Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test

The Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test is our personal and highly opinionated Commuter's Guide to New York theater and cultural events, with an emphasis on Broadway and Off-Broadway theatrical productions. The test is simple: is an event worth the always expensive, time consuming, and too often horrendous struggle to commute to New York City from New Jersey, Long Island, Upstate New York or Connecticut? Only truly great or near-great performances and productions may meet this stiff challenge!

Name:
Location: Princeton, New Jersey, United States

James Camner is an antiquarian dealer of autographs, manuscripts and printed music and books of Opera, Classical Music, Theater, Dance, and Film, as well as a published author of more than 10 books on the performing arts including "How to Enjoy Opera" (Simon and Schuster), "The Great Opera Stars in Historic Photographs" (Dover), "Stars of American Musical Theater in Historic Photographs" (Dover - with Stanley Appelbaum); was for over 20 years a reviewer for Fanfare Magazine and has written feature articles and reviews for Opera News.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Sons of the Prophet, a play by Stephen Karam, Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels. Stephen Karam's play has had such extravagant praise that we wondered if it would live up to it. Well it did and more - it is a play that is beautiful, haunting, profound, and even spiritual, and all of that in a lean transfixing ninety minutes. Although there were one or two loose threads - what did it mean when Charles took Vin upstairs with him and what exactly happened? - "Sons of the Prophet" had perfect timing and pacing, and the direction by Peter DuBois for once uses the surprisingly and usually disappointingly non-intimate confines of the Laura Pels Theatre to great effect.
The cast couldn't be better. Santino Fontana is giving the most talked about performance by a male lead of the young season and Johanna Gleason is sensational as a wounded and ditsy employer of Joseph. It's all tied together in an intensely moving scene between Santino Fontana's Joseph and Lizbeth Mackay playing Mrs. McAndrew, his former kindergarten teacher. Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test Grade A

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home