Genre: American Theater 0
Review: Deep Azure
One of the few moments of Peter Brooks’ term “Holy Theatre” has arrived at the Wanamaker. A must-see.
Review: American Psycho
If you can queue, you’ll be in good company. Jean queued for Les Mis at 6.30 am.
Review: The Lion in Winter
In the main a stupendous feat: two leads at the top of their game and three superb, beautifully detailed actors inhabiting the sons; with two fine supporting ones as siblings Philip and Alais. A must-see.
Review: Mrs President
Mrs President will continue to haunt and I suspect, develop. Be haunted though.
Review: Our American Queen
Klingenstein’s attentive, witty above all brilliant re-imagining of two remarkable young people. Exceptional.
Review: Orphans
No wonder the propulsive energy of Lyle Kessler’s script, knotted with such complexity and switchbacks of violence has held the stage for over 40 years. You must see this.
Review: Wyld Woman: The Legend of Shy Girl
For Isabel Renner’s witty one-liners, production values and above all her own performance, this show ends up highly recommended.
Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley
A must-see. Minor caveats aside it’s as absorbing as some productions recently have plodded. This isn’t just any Ripley….
Review: The Lightning Thief
There’s talents you’ll want to see and hear. And a stunning set whose production values spring surprises for the audience too. Highly recommended.
Review: Miller The Crucible
It’s almost sold out. If there’s a cancellation on any night, you must see this.
Review: Suddenly Last Summer
Conor Baum and his company are carving out a record of distinction. We’re lucky it’s started in the south east. Outstanding.
Review: Kaddish (How to Be a Sanctuary)
A bold, multi-voiced meditation on grief, justice, and Jewish identity, staged with striking theatricality.
Review: RIFT
A powerful call to our shared humanity to find a way forward beyond the politics of division
Review: Short Plays 2025
Enough here to engage and make anyone who’s not yet ventured to NVT to keep coming back. Do see this collation of crazies.
Review: UnTethered
UnTethered could be outstanding and groundbreaking. What Tara Sirois does next could, and should, unnerve everyone; including herself.
Review: Top Hat
The most joyous musical of the summer. And it has a summer heart that never cloys. A sizzling must-see.
Review: Lynn Nottage Intimate Apparel
Everything built up, like a corset, is unloosed. What we thought we knew we don’t. Outstanding.
Review: Girl from the North Country
Girl from the North Country freights a world in a steam whistle. The sheer punch of talent doesn’t come much greater than this.
Review: Cruel Intentions
If ever you’ve been crossed in love, double-crossed yourself, or just crossing through, then this is for you. It’s June’s sizzle, all the way to Six, this September.
Review: Sarah Ruhl Eurydice
Sam Chittenden coaxes provisional miracles from her cast and space. The medium’s playful, even fun. The message though is bleak; and love is still in the letting go.
Review: Stephen Sondheim, David Ives Here We Are
Altogether this mightn’t be in the top tier of Sondheim musicals, but it’s one of the most interesting, even profound, and Sondheim exits with a rapt question-mark. Unmissable.
Review: Dr Strangelove
Steve Coogan reigns supreme, and a cast like John Hopkins then Giles Terera are a gift to both Coogan and the show.
Review: Cry-Baby
Easily the most joyous musical we’ll see this side midsummer, Cry-Baby in this production blazes fit to set another fire in Dalston
Review: Perfect Arrangement
There’s never been a more urgent time for this gem of a work: a small hybrid classic that’s never been produced in the UK before. See it now.
Review: Dan O’Brien The Voyage of the Carcass; Emily Jenkins Bobby & Amy
Dan O’Brien’s piece is for dedicated farceurs. By itself outstanding, it’s hoped by several Emily Jenkins’ Bobby & Amy have a postlude of its own, with this team and these two young actors pitched at this moment in their careers.
