606 stories by "Joel Benjamin"
The secrets revealed seem more contrived and clichéd and take away from the moving story of Mary's battle with cancer.  Nick behaves badly. Lucy has a drug habit and Jason questi…
Director Matthew "Motl" Didner manages to make what might have been just a well-staged concert of moving songs into a dramatic whole with a deep feeling for the ebb and flow of emotions from…
It takes an artist of the stature and extraordinary talent of Wiest to keep Caswell's fragmented play from flying off in all directions as it veers from reality to fantasy and from flashback…
The musical "Harmony," the lovechild of pop music greats Barry Manilow (music) and Bruce Sussman (lyrics and book), has opened at a time when anti-Semitism has peaked once again and lessons …
Far less mystical that he would have us believe, "Somnole" nevertheless is Charmatz's honest exploration of his stated theme, although self-indulgence reared its ugly head too often. The…
How does a Holocaust-themed play land with such emotional impact as Leslie Epstein's "King of the Jews" at the HERE Theatre? Based on his novel of the same name, "King of the Jews" is a …
The dancers performed their dystopian tasks with great dedication and the occasional display of actual technique. They were all good-looking and clearly into what they believed was an ic…
The spine of the work wasn't the choreography or dancing, but the lines spoken by the dancers as they walked about the stage; however, since the lighting by Crawford was shadowy and the danc…
Sometimes good intentions do not have the best results"at least in theater. Such is the case with "Scrambled Eggs" at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Presented to bring immediacy to the issue …
Melissa Etheridge is a bona-fide superstar. So, why is this artist, used to appearing in huge venues, "slumming" in a Broadway theater with a capacity of less than 800? Let's not look th…
Does it matter how autobiographical Amy Crossman's "The Great Divide" at the HERE Arts Center is? A production of the Boomerang Theatre Company, "Divide" is Crossman's one-person play ab…
The immediate impression of "Gira" was of the semi-circle of lights designed by Gabriel Pederneiras and Paulo Pederneiras (the Grupo Corpo artistic director) and their somber illumination of…
The Houston Ballet, Julie Kent and Stanton Welch, directors, opened the program with Welch's genteel "Clear" to music by J.S. Bach. Originally staged on American Ballet Theatre, the Hous…
Ballet BC, the Canadian-based modern ballet company, began the program with 'The Statement," Crystal Pite's witty take on a boardroom meeting, a corporate boardroom meeting full of intrigue …
An alternate title for Albert M. Tapper's Clifford Odets-esque "Bettinger's Luggage" might be "The Flood." In Tapper's period piece, a flood destroyed the eponymous shop, an event around whi…
Clearly, "Zoetrope" often becomes difficult to follow for non-Spanish speakers. The dearth of realistic sets makes knowing which location is which confusing, despite the occasional descr…
Shaye tells of a pot and drug-addicted couple who are totally disgusting parents to a two year old. That's just not acceptable even though it is told as a funny hippy-dippy anecdote. Eve…
Elisha has written a refreshing new take on Anne Frank's life. Called "Anne Being Frank" (a title that should, perhaps, be reconsidered), the one-person, multi-character show posits a su…
In "Relapse" 's most original conceit, a quartet called The Intrusive (Vinny Celerio, Audree Hedequist, Nicole Lamb and Zummy Mohammed) becomes a Greek Chorus, insinuating themselves into th…
Antonio Fini in Ted Shawn's "The Cosmic Dance of Siva," performed as part of 2023 Fini Dance Festival at the Ailey Citicorp Theater (Photo credit: Wendy Wild) Joel Benjamin, Critic The Fini …
Redman's "A Séance with Mom" at the Chain Studio Theatre veers dizzyingly from one character to another, characters that include middle-aged Nadine who searches for her Mom; her mom, Gussie…
"Here Lies Love" unreels like an MTV music video with the emotional content lost in the technique. The real issue of this musical is that it's impossible to feel anything for the lead ch…
Korean Arts Week celebrated the theatrical and fine arts of South Korea, a culture under-represented in New York City compared to, say, those of Japan, China and India. At the David H. Koch …
There is an elegiac formality to Buscando. However, other than Juan de Pareja's name in the title there is little in the choreography that evokes either period or personality. The ch…
The Nazis persecuted not only Jews, political opponents and its own, but also homosexuals. Jews were forced to wear the infamous yellow stars; gays, the pink triangle. Alan Palmer, in hi…
