“You’re on earth, there’s no cure for that!” The sentiment, bellowed by Hamm to his servant Clov in the Druid Theatre’s revival of Samuel Beckett’s postapocalyptic Endgame, is freshly relatable to a U.S. audience. Under Garry Hynes’s direction, this Endgame is full of laughs—both she and the ensemble fully grasp the idea expressed by Hamm’s trash-bin-residing mother, Nell, that “nothing is funnier than unhappiness”—but it achieves this tone by leaning into, rather than shying away from, the play’s relentless bleakness.
When former President Harry S Truman agreed to be interviewed by young attorney Bella Abzug, he must have been oblivious to her reputation as a force with which to reckon. In William Spatz’s Truman vs. Israel, directed by Randy White, a retrospective that alternates between Abzug’s 1950s encounter with Truman and her post-Congress years, a still feisty Abzug unapologetically reminisces about that meeting and its outcomes.
Rarely does a play get off to such a torturous start for its audience like Art of Leaving. The first scene of Anne Marilyn Lucas’s feeble comedy is a portrait of emotional abuse played for laughs, and interrupted only by a tedious monologue about shopping for lunch. Humor in the rest of the play draws on such worn-out sources as Yiddishisms, stereotypes of feminists and Jewish mothers, and mishearing by old people.
The flirtation between theater and television has turned serious in recent seasons. Small-screen favorites Stranger Things and Smash were adapted for Broadway, and Schmigadoon! is on tap for next spring. Meanwhile, Off-Broadway satires of The Office and Friends have settled into long runs. Now add to the lineup Not Ready for Prime Time, a new play by Erik J. Rodriguez and Charles A. Sothers. Neither an adaptation nor a parody, this likable, free-flowing piece is more a biographical comedy, albeit an unauthorized one.
In Heaux Church, writer-performer Brandon Kyle Goodman turns the traditional sermon on its head, transforming sex education into a joyful act of healing and self-acceptance. Directed by Lisa Owaki Bierman, and with DJ Ari Grooves and Greg Corbino backing a gospel of pleasure and pride, Goodman delivers a rousing, tongue-in-cheek service that’s part confession, part celebration.
In her all-too-brief life, British author Sally Carson, who spent time in Germany prior to and after the Nazis’ rise to power, discerned a creeping fascism that would consume the country. Her 1934 novel Crooked Cross, and the stage version, produced in 1935 and 1937, echo Carson’s prescient warning of the hate and aggression that would propel Nazism into Europe.
Neil D’Astolfo’s Mister Miss America provides many pleasures beyond its nifty title, even though the material treads some pretty familiar ground. In the solo show, the beauty pageant obsessions of gay hero Derek Tyler Taylor (D’Astolfo) take center stage. DTT wants to share the story of his attempt to break the gender barrier at a beauty pageant in southwestern Virginia, where the contestants mostly hail from obscure burgs, such as Bristol, Galax, Martinsville and Radford, and the announcer uses descriptions like “She’s hotter than your pappy’s pistol!” as an introduction.
