Bravo to Darko Tresnjak and Hartford Stage for producing George Bernard Shaw’s HEARTBREAK HOUSE. It’s easy to see why it’s seldom staged. Subtitled by Shaw “A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes”, this parable about WWI in unskilled creative hands can be an unwieldy mix of dark Chekhov, drawing-room comedy, comedy, social satire and trenchant drama, with hints of the absurd. But, under Tresnjak’s focused and taut direction, its marvels emerge - with one major ex

The three main characters in Gina Gionfriddo’s CAN YOU FORGIVE HER? each seems to be seeking some kind of security. Tanya (Ella Dershowitz), a single mom working as a bartender, just, sort of, making ends meet is terrified of falling back into credit card debt. She wants emotional security, too, and on her terms with Graham (Darren Pettie) an unemployed, twice-divorced almost forty drifter who‘s troubled and insecurity since his mother’s death months before. Enter Miranda (Am

Six plays - four hits/two misses - in five days. At the Royal Court, Jez Butterworth, with expert direction of Sam Mendes, premiers THE FERRYMAN a sprawling tale of a multi-generational, Catholic Irish farmer household in Derry (Northern Ireland) beset by a past of fatal politics and family demons both. Part mystery, part political thriller, part love story, Butterworth amazingly creates a clan - a vital middle-aged father, his dutiful, distanced wife, two sons, four daughter

NOT JUST “ANOTHER HAPPY DAY” “No worse - no better, no worse, no change - no pain” says Samuel Beckett’ss Winnie. As HAPPY DAYS opens she’s stuck in a mound of sand up to her waist under the blazing sun, only to be awakened when sleep does visit by a loud, clanging bell. Beckett thought that the only person that could endure conditions like this would be a woman. Thus Beckett created Winnie, and blessed we are to have Winnie played by a superb Dianne Wiest in the Yale Rep’s

Lillian Hellman’s THE LITTLE FOXES, superbly staged in revival at Manhattan Theatre Club, is as satisfying as theatre gets. In this cautionary, intriguing tale of one woman’s greed and struggle for freedom, the setting is Alabama in 1900. Regina Hubbard Gibbons fights for control in a Hubbard family investment with her brothers, frustrated by opposition from her dying husband. The reasons why this production is so successful are as straightforward as its key elements. First,