Rashad, 26, halve their ages to play doo...
"Are celebrities the new art stars?" asked a Newsweek cover story in July. A few months later, certain windy developments (or popcorn farts) that passed for world-shaking events on TMZ and CNN answered in the affirmative. In the wake of Miley Cyrus'...
The game Lotera can best be described as a Mexican version of bingo, but instead of numbers, each card bears a striking image, such as beautiful sea goddess La Sirena or ominous skull La Calavera. In Mario Alberto Zambrano's debut novel, Lotera, i...
Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Life and Times: Episodes 4.5 and 5--at this year's Crossing the Line Festival--are the newest installments in an epic performance depicting the life story of Kristin Worrall, one of the company's collaborators. Previous ...
Ruins are the remnants of man-made architecture: once-complete structures collapsed into timeworn bits through lack of upkeep or deliberate destruction. Think of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Tikal--or the burned carcass of 20th-century modernism, for that...
It's unusual to review a show after only seeing about a tenth of it. But All the Faces of the Moon, master monologist Mike Daisey's epic new serial project--now playing at Joe's Pub--defies many dramatic norms. Daisey is syncing theater's rhythms t...
In 1969, during his exile from boxing, Muhammad Ali starred in a Broadway musical, Buck White. A tuneful spoof of the black power movement, the show included the songs "We Came in Chains," "Mighty Whitey," and "HNIC." Ali played the titular lead an...
Horton Foote began writing The Old Friends in 1963 or '64, as a sort of sequel to his early play, Only the Heart. Between '64 and Foote's death in 2009, something like 30 of his new plays saw full productions. The Old Friends never did. There's a r...
"Confidential." That was the beguiling subject of an e-mail seemingly randomly addressed to the Village Voice in mid-September. "I represent the artist Banksy," the message began, "and I would like to talk… More >>
There’s something stupid about the ongoing condemnation of Millennials happening now in our culture. You know, the one that asks questions like: "Why are Generation Y yuppies so unhappy?" and… More >>
Jonas Wood's new paintings present seemingly straightforward scenes—rooms devoid of people, a poker tournament on TV—that front for dazzling formal invention. In some pieces Wood focuses on his childhood home, yet… More >>
Adriano Shaplin's gonzo epic Sarah Flood in Salem Mass blends Our Town and The Crucible with verve, slang, and hallucinogenic beaver stew. (Yes, the Wooster Group did it first—minus the… More >>
If the effigies of famous Yankees sluggers at Madame Tussauds aren't lifelike enough for you, cross 42nd Street to watch Eric Simonson's Bronx Bombers, a veritable walking-talking wax museum of… More >>
If Broadway musicals had trailers like movies, the one for Big Fish might go something like this: Meet Edward Bloom! He's a father and a husband with a big heart—and… More >>
What happens to a political play that's three decades old? Can it keep its emotional charge, or does it wither when its social relevance fades? You may be asking these… More >>
You might assume that the Photoshop fantasias of our age would make the visual conundrums of René Magritte's pre-war paintings feel quaint. Certainly the beguiling originality of his fractured figures… More >>
The theater is a swindle, an exercise in sham. Every play operates on principles of treachery: Flimsy set pieces substitute for solid spaces; people assume names and accents other than… More >>
Provocations don't come much gentler than Ain Gordon's Not What Happened, which concluded a brief run at BAM's Next Wave Festival. A meditation on truth and historical accuracy, directed by… More >>