by Carlos Stafford Our great playwright, Arthur Miller, plunges into the relationship between two brothers meeting after sixteen years. Unspoken family secrets are exposed, and old wounds are revealed. In a brownstone attic, four characters meet and clarify the price... Continue Reading →
By Carlos Stafford, The Model Critic Love, Art and Language Roundabout Theatre Company's, The Real Thing, currently at the American Airlines Theatre is a tough, comedic look on love and marriage, and the unforeseen pitfalls encountered by its characters. The problems... Continue Reading →
By Carlos Stafford, The Model Critic When you see a Tom Stoppard play certain elements are always present: he dazzles with his useage of the English language, while at the same time offering theatrically challanging and provocative ideas. As... Continue Reading →
Reviewed by Carlos Stafford Ah, there's a sunny feeling of freedom in the air as Hal Carter (Sebastian Stan) jumps hopefully from an arriving train, hobo style, into the small town goodness somewhere in Kansas, circa 1950. Confident and brash, he arrives on Labor Day... Continue Reading →
by Carlos Stafford, The Model Critic Charles Dickens' novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was the last work in his illustrious career. Noted for his well-drawn, meticulous characterizations, Drood presents a particular problem, for Dickens unfortunately died before the novel was completed. What... Continue Reading →
Reviewed by Carlos Stafford, The Model Critic Douglas Hodge explodes onto the stage and delivers an athletic, braveheart performance in a new robust production of the great Cyrano de Bergerac, newly opened at the Roundabout Theatre Company on 42nd St. Armed... Continue Reading →
Laura Pels Theatre, New York, NY Reviewed by Carlos Stafford, The Model Critic Fate has been unkind to both Joseph and Charles Douaihy, gay brothers of Lebanese descent living in eastern Pennsylvania. A thunderbolt of trouble has staggered their seemingly... Continue Reading →
Let's put it this way: neither Plato, Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, or Mother Teresa would ever go to Starbucks with this guy. Even if he picked up the tab--
Lady Bracknell: I have always had the opinion that a man who desires to be married should know everything or nothing. Which do you know? Jack: I know nothing, Lady Bracknell Lady Bracknell: I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance.
"Brief Encounter" is a joyous, light-hearted bon mot to romantic love. With live music, film projections, vaudeville, pantomime, and puppetry, cliches of love fly through the theatre, breaking the fourth wall, and our resistance to its charm.
Shaw, of course, is famous for poking fun at established shibboleths, false moral rectitude, and generally, for always pointing an accusing finger at hypocrisy. He accomplished this with his genius for keen, penetrating views on humanity, combined with a laser wit.
It was an immediate standing "O" for Sondheim on Sondheim at Roundabouts' Studio 54 production in New York City. Still in previews, Vanessa Williams, Tom Wopat and the doyenne of song, Barbara Cook, head up a joyous biographic tribute to Stephen Joshua Sondheim.
