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Baba Brinkman’s “audacious” one-man show on Darwin’s theories pulls a neat trick, said Frank Scheck in the New York Post. While people don’t usually go to the theater wanting to hear “detailed descriptions of such subjects as multicellularity, endosymbiosis, and mitochondria,” the geeky Canadian “lit hop” rapper makes all of this not only palatable but goofily entertaining. That explains how his show, which debuted at 2009’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, became a cult hit as it toured Britain and the U.S. To be sure, Brinkman’s 90-minute screed will probably not appeal to die-hard creationists (he has faced a few audience walkouts while touring). But for almost everyone else, it’s “as fun as it is informative.”
Key to Brinkman’s success is that he avoids acting like a show-off, said David Rooney in The New York Times. If this were just a “smarty-pants vehicle” for his rhyming skills and science knowledge, it would be unbearable. But Brinkman, a former medieval studies student who previously put a hip-hop spin on Chaucer, “brings genuine passion, curiosity, and analytical skills” to his subjects. True, some of his more dubious rhymes, such as wittily pairing “humanity” with “huge manatee,” won’t keep Stephen Sondheim up at night. On the other hand, he’s plain interesting when drawing parallels between animal behavior and rap as Darwinian expressions of power, pride, and sexual magnetism.
The reach of Brinkman’s theorizing is a “testament to his ambition,” said Jason Fitzgerald in Backstage. He’s actually less interested in rehashing Darwin’s teachings than in using evolutionary psychology to explore why the human tribe has so much trouble getting along. His efforts ultimately feel too scattershot, though the video wall behind him—“dynamic and imaginative enough to be a work of art unto itself”—helps connect some of the dots. Then again, Brinkman is constantly rewriting or improvising changes to the script. There’s no telling how it might evolve.
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Who will win the battle for the soul of the Green Party?An ideological divide is taking root among the environmentalists
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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.