Arcadia

Tom Stoppard can be a problematic playwright. While his brilliance is undeniable, his shows can be tough slogs through encyclopedic swamps of (not always compelling) information. However, Arcadia, arguably his masterpiece, boasts a perfect balance of math, history, satire, love, sex, compassion, humor, ego, and witty repartee. It demonstrates, in a fascinating, funny, and heartbreaking three hours, that humans' ability to understand anything (particularly each other) can be severely limited by their circumstances, prejudgments, and, well, humanity.

The plot can't really be done justice in less than a few hundred words, but, in brief: Arcadia takes place in the same room in the early 1800s and the late 1900s. In the early 1800s, the gawky, insatiably curious, child genius, Lady Thomasina, is being tutored by Septimus Hodges, who is smart enough to recognize her genius but not quite smart enough to understand her discoveries. In the 20th century, academicians are trying to understand the people in the 19th through the clues/detritus they left behind: notebooks, poetry, blueprints, letters. Multiple assignations are carried out, much plotting is done, discoveries--correct and incorrect--are made, and enough funny lines are said to fill a dozen plays written by ordinary mortals (for example: "Her chief renown is for a readiness that keeps her in a state of tropical humidity as would grow orchards in her drawers in January").

The recent production of Arcada at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, did full justice to this wondrous work. It would be lovely if someone brought it to New York.

Paved Paradise Redux

Reviewed for Theatermania.

Twelfth Night

Sign me up as a member of the Twelfth Night fan club. It's a magical evening in a magical setting.

Nothing Like a Dame

Photo: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd

The yearly benefit for the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative, Nothing Like a Dame, hit a new high this year. In the past, Nothing Like a Dame featured dozens of women; this year, the focus was on only six, but what a wonderful six! Stephanie J. Block, Betty Buckley, Andrea McArdle, Audra McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth, and Kelli O'Hara were interviewed by the always-funny Seth Rudetsky, who knows how to listen (a surprisingly rare trait among interviewers). Each woman then sang a song or two. In an evening made up almost totally of highlights, the staggeringly talented Audra McDonald stole the show with her effortlessly lovely rendition of "Bill." Keep an eye out for this wonderful yearly event--rarely in life can one have such a great time while supporting a good cause.

Things of Dry Hours

Photo: Joan Marcus

The plot of Naomi Wallace's Things of Dry Hours does not stand up to examination--actually, the word "flimsy" comes to mind. The characters are odd amalgams of traits, inconsistencies, and political stances. But the plot and characters are sturdy enough to support Wallace's beautiful language and thought-provoking ideas, Ruben Santiago-Hudson's pleasingly theatrical direction, and a couple of superb performances. In brief: a white man with dubious motives forces an African-American father (the superb Delroy Lindo) and daughter (the equally superb Roslyn Ruff) to take him in after he (maybe) commits a serious crime. The father is a Communist and uses the forced proximity to the white man to try to win him over to the cause. The daughter is smart and angry and at loose ends. The white man is lonely. Stir in some magic realism, racial tensions, a few not-terribly-convincing plot points, and genuine emotion, and you have a deeply flawed but excellent evening in the theatre.

Twelfth Night

Though only a week into previews, Daniel Sullivan's fun, fluid and refreshingly traditional production of Twelfth Night, or What You Will stands as one of New York Shakespeare Festival's most satisfying productions of the past decade. It may come as a surprise to some that Anne Hathaway, playing the lovelorn lady-in-disguise Viola, has stage presence to spare, but she makes one of the most assured Shakespearean debuts I've ever seen. It will come as no surprise that Audra McDonald is an ideal Olivia--her aloofness opening up into positive glee upon meeting Viola, dressed as the page Cesario--or that Raul Esparza registers deeply in the usually one-note role of Duke Orsino. The heart and soul of the production, however, are the brilliant comedians: Julie White's lacerating Maria; Jay O. Sanders' uproarious Toby Belch; David Pittu's hilarious (and remarkably sung) Feste the Fool; and, in what may be the comic performance of the season, Hamish Linklater as the blithering, clueless Sir Andrew Aguecheek. A word to the wise: if you want tickets, I'd start queueing at the crack of dawn. This is going to be a huge hit.