VIEWPOINTS – BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Week 2: A trio of early Trisha Brown curiosities are just that (curiosities)

Last week marked week two of BAM’s wide-reaching Next Wave Festival. The only offering I attended was a program of three early Trisha Brown-choreographed works, which were recreated for a handful … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The bewitching Jomama Jones reemerges in the West Village to shed her BLACK LIGHT on our rough times

This week, Daniel Alexander Jones’s Black Light opened at the Greenwich House Theater. In this soulful, categorically-challenged solo musical, Mr. Jones takes on the fictitious persona of the regal Jomama Jones, who, from the void, … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Daniel Fish radically re-envisions an OKLAHOMA! stripped of artifice, and it’s bloody brilliant

Tonight at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, I caught Daniel Fish’s radical Off-Broadway reinterpretation (deconstruction?) of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s seminal musical Oklahoma! Long story short, it’s a stunner. What Mr. … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – James Hindman’s POPCORN FALLS is a pleasant if generic farce, for two

This week, James Hindman’s comic two-hander Popcon Falls opened Off-Broadway at the Davenport Theater. Using just two actors in a dizzying number of roles, the play tells the madcap story … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Circa’s HUMANS & SITI’s THE BACCHAE: Joseph V. Melillo’s final Next Wave Festival gets off to a rousing start at BAM

It was with bittersweet sentiment that I embarked on immersing myself in this fall’s Next Wave Festival, which commenced performances last week at BAM’s various venues in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Company XIV’s sexy, streamlined FERDINAND: BOYLESQUE BULLFIGHT gives the audience exactly what they want

Yesterday evening, I attended the late night performance of Company XIV’s Ferdinand: Boylesque Bullfight at their wonderfully immersive new home in Bushwhick, the fittingly named Théâtre XIV. Ferdinand previously played the venue earlier this … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s THE SIX BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS audaciously attempts to trump Bach

Last night, I caught a performance of iconic contemporary dance choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s The Six Brandenburg Concertos at the Park Avenue Armory. Ever since my first exposure to Ms. De Keersmaeker’s … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Dylan and McPherson’s GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY makes strange music that penetrates the soul

Finally, a serious new musical this season worth fussing over. That would be the Public Theater’s production of Conor McPherson’s singular jukebox musical Girl from the North Country, which uses the Bob … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Bill Irwin gives a masterful lecture ON BECKETT, from a clown’s perspective

Samuel Beckett is one of the seminal theater and literary artists of the 20th-Century. He’s also one of the most difficult to get right in performance. That’s because Beckett’s works are at … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Heidi Schreck’s WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME is an impassioned cry for the reexamination of the systems that govern us

This past weekend, Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me opened Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. Despite its critical eye, the work arrives as an inspiring, soothsaying tonic during a … Continue Reading →