Stereophonic (2025) (West End)

I missed Stereophonic on Broadway, but we caught it in its West End transfer, which apparently isn't selling so well anymore. We bought seats on the upper rung. We got upgraded to seats in the orchestra because they didn't open the balcony. With the room only half full, we benefited with excellent seats. I loved the single set, two levels, sound-canceling glass in between like a real studio. Sitting at the real sound board, the actors have their back to the audience. The music is written by Will Butler from Arcade Fire. He does a good job at imitating Fleetwood Mac; the band similarly falls apart. The music is actually something I might listen to. I thought there would be applause after the musical numbers but the audience was dead silent until the end. All that said, the play does not need to run 3 hours and 15 minutes. It's way too long for only one intermission/interval, being opera length. 

My Neighbour Totoro (West End) (2025)

My Neighbour Totoro is the classic children's movie by Hayao Miyazaki. The show feels like it's made for children but the audience was mostly adults, who were very into it. The stage adaptation was supervised by the legendary composer Joe Hisaishi, whose iconic score takes center stage second only to the delightful puppetry. We sat on the extreme far right side, next to the conductor, with a significant part of the stage obstructed. It's not a musical but there are a few songs, all sung by an onstage singer rather than the actors. The puppeteers are dressed in black veils, not hidden exactly but inconspicuous. Just like the movie, the show is quite slow. It lavishes in slowness, enjoying the wonder of the visuals and spirituality. There are a few different puppets we see before we catch the first glimpse of Totoro. The sheer size of Totoro is awe-inspiring, matched only by the inflatable cat bus, which as an inflatable isn't as impressive but does elicit laughs. The young children are played by full-grown adults, a 4-year-old to be exact. It's a little weird but honestly quite convincing. It's that Japanese kawaii cutesy anime voice. And the antsy running around. Dad may not admit to liking it but I did hear him react quite a lot. Maybe they're not Lion King-type artistic puppets but they're wondrous in their own way.

Merry Wives of Windsor (2025) (Globe Theatre)

After a long day of work in London, and not feeling well, I got back to the hotel around 6:30pm. I took a quick thirty minute nap. And when I got back up, I was summoned back to work. Everything is an emergency. So I was late to our 9:15pm dinner reservation but the Uber got me to dinner around 9:30. And we had a nice dinner, waiter's choice. We had drinks at the pub (or actually on the sidewalk outside the pub) until it was time to head to the Globe Theater for the midnight matinee. For starters, insane that midnight matinee is even a thing. They could end at midnight and still call it that, but no this actually starts at midnight and they do an unabridged performance for two and a half hours. Didn't get back to the hotel until 3am. But the seats in the Globe (authentic to the time) are so uncomfortable I couldn't even fall asleep like I usually do. At least we got seats! They sell standing room tickets right in front of the stage for 5 pounds. And I don't think I could've stood for 2.5 hours at midnight after a long day, though the peasants were having a grand ole time. We got seats in the gents boxes, which are a little behind the stage. So we're actually in full view of the audience; it's where the pretty noblemen would go to be seen. We did pay double what we should've because the empty seats next to us in the box (all the boxes were empty) were considered restricted view and we should've just bought those. But anyways, from behind, you don't catch all of the actors expressions. The expressions are kind of an essential part of Shakespearean comedy. The laughs are not just in the words themselves but in the acting. And they got serious laughs.

I loved the period band that sits on the second level balcony above the stage. They play french horn, percussion, tuba, trumpet--and there's even a sousaphone. I will say the plot itself I could not follow, even though I've seen the play before. There is famously a Welsh character, whose accent was totally unintelligible to the American viewer. There is also a part where they go into the audience and interact with the standing folks. They wear Eyes Wide Shut masks and scare people. It's a good fun time. 

Mahabharata (Summer for the City) (2025)

Why Not Theatre's ambitious experimental production of the Mahabharata is performed in two parts. I went on two consecutive nights, but this weekend it's playing back to back in a single day, which is a bit much. But I kind of loved the idea of coming back the second night, after having the opportunity to read up on the synopsis in between. The plot is super convoluted, with many characters, all major. Not only that but the actors play multiple parts and play in drag so it's hard to follow. We are warned early on by the storyteller to not be daunted by the plot. It's about the morality lessons derived from the story. It is about how to live or not live a dharma life that is righteous. And there's something profound about that. 

