Complex emotion in a Neil Simon revival

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When you hear the name “Neil Simon,” you might think of knee-slappers like The Odd Couple, but recently, several directors have been working to expand his legacy.

David Cromer’s woefully short-lived Broadway revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs found delicate drama inside family comedy, and in her current remount of Lost In Yonkers for The Actors Company Theatre, Jenn Thompson places loneliness and hope next to rat-a-tat laughs.

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Tug Coker as Larry Bird

How playwright Eric Simonson made theatre out of basketball stars

In the space of eight years, Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. won a combined six NBA championships. Bird and Magic, as they’re still known worldwide, represent a combined 13.5 feet of grit, skill, and nearly unprecedented basketball smarts, resulting in perhaps the most storied rivalry in modern sports.

According to playwright Eric Simonson, they also represent “the better angels of the collective unconscious of the country.” That’s how he describes the joint protagonists—bitter rivals turned battle-scarred friends—of his play Magic/Bird, which is now in previews at the Longacre Theatre.

Simonson, who is reteaming with the director (Thomas Kail) and producers of the football-themed play Lombardi, would appear to be an unlikely candidate for go-to sports scribe. His resume includes adaptations of Moby Dick and Slaughterhouse-Five, collaborations with poet/playwright Ntozake Shange and African choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and a documentary short about the radio dramatist Norman Corwin that won an Academy Award in 2006.

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Robert Patrick (photo by Dylan Kenin)

We were captivated by this story in LA STAGE Times about Robert Patrick, the playwright and off-Off Broadway pioneer. His frank stories about the off-Off scene—and what happened to him when he left it—are rich, moving, and occasionally heartbreaking.

Take a look at this excerpt, and then read the full story at LA STAGE Times.

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A new play takes its time at MTC

How long does it take to build a fire? Make a can of soup? Repair a table that an angry drunk smashed to pieces?

To find out, you can time the scenes in Regrets, Manhattan Theatre Club’s carefully paced new drama, now at City Center.

Set in Nevada in 1954, the play follows life in a “divorce camp.” Sixty years ago, Nevada had the most liberal divorce laws in the country, so men would move there just long enough to establish residency and split from their wives. Sometimes, they lived in special campgrounds, forming temporary communities of the listless and the lonely.

In Regrets , the community mixes card games and beer runs with unpleasant secrets, and the consequences get heavy. If we feel those consequences, it’s arguably because the play takes its time defining them. Scenes are long and conversations are rich, and if someone sweeps the floor, he sweeps the entire thing. This creates a methodical calm, even as emotions flare.

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Red Bull Theater evokes the play’s dark, funny spirit

No matter where you sit for Red Bull Theater’s revival of The Maids, now at Theatre at St. Clement’s, you might be startled by the set. Patrons are ushered past the regular seats and taken to specially constructed risers on the stage. They sit on all four sides of an elegant bedchamber, and throughout the show, everyone can see everyone else.

And the performers, of course, are as close as the crowd. Jean Genet’s 1947 play follows sisters Solange (Ana Reeder) and Claire (Jeanine Seralles), two maids who plan to kill their mistress, Madame (J. Smith-Cameron). To prepare, they playact the murder with each other. Solange may put on Madame’s finest gown while Claire, pretending to be Solange, pretends to kill her.

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