July 24, 2008
Highlights of what's new off-broadway
Though much happens on Broadway this time of year, it's a mistake to let the commercial theater suck all the air out of the room. Here are a few highlights from Off-Broadway and other venues unfazed by the pressure-cooking schedule of the Tony Awards.
"The Little Flower of East Orange," opens Sunday night, LAByrinth Theater, Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. As if it Philip Seymour Hoffman weren't busy enough in every other movie release of the year, he's also directing Ellen Burstyn in this Stephen Adly Guirgis' intergenerational ghost story. Hoffman - a longtime co-director of the LAB-theater collective - has earlier teamed up with the playwright to stage the edgy urban dramas "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" and "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train."
"Sizwe Banzi Is Dead," Tuesday through April 19, Brooklyn Academy of Music. When Athol Fugard first collaborated with two South African actors in the darkness of apartheid in 1972, the result was this eye-opening, groundbreaking two-character drama about identity. Those same actors - John Kani and Winston Ntshona - return to the piece for which, 33 years ago, they won a rare joint Tony Award.
"The New Century," opens April 14, Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at the Lincoln Center Theater. Paul Rudnick, the outrageously funny author of "Jeffrey" and screenwriter for "Addams Family Values," bundles four short plays into an evening that may, or may not, help a Long Island mother ( Linda Lavin) and a Palm Beach icon (Peter Bartlett) understand the new century.
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"Endgame," April 25-May 18, Brooklyn Academy of Music. John Turturro and Elaine Stritch make an enticingly unlikely pair in this much-anticipated staging of Samuel Beckett's 1957 one-act milestone. Turturro plays blind, paralyzed Hamm, with Max Casella as his assistant Clov. Believe it or not, Broadway diva Stritch is Nell, who, along with Alvin Epstein's Nagg, lives in an ashcan.
"Rafta, Rafta ..." opens May 8, New Group, 410 W. 42nd St. In 1999, The New Group introduced us to "East Is East" and the singular voice of Ayub Khan-Din, an English playwright of Indian descent. Now Scott Elliott, artistic director of this important Off-Broadway theater, will stage the American premiere of the wedding play that just won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.
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