Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe

Reviewed for Theatermania.

Telethon

Photo: Carl Skutsch

Three residents and two staffers of a group home for the disabled coalesce into a bickering but affectionate "family" in this witty and entertaining one-act. On some level, as playwright Kristin Newbom demonstrates, the disabled and the staffers aren't so different. The cast shines, Ken Rus Schmol directs smoothly, and Kirche Leigh Zeile's costumes are hilarious. But the real star of this show is the sparkling script. Ms. Newbom has a surefire sense of rhythm. Watching this Clubbed Thumb production is like listening to a brilliant piece of music executed with precision and filled with surprises, funny, touching, and sometimes both.

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.