The first part is backed by a band, that starts well before the official curtain time. They sing traditional Indian music and continue to back the narrator. It's a beautiful combination of storytelling and music. The music is my favorite part. There are also dance interludes that showcase different means of telling a story without words. The band doesn't come back for part two, but instead the backdrop is a screen on which we see live projections Jamie Lloyd-style. There is a 15-minute Sanskrit opera retelling the Bhagavad Gita. The scale of the production is honestly impressive and it permits the troupe to do more experimental things for scenes at a time. 

PS. I spotted Philip Glass coming out of the bathroom on the first night. Didn't see him the second night but the opera is reminiscent of his own Satyagraha, with a libretto also drawn from the Sanskrit Bhagavad Gita. 

Oh, Mary! (Broadway) (2025)

Oh, Mary! is the most raucous time on Broadway since Book of Mormon. It's perhaps even more unhinged thanks to the twisted mind of Cole Escola. It combines lots of physical comedy and revisionist history and uncensored gags. It answers the question: how soon is too soon? I, for one, can't wait for the day that we can satirize the assassination of a certain president (who might be gay and whose first lady is a drunk who just wants to sing at the cabaret). It's hard to talk about the wildest jokes without mentioning spoilers. But the whole theater was laughing out loud. So 160 years is definitely long enough. I did not see the ending coming. It's frankly a perfect ending. And then there's one final hilarious scene to put the cherry on top.

Phillip James Brannon plays President Lincoln. Honestly, in a post-Hamilton world, it's not even notable that the white president is played by a black actor. And if given the opportunity, I would go back to see Titus Burgess play Mary for a very limited 3-week run. Betty Gilpin was so good at the physical comedy and the high-octane yelling (and the cockney scene) but Titus is going to blow the roof off that cabaret.

Yellow Face (2024) (Broadway)

We came for Daniel Dae Kim and was pleasantly surprised when Ryan Eggold from The Blacklist and New Amsterdam came on stage. I thought he looked familiar but I couldn't quite place him. I thought he might've just been a generic looking white guy they cast. Alas he was but a famous one at that. Funnily, he plays a macho white guy pretending to be Asian. The plot is hilarious with some genuine laughs. It cleverly blurs the line between reality and fiction, drawing from David Henry Hwang's own life. I love that meta plot. David and his father are two of the main characters. Francis Jue reprises his role as the father from the Off-Broadway run in 2007. Some 15 years later, Jue is older, perhaps a more convincing elderly Chinese father. I thought he was excellent. I saw Jue play Hwang himself in Soft Power a few years ago. I think time has probably served this play well. The thorny topics the play tackles are more germane now than ever in a post-Crazy Rich Asians, post-#OscarsSoWhite, post-Shang-Chi, post-Hamilton world. The play does need a lot of background context on Hwang's life. The small cast of seven feature actors who play multiple parts without regard to race or gender, while commenting hilariously on race-conscious casting. They recite lines from real (or we're at least led to believe they're real) articles to place us in context. It's a bit of a cheap conceit but it works. We enjoyed this very much! Lastly, the curtain call was super short. The small cast took their bows and they were off the stage in probably a minute, definitely no more than two. And it's not because the audience wasn't applauding. They were just really brief.
 

Doubt (Broadway) (2024)

I've been to many Broadway shows, but this has never happened before. Liev Schreiber came out on stage in his priest garb and started his opening monologue. He got about a minute in and then paused. He repeated his last line, and it looked like he might've forgotten the lines. He then apologized to the audience and walked off stage. The house lights came up and we waited for ten minutes before the announcer said they were bringing in an understudy because Schreiber was ill. The play ended up starting 45 minutes late, fortunately it's only 90 minutes. The understudy Chris McGarry played Father Flynn in the original Broadway run. He knows the role, and has played in many John Patrick Shanley plays. And he was very good but I bought these tickets to see Liev Schreiber and Tyne Daly, neither of whom we ended up seeing. Tyne Daly. Tyne Daly had to withdraw from the production for health reasons before they even opened. I thought Amy Ryan was anyways good as Sister Aloysius but she is some 20 years younger than Tyne Daly, so probably plays the role very differently. Zoe Kazan is perfectly cast as the naive younger nun.

Doubt is an excellent play. I thought the movie, also directed by Shanley, was fabulous. And the stageplay has the same tensions and intensity. It's very tightly written, no wasted scenes, just four actors, just a few settings, a couple interiors and one exterior. What I think is really interesting about this play written in 2004 is that it takes place in the 1960s. In the 60s, we might see the play a certain way, but today we bring to it added context about the Catholic Church and its well-known sex abuse problem. The teaching artists kept saying it's a show about uncertainty but I disagree. Because of what we know about Catholic priests, we assume that Sister Aloysius is right. She has no doubts and neither do we about Father Flynn. The most tragic scene is the one with Mrs. Muller, who knows it too. But as a black woman in the 60s in the Bronx, she has other problems to worry about. She has to overlook it because she has no other choice. The scene hits harder if we think that she knows. Come the final scene, when Sister Aloysius says she has doubts, she's not talking about Father Flynn, she's talking about her faith. A play about a nun and a priest called Doubt must be referring to a crisis of faith. And yes, the absurdity of the Catholic Church is enough to shake a nun's faith.

