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.
Sea Dog Theater’s 90th-anniversary production of Clifford Odets’s Awake and Sing! features a multiracial cast that makes the Depression-era drama feel contemporary and highlights the universality of the play’s themes. Set in the 1930s, the play focuses on the Bergers, a Jewish family who live in one room in an apartment in the Bronx, and the impact of economic hardship, unfulfilled dreams, and the tension between idealism and survival.
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.
