Bill Marx
Our critics salute the year’s outstanding productions.
An eclectic round-up of the favorite books of the year from our critics.
Abigail C. Onwunali’s powerhouse performance is memorable, but the mechanics of Mfoniso Udofia’s play don’t always match the lead’s boundary-stretching strengths.
“Leopoldstadt” is one of Tom Stoppard’s most heartfelt and expansive works, its poignant storyline inspired by events in his own life.
Cinematic in inspiration, Diane Paulus’s direction whips up terse bursts of adolescent energy, tapping into a cocky hunger for self-destructive combat.
“It’s not just some generic ‘evil’ “The Arsonists” protests, it is willful blindness to fascist and authoritarian agendas. Denial and hiding behind “bourgeois” comfort is the theme.”
A translator must meet a compelling need — to reinvent Franz Kafka’s voice in an English that resounds in the present moment.
A relaxed, humane kindness shines through this staging of Shakespeare’s hymn to reconciliation.
The Lyric Stage Company’s production of David Henry Hwang’s Obie award-winning play is serviceably absorbing.
The script is representative of the pitfalls of current theatrical minimalism — less can so easily be less.
The Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll at Mid-Year: Warming Up a Riff — How It Happened, and Why It Matters