By EDWARD RUBIN “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between the true and the false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist.” – Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) Thinking […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out”) There is a reason that the current National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s production of Fiddler on the Roof (Fidler Afn Dakh) in Yiddish has been held over not once, twice or three times. It has just been announced that it will be extended until November 18. Obviously, this […]
By EDWARD RUBIN Most famous people long in the tooth, if they are not dead, quietly retired, or resting on their well-earned laurels, tend to keep a very low profile. You rarely even hear about them. But not the indefatigable 85-year- old Renée Taylor, an Energizer bunny whose funny and bittersweet autobiographical one-woman-show, My Life On […]
By EDWARD RUBIN I did not see Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews, which, by general consensus, is said to be his best play to date. But the last three Harmon plays that I did see, Significant Other, Admissions, and the still-running Skintight – were each a familiar mixture of comedy and drama containing everything and the […]
By EDWARD RUBIN Celebrating its 50th anniversary, New York City based IATI Theater Todo Vanguardia which is devoted to contemporary, cutting-edge Latino works, could not have selected a more compelling and beautifully crafted play than Rhett Martinez’ Three On A Match, which examines state sponsored terrorism in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s, and […]
By EDWARD RUBIN “Every time I have sex I get into a relationship. Every time I get into a relationship I stop having sex. I found the Bermuda Triangle. It is between my legs. Everyone who goes there disappears out of my life.” – Penny Arcade from Longing Lasts Longer After three years of globetrotting […]
By EDWARD RUBIN Eve Ensler’s groundbreaking play, The Vagina Monologues, first came to the attention of New York audiences when it opened Off Off Broadway in 1996. Since then it has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Fashioned from some 200 interviews Ensler conducted among women from all walks of […]
By EDWARD RUBIN Be it an accent, a foreign phrase or an idioglossia (a made-up language) spoken between characters on stage, there are plays in which my mind is hijacked. No matter how hard I may try to decipher what I am hearing, the words being delivered from the stage remain largely unintelligible to me. […]
By AARON KRAUSE NEW YORK CITY — In a well-rounded, vivid performance, a riveting Jeffrey Roth shines as the supposed JFK killer. The multi-award-winning, renown La MaMa theater company is presenting the staging, in association with GOH Productions along with the Czechoslovak-American Theatre company. For parts of the production, running through Nov. 19, you may […]
By ALAN SMASON For the third year in a row the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbeine (NYTF) is presenting a major theatrical production in Yiddish at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. This time out, it is “Amerike – The Golden Land,” a piece that was first performed 35 years ago as an […]