by Carol Rocamora     “Problem play?” What “problem play?!!” Leave it to the adventurous Elevator Repair Service company to take a challenging Shakespearean text like Measure for Measure, one that has long confounded scholars (not to mention directors), and turn...

  by Carol Rocamora   He’s grotesque. He’s deformed. He’s dangerous. He’s the most charismatic character you’ve seen on stage in years, and you can’t resist him. You’re drawn to this repulsive, fascinating creature – and you’re ashamed. Such is the seductive power of Lars Eidinger’s...

  by Carol Rocamora   The power of The Siege, Freedom Theatre’s heartrending account of the 2002 Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Bethlehem, is that it is told not with rage or rancor, not to punish or vindicate – but to remind us of the tragedy of an ongoing, seemingly endless...

    by Carol Rocamora     The key to appreciating Suzan-Lori Parks’s wildly original Red Letter Plays is knowing that she’s a jazz musician as well as a writer. As she herself explains, she’s done a “riff” or “contrafact” of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, that...

by Carol Rocamora Caution: Enter At Your Own Peril…. That’s the sign they should place on the marquee of the Hudson Theatre. Those of you already traumatized by the Trump era should be warned that some of what happens inside may be too frighteningly familiar. 1984, the long-awaited stage...

      by Carol Rocamora     An onion isn’t a stage prop you’re used to seeing in the theater, is it? (And a large white one, yet.)   But as carried by Luda, immigrant wife and mother, throughout Napoli, Brooklyn, an intense new play by Meghan Kennedy at the Laura...

        by Carol Rocamora     A young woman (black and beautiful) enters and crosses to center stage. She’s met by a man wearing tails and top hat, carrying a lumpy cloth object. He hands it to the woman. She strips, and before our astonished eyes, dons a body...

    by Carol Rocamora   It’s Halloween night, but the characters in Can You Forgive Her?, Gina Gionfriddo’s devilish screwball comedy, don’t need costumes. Dressed as themselves, they’re among the most colorful, quirky characters you’ll see on the stage this season, and they’re...

    by Carol Rocamora     “Once upon a time there was a playwright named Annie Baker who wrote a story about storytelling. She made it into a play. It was good. The end.”   Not quite. You’ll be talking about The Antipodes, Baker’s fascinating new play about stories...

    by Carol Rocamora   In case you haven’t noticed (but how could you not?!), there’s a Sondheim festival going on in New York this spring.   Three splendid Sondheim revivals have opened recently, offering dramatically different directorial interpretations in strikingly...

  by Carol Rocamora     Unearthing old theatre gems is like digging for truffles – and British director Hugh Ross has found one. It’s called The Roundabout, a long-lost treasure by J. B. Priestley, now playing at 59E59 Theaters as part of Brits Off Broadway – and it...

      by Carol Rocamora   When Lincoln Center’s leadership decided to remount Bartlett Sher’s production of Oslo in the cavernous Vivian Beaumont Theatre after it opened last summer in the intimate Mitzi Newhouse, they took a huge risk. But now, J. T. Rogers’ riveting...

by Carol Rocamora     That frightening figure high on his blood-red throne, staring out at you from the darkness, will haunt you long after you leave the theatre. He’s the self-appointed Emperor Jones of Eugene O’Neill’s eponymous 1920 play, and he’s one of the most terrifying...

  by Carol Rocamora Theater Pizzazz loves more than one review on a show. Here’s another one!   The sign on the theater marquee is upside down, there are misprints in the program – but that’s only the start of The Play That Goes Wrong, the fabulous meta-farce imported from...

    Theater Pizzazz loves having two writer reviews on the same show.  Here’s one!     By Sandi Durell   Murder, mayhem, and Mischief – the Mischief Theatre company straight from three years on the West End and an Olivier Award, has found it’s way into the...

  by Carol Rocamora     Rarely does a production explode upon the theatre scene like Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, now receiving an extraordinary revival at the Park Avenue Armory.   O’Neill’s visionary play of the industrial world and its dehumanizing influences was a...

  by Carol Rocamora   A shiver went through me, watching the title character of Penelope Skinner’s Linda giving a lecture to the audience. I thought the ghost of Heidi had passed over us.   You know who I mean, don’t you? I’m referring to the protagonist of Wendy Wasserstein’s...

  by Carol Rocamora   “In the dark times, will there be singing? Yes, and there will also be singing about the dark times.”

So wrote playwright Bertolt Brecht, whose epic tales of traumatic historical events were set to music. And now Emma Rice, founder of the wonderful Kneehigh...

  by Carol Rocamora     “I’m not asking people to forget the Holocaust – I’m asking them to remember it in a different way.”   So says Michael Fischer, a man under fire, in Steven Levenson’s moving family drama, If I Forget. Michael (Jeremy Shamos), professor of...

  by Carol Rocamora     What’s this? A stand-up comedy routine? It can’t be …the actor is sitting in a wheel chair. Is he infirm? It’s uncertain . . . he rises for a moment and crosses the stage. Who is he? What does he want from us? And what is he talking about, anyway? He’s...

    by Carol Rocamora     Wouldn’t you like a nice cuppa tea with your neighbors, dearie?  It’s a warm afternoon.  The comfortable chair set out for you in the garden is welcoming, and the company is so congenial… Alert: Think twice before you accept this perilous...

  by Carol Rocamora     “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” says Prospero in The Tempest. Two fearless women of the British theatre share a passionate dream – to provide women with the opportunity to play more Shakespearean roles, and break free from the constraints of...

  by Carol Rocamora   “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.” Oscar Wilde’s quip comes to mind, while watching the scorching revival of The Beauty Queen of Leenane written by another Ango-Irish playwright, Martin McDonagh. But...

    by Carol Rocamora     Images of empowered women, protesting around the world, have flooded our screens this past weekend. So the four powerful women from the past resurrected on London stages today have a thrilling relevance and resonance. As played by four formidable...

    by Carol Rocamora   You don’t usually expect fireworks when you go to a Chekhov play. Devoted theatregoers have come to anticipate little action, lots of talk, and a languor that possesses all his characters.   So be prepared to be amazed by The Present, Andrew Upton’s...