★☆☆☆☆ Hawkish comedy is strictly for the birds
Off-Broadway
Pecking Order: Fowl Play Indeed
★☆☆☆☆ Two infamous New York–dwelling red-tailed hawks serve as the ostensible inspiration for a flighty new comedy
Kowalski: How Brando Became the Brute
★★★★☆ Fascinating look behind the curtain of Tennessee Williams masterpiece when Brando almost didn’t get the role.
A Knock on the Roof: Everyday life and death in Gaza
★★★☆☆ Khawla Ibraheem depicts a mom in desperate straits
Dear Jack, Dear Louise: WWII Love Letters, with Wit and Charm
★★★★☆ Playwright Ken Ludwig finds literary delight in the family attic
Beckett Briefs: The 20th-Century Master Served Masterfully
★★★★☆ Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I, Play, with F. Murray Abraham, Roger Dominic Casey, Kate Forbes, Sarah Street, Ciarán O’Reilly directing
Cymbeline: Shakespeare Lite, more easily rephrased than actually done
★★☆☆☆ NAATCO stages a pleasant if patchy all-female, all-Asian American revival
Grandiloquent: Tragedy Plus Time Equals Brilliant Comedy
★★★★☆ Comedian Gary Gulman delivers an uproarious description of his troubled childhood in this one-man show directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel.
Grandiloquent: Comedian Gary Gulman gets up close and personal
★★★★☆ Gulman plies his unique comedic talents to describe how he survived a painful childhood
Show/Boat: A River: The Seminal, Historical Classic Severely Landlocked
★☆☆☆☆ Director/adaptor David Herskovits misses the mark with Kern/Hammerstein/Ferber classic