AUTO Visits NEWS » Items by By BEN BRANTLEY

Theater Review | 'Pal Joey': The Cad! (Dames Could Write a Book)

Posted: December 19th, 2008, 6:19am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Joe Mantello’s joyless Broadway revival of “Pal Joey” has no detectable pulse.

Theater Review | 'Shrek the Musical': The Belching Green Ogre Has a Song in His Heart

Posted: December 15th, 2008, 8:42am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

“Shrek” is not bad. But it does not avoid the watery fate that commonly befalls good cartoons that are dragged into the third dimension.

Theater Review | 'Dividing the Estate': Inherit the Windfall

Posted: November 21st, 2008, 4:38am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

The problems confronting the sprawling, anxious, compulsively talky Texan clan of 1987 in “Dividing the Estate” will be familiar to many American families at the moment.

Theater Review: Brothers in Flimflammery on a Continental Sojourn

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 8:01am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

It’s raining greenbacks in “Road Show,” the latest version of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s long-aborning, ever-evolving and eternally slender musical about curdled American dreams.

Theater Review | 'All My Sons': Oedipus & Company

Posted: October 17th, 2008, 4:00pm GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

The baleful Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” transforms its characters into archetypal puppets of destiny.

Theater Review | 'To Be or Not to Be': Greasepaint Can Be Mightier Than Pen or Sword

Posted: October 15th, 2008, 4:00am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

This walking corpse of a comedy has the spring, color and freshness of long-refrigerated celery.

Theater Review | 'A Man for All Seasons': Martyr Me a Little (the Perils of Thomas)

Posted: October 8th, 2008, 5:00am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Even Frank Langella, an actor who can be counted on to put the pepper in mashed-potato parts, doesn’t find much variety in the monolithic goodness of the title character of “A Man for All Seasons.”

Theater Review | 'Fifty Words': How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Bruises and Battle Scars

Posted: October 2nd, 2008, 6:36am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel bring authentic and unsparing life to “Fifty Words,” Michael Weller’s bruising domestic drama.

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Theater Review | 'In Conflict': Voices of Inexperience, Relating War’s Horrors

Posted: September 25th, 2008, 3:40am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

“In Conflict” is a sober and very affecting docudrama about veterans of the war in Iraq.

Theater Review | 'Forbidden Broadway Goes to Rehab': Giving Their Regards by Skewering the Shows

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 2:17pm GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

This is the liveliest, sauciest and saddest “Forbidden Broadway” in over a decade.

Theater Review | 'Three Changes': In a Fragmented World, the Search for Family Cohesion Can Become Scary

Posted: September 17th, 2008, 4:37am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

The obscure has the air of the obvious in “Three Changes,” the wan and sinister new play by Nicky Silver.

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Theater Review | 'Cymbeline': The Plot’s a Tangle; Its Setting, Not at All

Posted: August 25th, 2008, 4:36am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Nature takes its course in high style in the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s inspiriting production of “Cymbeline.”

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Theater Review | 'Désir': Liaisons Dangereuses and Bodies Acrobatic

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 5:04am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

If the televised Olympics are too sanitary and the hole-in-the-wall strip clubs too sleazy for your tastes, then perhaps you’ll find voyeuristic contentment in “Désir.”

Theater Review | 'Hair': Let the Sunshine In, and the Shadows

Posted: August 8th, 2008, 10:51am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Nostalgic audience members might get more than they bargained for the Public Theater’s exuberant production.

Jeweled Dialogue, Expertly Juggled

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 2:54am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Three shows in London brought home the rewards of hearing actors treat linguistic shades of purple as if they were everyday beige.

Theater Review | 'Vincent River': In Modern London, Some Long Shadows of Despair

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 3:37am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Philip Ridley’s drama makes it clear that a fully functioning, top-of-the-line haunted house can be erected from the dustiest blueprint.

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Theater Review | 'Top Girls': Ladies Who Lunch? No, Here’s to the Power Players

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 2:49pm GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls” opened in a well-acted revival directed with intelligence and sensitivity by James Macdonald.

Theater Review | 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses': What Lurks Beneath the Ruffles

Posted: May 2nd, 2008, 4:06am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Ben Daniels is making a sensational Broadway debut in Rufus Norris’s eye-filling, very imbalanced revival of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.”

Theater Review | 'Macbeth': Toil and Trouble Are Still Bubbling Over

Posted: April 9th, 2008, 5:07am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

The Chichester Festival Theater’s “Macbeth,” starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood, has moved to Broadway.

Theater Review | 'Juno': A Mother Whose Life Song Is About Tenement Nightmares, Not Broadway Dreams

Posted: March 29th, 2008, 4:13am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

Theatergoers who are truly passionate about the history and development of the musical will want to take advantage of the fleeting return of “Juno” to New York.

Theater Review | 'Conversations in Tusculum': Who Will Stop a Tyrant if His Enemies Just Sit and Sulk?

Posted: March 12th, 2008, 5:42am GMT by By BEN BRANTLEY

"Conversations in Tusculum” imagines the frustrations of fiery senators and warriors reduced to brooding in self-imposed isolation about the endangered civil freedoms of their republic.