There was an artist talkback after the show with the set designer David Rockwell--who apparently also has a career as an architect of high-end restaurants. I thought the set was fantastic.
 

Poor Yella Rednecks (2023) (Manhattan Theatre Club)

Qui Nguyen's play Poor Yella Rednecks is something of a sequel to his 2016 play Vietgone. It's independent enough that you don't have to have seen the earlier play but there is one direct reference in the dialogue, and many of the actors actually reprise their earlier roles in this play. Nguyen writes himself into this play about his mother's struggles and raising him in rural Arkansas after fleeing Vietnam as refugees. Though specific to the Vietnamese American experience, the themes will resonate with any immigrant audience. It's not exactly haha funny but there is some clever writing. Nguyen plays with the stage play as a form, writing his mother speaking Vietnamese in perfect English while writing the white characters speaking nonsense, the way his mother hears them. It's a clever inversion that works on stage where there are no subtitles. The play is actually delivered with several "songs" that are really more like slam poetry. The beats are somewhat generic, and the lyrics are kind of cheesy and don't all really rhyme, but the awkwardness is sort of endearing. I thought that it was maybe a one-off experiment, but apparently Nguyen played with this style before. It's only the closing song that has melody, the rest is pure spoken word rap, which you don't typically associate with Vietnamese refugees. The lead Maureen Sebastian is fantastic as the mother. She plays a romantic lead and a poor single mother at once and nails both tones. I also loved the set featuring the letters YELLA, the Americana signs framing the stage, and comic book style. There are two cool stage combat kung fu scenes. And the playwright as a child is played by a puppet who emotes and fights pretty realistically. I quite enjoyed the play, and would like to see Vietgone. More different Asian American stories and innovative storytelling on stage please.

Guys and Dolls (West End)

Guys and Dolls might just be the most fun I've had at the theater ever. It genuinely put a smile on my face. Despite standing for 3 hours, after spending the whole day walking around the British Museum. Staged in the round, the standing floor audience is literally in the thick of the action. They're the best seats in the house for just 39 quid. The stage is made up of several rising platforms that the audience is encouraged to encircle by several stagehands with the toughest job in the room, managing a moving stage and shepherding the audience. The cast also interacts with the audience and stands among them. In the Havana scene, they're encouraged to dance along and create a party atmosphere. Sky Masterson threw a sweaty towel in my direction, and right on cue, we shimmied out of the way. Even closer than if you were sitting in the front row, we're literally up at the edge of the stage looking up at the action. Big Julie is very tall. There's nothing necessarily about the play that calls for immersive staging but it creates an exciting atmosphere. It's a kinetic production with wonderful staging.

The actor Andrew Richardson plays Sky Masterson, the Marlon Brando part, in what I could only describe as a Bobby Cannavale-esque way.  He's really good. Celinde Schoenmaker plays Sarah, a role I could see Jessie Mueller in. The actor I'd really call out though is Cedric Neal who plays Nicely Nicely. He absolutely kills it in the showstopper "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat". I unfortunately chose to move to the opposite end of the stage for Act II, which was the back of the scene. He puts it all out there, belting and stomping. The audience gave them 3 encores to repeat the chorus, even the music director and band took a bow. It literally stopped the show. Not to mention that Neal performs with a doo-wop group in the intermission in what is probably the second best scene. After the final bows, there's a literal dance party with the cast and audience together to disco versions of the soundtrack. I would've stuck around if we didn't have to rush to a late dinner.

Witness for the Prosecution (West End)

I had seen the Marlene Dietrich movie adaptation of the Agatha Christie play, and I remembered that there was a twist though I didn't fully remember what the twist was. Agatha Christie is very popular on the West End, The Mousetrap still going strong, and actually coming to Broadway. But I chose this one instead for its innovative staging in London County Hall. London is full of formerly government buildings that retain their beautiful architecture and find new life as theaters or hotels or condos, etc. But what a great idea to stage a courtroom drama in the gorgeous chamber. We bought the cheapest full view seats, and while they're technically full view if you sit forward and to the side, in any comfortable position the huge structural column obstructs the view of the bench and jury box. The jurors are actually audience members who paid a premium. And they are furiously taking notes on something throughout the performance. And one of them was designated foreman and announced the not guilty verdict. They have lines! Center stage is the defendant's box. And the defendant is mostly silent save for the occasional outburst. Up in the gallery though, there was an actress who yelled out right next to us. At the end of the play, when the twist is revealed, the audience was audibly shocked. There was actually so much audience awe that people were getting shushed. And it is a damn good twist.

