Great New York Theatre 2008
Top Broadway Plays From Tracy Letts, Sam Shepard & Caryl Churchill
Jun 11, 2008
Here are three more of the the Top Ten Shows in New York: Part Two of Stage and The City.
Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls – at The Manhattan Theatre Club’s Biltmore Theatre
Ah Marlene… to coin that cliché phrase, you’ve come a long way baby: getting that dream promotion at Top Girls Employment Agency after all the crap you’ve gone through in your life. You got away. You made it! You go girl! What better way to celebrate your accomplishments than a five-star fantasy feast your historical BFFs: copious quantities of wine, wisdom and witty conversation. Not!
An all-star cast tackling dual, sometimes triple roles, from the Tony Nominee Martha Plimpton as the mythical Pope Joan to Marisa Tomei both as brazen Victorian traveler Isabella Lucy Bird and Marlene's hard living sister Joyce assist Elizabeth Marvel’s Marlene, as they journey through Caryl Churchill's searing text during England's Thatcher times. True Marlene and all her History Girls made great strides in their lives, but at what personal cost?
August: Osage County at Music Box Theatre on Broadway.
If theatre required seat belts, you'd have to be prepared to strap in to get through Tracy Letts’ caustic roller-coaster dramedy. Take the most despicable leading lady and multiply her by a thousand with nuances of Edward Albee’s Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Violet Venable from Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer, Mary Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, and a hint of Euripides Medea – that’s Violet Weston (Tony winner for Best Actress Deanna Dunagan) a woman who devours her young with relish and ebony wit. Talk about family fun time. There will no head snapping during this three-hour marathon. This is theatre with balls. Watch for a national tour announcement, and Estelle Parsons joins the cast June 17!
Kicking a Dead Horse at The Public Theater
Stephen Rea from The Crying Game and V for Vendetta stars in the North American premiere of Sam Shepard’s latest play. Rea, in a role specifically written for him by Shepard, plays Manhattan art dealer Hobart Struther who feeling out of touch life and his business saddles up his horse, escaping sleasy city slicker life in the Big Apple and rides into the desert to uh... rediscover his “authenticity.” Too bad the horse dies, because this rather unethical art dealer is trying to bury much more than his hoofed accomplice.
Public Theater is Sam Shepard’s New York home having presented four of his other plays, including Curse of the Starving Class and so it’s the perfect place for urban cowboy fantasy Kicking a Dead Horse. Shepard will direct the piece and Ireland's Stephen Rea, a long time pal of Sam Shepard, ( who performed this piece at Dublin, Ireland's Abbey Theatre and is now an associate artist at the Abbey) is perfect for this playwright's deadpan yet potent protagonist.
Next Playwrights Suite - Stage and The City - Three Top Broadway Musicals.
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