Elisabeth Vincentelli joined the New York Post as theater critic in February 2009. She previously was arts and entertainment editor at Time Out New York. In the past she's also contributed to publications such as The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, The Believer, Slate and Salon. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Don't expect the 12th-century Norman invasion in "The Irish . . . and How They Got That Way": The focus of Frank McCourt's play is much narrower. A better title would be "The Irish-Americans . . . and How They Got That...
July 29, 2010 12:00 AM
It's the oldest story ever told. No, really, it is: This new musical revisits Adam, Eve, the fruit-based temptation and the fall from grace. But though the York Theatre is in the basement of St. Peter's Church, the...
July 16, 2010 12:00 AMThings got hairy for Bianca Leigh when she tried to get less hairy. Born male, Leigh felt she was really female. Since working at Macy's couldn't cover her hormone treatment, in the 1980s she moonlighted as a...
July 12, 2010 12:00 AM
The Japanese import "Musashi," which opened the Lincoln Center Festival last night, is inspired by a legendary 17th-century sword fight. Were this an American production -- particularly a Western -- you'd anticipate a...
July 09, 2010 12:00 AM
Wen David Mamet's play "Race" opened on Broadway in December, I called it a "bewildering muddle" that "sinks into absurdity." What a difference a new cast can make. The brash plot still feels gratuitously...
July 06, 2010 12:00 AM
Some shows are so wrong, they're inad vertently entertaining. Others are just not right: The actors, director and designers do their own thing as if unaware of what their colleagues are up to. The result is the...
July 02, 2010 12:00 AM
In a rare stage appear ance -- his first at the Delacorte Theater -- Al Pacino is affectingly understated (for Al Pacino). On the whole, the Shakespeare in the Park production that just opened is zippy and entertaining...
July 01, 2010 12:00 AM
LCT3 may be the newest and most intimate unit of Lincoln Center Theater, but its shows certainly don't think small. "On the Levee," which opened last night, tackles no less than race, class and father-son relationships...
June 29, 2010 12:00 AMWatching A.R. Gurney's new play is like soaking in a warm, soothing nostalgia bath for an hour and a half. Ah, for the days when theater stars were larger-than-life household names, Gurney seems to sigh. And they...
June 28, 2010 12:00 AM
To say that France and Germany didn't have much of a love connection in the 1930s and '40s is an understatement. But two of those countries' biggest icons, Marlene Dietrich and Maurice Chevalier, didn't let that affect...
June 21, 2010 12:00 AM
The Rattlestick Theatre has a vintage tin ceiling. I noticed it because I kept rolling my eyes at all the contrived drama in "Little Doc." Written by Dan Klores -- a publicist turned director of well-received...
June 18, 2010 12:00 AMPoliglot Theater's new "Neither Heaven nor Earth" is billed as a docu-play -- but don't expect much objectivity. Based on extensive interviews conducted by directors/writers John Hansen-Brevetti and Gabriella Pinto...
June 15, 2010 12:00 AM
It would be a tall order for even the most seasoned writers: a play that toys with memory and perception, reality and fantasy, past and present. Christopher Wall is clearly ambitious, but he doesn’t quite follow through...
June 14, 2010 1:34 AM
The Amoralists have become New York's latest It company on the strength of two explosive shows -- last year's "The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side" and this spring's "Happy in the Poorhouse." The enterprising troupe...
June 09, 2010 12:00 AMIt seemed like a great idea: Resurrect a 1931 piece about the Great Depression and put it up in a temporary "pop-up" theater downtown. But this revival of "Can You Hear Their Voices?" confuses Depression with...
June 08, 2010 12:00 AM
It often seems that most of the plays we see in New York focus on a narrow range of people: white, educated members of the middle class, in their 30s or older. It's a demographic that -- surprise! -- reflects the one...
June 03, 2010 12:00 AMDon't judge a book by its cover -- and don't judge a show by its title. The name of Stephen Belber's new two-hander, "Dusk Rings a Bell," evokes the horrifying prospect of an Emily Dickinson poetry slam. But the play's...
May 28, 2010 12:00 AM
The characters of "The Burnt Part Boys" walk a long and winding road. This being theater, you may think this is a metaphor -- but no, there's an actual trek involved. And it goes on and on and on. This new musical,...
May 27, 2010 12:00 AM
You can't describe "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" without resorting to exclamation points, and lots of them. There's an actual pro-wrestling ring onstage! A video clip shows a woman in a burqa wielding a...
May 21, 2010 12:00 AM
In "Restoration," her first major play since her 2000 Broadway hit "Dirty Blonde," Claudia Shear has written herself some lascivious, sexed-up action. "I wish I could lick you clean," Shear's character, Giulia, sighs...
May 20, 2010 12:00 AM
Playwright Adam Rapp has crammed a lot into his latest work, "The Metal Children." And it's a lot of big themes: the creative process, suicide, teenage sexuality, censorship. Not enough? Rapp throws in abortion and...
May 20, 2010 12:00 AM
Polly Stenham's "That Face" deals with unset tling emotional violence and pathologies. And it doesn't introduce them gradually, either: The play jumps straight into the deep end of the pool. Enter at your own risk....
May 19, 2010 12:00 AM
Edie Falco and Alison Pill are among the most likable of ac tresses, able to communicate emotion with unfussy directness. And so it's a genuine pleasure to see them share a stage -- especially one as intimate as...
May 17, 2010 12:00 AM
Quite a few stock characters and situations are packed into "Gabriel," the 1997 British play that opened last night at the Atlantic. First and foremost is the jolly, poetry-quoting Nazi officer (Zach Grenier),...
May 14, 2010 12:00 AMIf "Doctor Knock, or the Triumph of Medicine" were a TV show, it would air on CBS. It's mild, pleasant and a bit innocuous. All of which isn't bad per se, except for the nagging feeling that the production is something...
May 13, 2010 12:00 AM
The new musical "The Kid" tracks the ups and downs of a couple on its path to adoption. The administrative roller coaster provides a gold mine of amusing material, but this tender, funny show is more about the...
May 11, 2010 12:00 AM
When it comes to 19th-century Rus sian playwrights, Chekhov is it, at least in New York. So hopes were raised when Classic Stage Company decided to give his contemporary Alexander Ostrovsky a prestige production led by...
May 07, 2010 12:00 AM
Beth Henley's "Family Week" is only 75 minutes long, but it's loaded with mysteries. For starters, why did renowned film director Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs") choose this play for his stage debut?...
May 05, 2010 12:00 AM
Judy and Michael are in their bedroom, arguing over how to handle their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica. She had the audacity to make up a triumphant song after winning at Clue. Of such problems "Parents' Evening" is...
May 04, 2010 12:00 AM
She's starred in big, popular Broadway shows like "Aida," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "The Little Mermaid." She's been nominated for Tony and Drama Desk awards. She's a blue-eyed blonde with great comic timing, and...
April 30, 2010 12:00 AM
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