 

Death of a Salesman (Broadway) (2022)

I made it through high school without having read Arthur Miller's classic American Dream tragedy. I've never known another Willy Loman. And much like Marianne Elliott's revival of Company, she (along with Miranda Cromwell) reimagined the play in a new light so inspired and convincing it's hard to believe it wasn't the original. This Loman family is black and it works so well I can't even imagine Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield. The American dream exists for white people; it's much more difficult for African Americans. It also sort of raises the question of what the American Dream is. Is it home ownership? I always thought it was owning your own business. Maybe it's just raising kids who do better than the previous generation. I suppose it's up for interpretation.

The set is very Marianne Elliott. The furniture descends from the ceiling on wires. The rooms move back and forth, without walls. For some reason, the set is crooked, not aligned to the edge of the stage but on a bit of an angle. It makes the theater feel a little off. I love the music, folksy depressing music, strummed on a guitar (kind of like Girl From the North Country?). It's obviously not a musical, but how could you not give Andre DeShields and Sharon Clarke a song, right? They're excellent. Clarke is a shoo in for the Tonys, but I did say the same about Caroline, or Change. 

I did doze off a little bit in the first act during one of Willy's hallucinations/memories. It's a very long show, over 3 hours. It's very powerful, very emotional, devastating really. It's certainly not for the Lion King crowd, but tourists that recognize the title will find an exquisite production. The theater wasn't full unfortunately or unfortunately, we had no one in front of us.

Julius Caesar (The Public Theater) (2017)

This year's Shakespeare in the Park production is very timely, a modern adaptation of Julius Caesar with Trump (fully in the nude!) as Caesar, Melania as Calpurnia (complete with the accent) and Jared Kushner as Octavian (identifiable by the bulletproof vest). Of course, that means that The Public Theater kills off Trump every night in Central Park. Call it gutsy, bold, even brilliant albeit a little obvious. It goes to show that Julius Caesar remains as relevant as two thousand years ago, as he was during Elizabethan times as he is today. It is reset in our modern America pitting protesters against police and people against dictator. The people are us. To really make us feel part of the people, there are actors hidden in the audience who are silent for 3 Acts and then erupt. They were right behind and in front of us! It was like we were part of the show, it was good fun. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Broadway) (2014)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is the most innovative play since War Horse. Based on the book by the same name that was long-listed for the prestigious Booker Prize, this play takes us inside the mind of a fifteen-year-old autistic savant named Christopher.  The book is told in the first person perspective in a diary of sorts, putting the reader in Christopher's shoes. The play cleverly gets around this, by casting his teacher as a narrator, reading directly from the source material as a play within a play.  Notably, the book chapters are numbered by prime numbers, and so this is integrated in the audience; prime numbered seats have a surprise envelope that got us a free pin.  

Another feature of the book is several diagrams and drawings, which appear on stage.  The stage has a back panel, two side panels, and a floor panel, each of which contain many LED lights and projections.  They are also blackboards, and Christopher draws on them in chalk, and these drawings magically replicate on the other walls so everyone can see no matter where you're sitting.  In a stirring scene, Christopher is overwhelmed by all the stimuli at the train station, and the audience is equally overwhelmed seeing all the lights and signs that Christopher sees, including the ones that he envisions.  This multimedia experience is incredible to behold.  The play very rightfully was awarded Tonys for lighting and scenic design.  The lights partition off houses and rooms in different colors aligned on the grid of LEDs.  And bright compartments appear in the walls housing a train set that Christopher assembles in parts in Act I building up to a climax.     

Alex Sharp plays the young Christopher, and he too is very young at 26.  Fresh out of Julliard, this is notably his first professional role, and he kills it.  He beat Bradley Cooper in Elephant Man for the Tony. He is so deserving and I am glad they took a chance on a rookie.  He has so many lines, and Christopher talks very fast and yells and screams when he feels uncomfortable. Christopher is awkward in social situations, and that comes through in every scene.  The play, thanks largely to Sharp and a great script, evokes tears and laughs equally from the audience. Sharp also maneuvers some intricate choreography bouncing off the walls and spinning through crowds which competed against traditional dancing in musicals at the Tonys.