Review: The Devil May Care
Do see this particularly for an outstanding performance from Burrows and an exceptionally fine one from Woodhouse. This adaptation remains an exhilarating reminder of what a difference a century makes.
Review: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Frecknall has re-thought and refreshed one of the great, and classically-framed American dramas. And made it classic.
Review: {Title of Show}
Delicious, certainly, truly witty and fast-moving, never indulgent about self-indulgence, this is a sure-fired soufflé
Review: Dear Evan Hansen
In Ryan Kopel and Lauren Conroy two future stars are born within a first-rate cast led by the exquisitely moving Alice Fearns; and Kopel with such a range is someone whose next role will probably surprise even him. Two and half hours blaze by like a first date. Outstanding.
Review: The Cat and the Canary
An exceptional ensemble delivering a delirious twist on a tale that truly deserves it. Unmissable.
Review: 23.5 Hours
A worthy successor to Never Not Once, almost from the other side of the glass, it makes Crim one of the most visible and exciting of US dramatists.
Review: Greenhouse Festival LAMDA Festival New Directors in association with Orange Tree
Every one of these productions could enjoy a run at the Orange Tree: they’re exciting and accomplished.
Review: The Silver Cord
A darkly thrilling masterpiece, given what might be its finest UK revival. All are outstanding and Alix Dunmore, and certainly Sophie Ward, should be up for some glittering prizes.
Review: 3 Chickens Confront Existence
3 chickens do a deep dive into existentialism... seriously funny
Review: Hunchback Variations
A ‘what if’ comedy fantasy which explores a creative collab between Beethoven and Quasimodo
Review: The Grapes of Wrath
Absorbing and essential, Grapes of Wrath is here as complete as you could wish.
Review: The Hot Wing King
Hall, following Nottage in particular, emerges as one of the most exciting US dramatists.
Review: Kunstler
An outstanding production persuading us such a self-narrating show can enthral as well as inform. A hidden gem.
Review: An Officer and a Gentleman
What brings this musical home is the drawing-together of threads that hang loose in Act One. And finally you believe in a story that doesn’t flinch from darkness and sings its distress. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Review: Machinal
This triumphant revival by Ustinov Studios and the Old Vic might finally encourage exploration. You must see this.
Review: The Comeuppance
Might prove the most lasting American drama about. emerging to a different world.
Review: Afterglow
It’s conquered both sides of the pond. Stunning, heartwarming, heartbreaking. We need this.
Review: The Good John Proctor
A valuable corrective to anticipate both real events and Arthur Miller’s take on Abigail Williams
Review: 1979
Political history told in Mamet-fast satire, imagined conversations and accurate stats. What could be more thrilling? 82 minutes later you won’t ask why this three-hander is like curing New Year’s hangover with Red Bull, ice, something illegal and a vodka chaser.
Review: Clyde’s
Clyde’s follows Sweat, also seen at the Donmar in 2018, which won Lynn Nottage her second Pulitzer Prize. A play of redemption, indeed love. Outstanding.
Review: Twelve Angry Men
This is more than a first-rate revival. In this production it’s a must-see one, the definition of a superbly-made, timeless play.
Review: A View from the Bridge
Here, the hurtling much shorter second act contains a thrilling impulsion and catastrophe that had the audience on its feet. Mostly that’s responding to a great play, but latterly this production carries that charge.
Review: The Yellow Wallpaper
Stephanie Mohr’s adaptation is a remarkable manifestation (no other word seems more apt) of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story The Yellow Wallpaper, an important realisation of a key feminist awakening. It’s good enough for you not to want it depicted in any other way.
Review: Black Mountain, I Dream Before I Take the Stand
In Black Mountain Brad Birch shows in part how fine he can be. Arlene Hutton’s I Dream Before I Take the Stand is a short assault on the way the law assaults its victims, particularly women.
Review: Purgatorio
Groundhog Day - Saying goodbye to old memories, whilst finding new ones. A beautiful physical representation on our ability to accept who we truly are! Get down to Club Purgatorio!
