Seared is the kind of theater that I adore.  A straightforward story with writing so gorgeous and acting so adept that it becomes something bigger than it at first appears.

Harry (Raul Esparza) and Mike (David Mason) are the somewhat uneven partners in a tiny Brooklyn restaurant.  Harry is the genius at the stove; making magic from the top-shelf, freshest ingredients he sources daily at dawn, plus lots of butter.  Mike is the man at the front of the house and the money behind the idea.  Having sunk his life savings and years of sweat into the endeavor he would love for Harry to be just a tad less demanding and the restaurant to be a lot more profitable.  The third member of this little ‘family’ is the restaurant’s only full-time waiter and de facto peacemaker, Rodney (a fantastic W. Tre’ Davis). Rodney is the calm in the center of the storm that is the, seemingly never-ending, conflict between Harry and Mike.  He admires Harry’s talent, as well as Mike’s hard work.  He sees both sides of the story while trying not to take sides.

When we first meet Stephen Rea’s Eric he appears to be a man in the throes of a mid-life crisis.  Living on Cyprus Avenue, in a nice part of Dublin with his wife, Bernie (Andrea Irvine), daughter, Julie (Amy Molloy) and Julie’s infant daughter, he is an Irish Protestant who doesn’t consider himself Irish and who is stewing in a soup of political disillusionment, rage and bigotry.  When the first question he asks the counselor, Bridget (Ronke Adekoluejoa) is, “why are you a n.....r?”, the stage is set for a series of questions, confrontations and horrors that took my breath away.

I’ve been a fan of Rhys Ifans since the days of “Notting Hill”.  As the irreverent, high-strung, barely-hanging-on character in a number of brit imports and a lunatic soccer player subbing as an NFL kicker in “The Replacements”, Mr. Ifans can be a visual version of electric shock therapy.  Imagine my delight at finding, in him, a Scrooge whom I could love.  Mr. Ifans’ performance encompassed a range that left me breathless.  His Scrooge was emotive and raw, subtle and sweet, taut and transformative.  The beauty of his performance was most evident in the fact that his Scrooge continually elicited emotion and empathy.  Even at his character’s vilest, you wanted to reach out and say, “I understand”.

Ink is, at its heart, a relationship story.  Primarily it is about the relationship between Rupert Murdoch, wonderfully portrayed by Bertie Carvel as clipped, intense, in-your-face and not terribly likeable and Larry Lamb, the first editor of Murdoch’s tabloid paper, The Sun; divinely done as a driven, reaching, all-or-nothing type by Richard Coyle.  What starts as a courtship rapidly becomes a dysfunctional union in which Murdoch prods, pleads and berates Lamb to take the circulation of The Sun out of the gutter into the stratosphere.  Like someone trying to win the love and approval of a standoffish mate, Lamb drives himself and those around him as though the devil is on his tail, dispensing with, not only established mores, but often decency and any semblance of good taste.  They prove to be a match made in newspaper heaven, each willing to sacrifice all to the gods of commerce.

Elizabeth McGovern as the widowed matriarch of this clan of six mostly grown children, is, in 1919 a beautiful, somewhat self-absorbed, yet loving mother.  Mrs. Conway has no inclinations to hide her light under a bushel or her preference for her children according to their most marked characteristics.  Kay (played with a lovely uncertainty by Charlotte Parry), whose 21st birthday party is the setting for the 1919 story, is the ‘creative’ one, who writes. Hazel (a completely self-assured and somewhat cruel Anna Camp) is the beauty in whom Mrs. Conway sees her clearest reflection.  Madge (Brooke Bloom walking the tight-rope between utter seriousness and farce) is the stern one whose thirst for social justice is unquenchable and whose chance for romance is casually smashed by her mother’s carelessness. Robin (Matthew James Thomas as a boisterous, charming braggart) is the obviously favorite son, home a hero from the war.  Alan (a sweet and subdued Gabriel Ebert) the oldest son, is a kind soul, a lowly clerk and a crushing disappointment.  Carol (a luminous Anna Baryshnikov) is the lovely and beloved youngest child whose warmth and kindness shed a radiant light over the whole family.

My love of all things 1812 is no surprise to those who know me and I should probably preface this by letting you know that my husband David, and I are the honorary producers of this show.  That said, you should get yourselves to the Plays and Players Theatre to see this terrifically innovative fantasy being brought hilariously to life by the magnificent Dito van Reigersberg.  Mr. van Reigersberg is one of my favorite Philadelphia actors.  I’ve been a fan since I first saw him in a Pig Iron production two decades ago.

Junk is a cautionary tale of the go-go 80’s infatuation with junk bond financing and the daring and ruthless players who became, variously, rich, famous, infamous and criminal.  Leading the pack and played with a perfect combination of arrogance, charm and ruthlessness by Steven Pasquale is Robert Merkin.  Young, smart and married to someone equally savvy, he lives to win.  He is seen by others as Wall Street’s new king.  He sees himself as Wall Street’s new god, above the rules and above keeping the promises he has made to his very smart wife which will keep him on the right side of the law.

The Rembrandt referenced in the play’s title is the painting Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653) and is the point around which the spokes in the wheel of this story turn.  The story moves in time and space from a modern American museum in which said painting hangs; to the house of Rembrandt during the height of his fame; a Grecian temple c 800 BC and a deathbed, again in modern times.

Prince of Broadway is a title both accurate and honorific.  It is a love letter to one of theater’s all-time great producers, Hal Prince.  With heart and chutzpah he started young and in an on-going career spanning 7 decades has shepherded some of the best (and best-loved) shows in history onto the Great White Way.

In the first minutes of this madcap take on Shakespeare’s classic about love, lust, appearances vs. reality and the hypocrisy of humans, especially those in power, I was slightly vertiginous.  A love of the language of Shakespeare was butting up, hard, against this frantically paced, brilliantly staged rendering in which the text was often scrolled along the back wall.  All the better to read, my dear, when the vocal gymnastics of the cast rendered the words too quick to catch.

I am a bit mad for all things Shakespeare, so a play about what happened in the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London in the 1830’s when a black man played the part of Othello for the first time couldn’t be missed.  I’m glad I made it.

A former President and two acclaimed authors; one of whom came from nothing and the other who is a Russian Count meet in an anteroom to Heaven/Hell………It could very well be the set-up for the punch line of a great joke, but is instead the premise of Scott Carter’s absolutely terrific show.

There are few people that I would rather see gracing a stage anywhere than Philadelphia’s Scott Greer.  In this astonishing production he plays George, an alcoholic chef trying to patch his broken life back together in the kitchen of a burger and chop joint owned by one of his former employees.  The superstar years with their glories, rewards and excesses have exacted a toll which, though visible, will remain unknown until later in the play.

A new play by the incomparable Tracy Letts was part of the reason for our recent journey to Chicago.  The show alone was worth the trip. 

There is something about watching a work from 1922 that is as relevant today as it was then that is somewhat disconcerting.  Have we really made so little progress?  Could this be happening today, this disillusion, this disenchantment, this divide?  Oh, wait……...