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Get ready to squirm, said Jeremy Gerard in Bloomberg​.com. This revival of an unorthodox 1953 Tennessee Williams play marks the U.S. debut of Calixto Bieito, a Tarantino-esque Catalan opera director who apparently “hasn’t met the character who wouldn’t look better doused with blood, covered with vomit, or engaged in a sexual act.” But that sensibility makes him the perfect fit for this “bad acid trip of a play,” in which various people, both historical and fictional, pass through a Latin American town that becomes a sort of earthly purgatory. Employing a seedy, neon-bathed set and a revised book by Marc Rosich, Bieito generates visuals—including plenty of sex, shootings, and eviscerations—that are “unforgiving and unforgettable.”
Bieito uses our revulsion for a purpose, said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune. This production recognizes that Williams’s play “can function perfectly well as a metaphor for various bankrupt economies, where prostitution and desperation are growing apace.” Bieito is new to Williams’s oeuvre, though, and will surely “do his best American work when he knows America better.” In this outing, we can already see how he lets his actors “use every weapon in their arsenal.” Rosich put Williams himself into the rewrite, and Michael Medeiros is “extraordinary” as the hard-drinking, demon-hounded playwright. As imperfect and discomforting as it may be, “this is still a show serious theater fans will not want to miss.”
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5 artfully drawn cartoons about Donald Trump's Epstein doodleCartoons Artists take on a mountainous legacy, creepy art, and more
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Violent videos of Charlie Kirk’s death are renewing debate over online censorshipTalking Points Social media ‘promises unfiltered access, but without guarantees of truth and without protection from harm’
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What led to Poland invoking NATO’s Article 4 and where could it lead?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION After a Russian drone blitz, Warsaw’s rare move to invoke the important NATO statute has potentially moved Europe closer to continent-wide warfare
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If/Thenfeature Tony-winning Idina Menzel “looks and sounds sensational” in a role tailored to her talents.
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Rocky
feature It’s a wonder that this Rocky ever reaches the top of the steps.
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Love and Information
feature Leave it to Caryl Churchill to create a play that “so ingeniously mirrors our age of the splintered attention span.”
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The Bridges of Madison County
feature Jason Robert Brown’s “richly melodic” score is “one of Broadway’s best in the last decade.”
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Outside Mullingar
feature John Patrick Shanley’s “charmer of a play” isn’t for cynics.
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The Night Alive
feature Conor McPherson “has a singular gift for making the ordinary glow with an extra dimension.”
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No Man’s Land
feature The futility of all conversation has been, paradoxically, the subject of “some of the best dialogue ever written.”
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The Commons of Pensacola
feature Stage and screen actress Amanda Peet's playwriting debut is a “witty and affecting” domestic drama.