Review: Double Bill: Paul Robeson, Suzi of the Dress
No doubting of the power of this double-bill from Kansas. The Paul Robeson is solid gold, the Suzi of the Dress, quicksilver.
Review: The Goat
Martin Malone more than revives Edward Albee’s 2002 masterpiece The Goat, at the New Venture Theatre; he rethinks how we can receive it. An exemplary revival of a play Michael Billington named one of his 101 Greatest – even over Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Make up your own mind; see it. Martin Malone more than revives Edward Albee’s 2002 masterpiece The Goat, at the New Venture Theatre; he rethinks how we can receive it. An exemplary revival of a play Michael Billington named one of his 101 Greatest – even over Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Make up your own mind; see it.
Review: The Return of Benjamin Lay
Naomi Wallace and actor Mark Provinelli inhabit this gestural giant with wit, sympathy, rage and an agency burning up centuries between. It’s profoundly moving too, speaks to our condition of techno-serfdom, new slavery, discrimination everywhere. The packed audience are never sure who might be picked on next, but delight in the calling-out. Superb.
Review: A Brief List of Everyone Who Died
“Death is the most natural thing in the world.” Not to five—year-old Gracie, whose life of resistance as Gracie, Grace but mostly Graciela Jacob Marx Rice traces in A Brief List of Everyone Who Died. Yet again Finborough have mounted – and nurtured – a first-class work miles from larger fare that fades. Do rush to see it.
Review: Suddenly Last Summer
A flawless production, where Lawrence gives one of the three or four finest performances I’ve seen this Fringe: in other words, phenomenal.
Review: Heathers
Rethought, rejigged, bright with humour and shadowed with plangency, this is the Heathers we’re meant to have
Review: Steel Magnolias
Uniquely moving, it’s a night worth anyone’s time, and its truths that resonate long after the curtain.
Review: The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption returns in an even stronger production than in 2015: sharper, more visceral, and with a stronger set and sound, frames even more resonant performances
Review: Farragut North
The finest UK production of this play, certainly the best drama in Brighton this month.
Review: Watch on the Rhine
Hellman’s uneasy drama, reaching out to our own quandaries, has answers that stay news. A must-see.
Review: The Crucible
A Crucible of searing relevance; by grounding it in its time, it scorches with clarity.
Review: Yellowman
Phenomenal. It’s Aaron Anthony’s and Nadine Higgin’s phenomenal performances that own the Orange Tree’s stripped-back space, and fill it and Yellowman with complexity, heart and utter conviction
Review: Waitress
Halfpenny raises soaring music theatre, an ounce of gold in the throat and stars six inches above it.
Review: Marys Seacole
No simple swapping of heirs and originals, but a dream of the future by Seacole, or equally present dreams raking the past. Do see this.
Review: The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Such exquisite works find their time; speak to it again and again and again.
Review: Heathers
Sometimes the dark is light enough. Meanwhile enjoy an exceptional cast and talent you’ll long to see again in something finer.
Review: Walden
Amy Berryman’s Walden is a remarkable play where the earth itself’s at the cross-planet, and travellers in space have inner and outer choices.
Review: Dirty Dancing
There’s a fitting heart-warming climax to a dream of production. And a surprise to those who think they know the film.
Review: San Francisco Fringe Festival 2020 Sneak Peek!
Catch a taste of what's to come at the 2021 San Francisco Fringe Festival!
Review: Les Blancs
A superb realization of Lorraine Hansberry's unfinished masterpiece - a classic of Ibsenite proportions
Review: The Sound of Music
Phenomenal singing all round. A more than solid recommendation for that alone.
Review: I and You
Will leave you in a heap and wonder what else Lauren Gunderson has written that comes near this.
Review: The Dog Walker
I want to know what life, not just Paul Minx will do with his characters afterwards. So will you.
