notanotherbookreview

 THE BOX BY PATRICK HAMILTON. TOP HONORS--BEST PLAY, BEST DIRECTOR AT NEW YORK CITY THEATER FESTIVAL-  THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY'S DREAM UP FESTIVAL PRODUCTION - Produced by Terry Nguyn and Patrick Hamilton, Executive Produced by Chelsea J. Smith and Darrell Shipley What is gripping about this play? There's the fast direct open-ended plot with unexpected turns in the story. There's dynamic, yet subtle well-nuanced performances. The minimal set has maximum impact. Each piece's purpose is highlighted by the lighting and acting. I also like the TNC relaxed, funky atmosphere. This place has a heritage of putting on plays that matter.  The subject of this play could not be timelier. In the production at TNC, I saw how the history and mindsets of these characters seem to mirror the bitter divisions in the U.S., where opposing visions are  vying for power.  It also amplifies the emotional gulf between men and women, trying to make their own more perfect unions. ...

WHERE DO ALL THE GHOSTS GO ?  Theater for the New City  ( Written and directed by Barbara Kahn , ) opens with a rapier thrust by Sarah Bernhardt ( Steph Van Vlack ). a ghost in   Napoleonic drag. She thinks herself condemned to solitude in the derelict hotel, until Marcel Duchamp with his transparent chessboard shows up. Played with droll astringency by David Leeper, his verbal provocations are interrupted by fellow ghouls Elizabeth Keckley, a   demure companion to Mary Todd Lincoln ( Chloe Simone Crawford ). Then Buffalo Bill Cody ( Christopher Lowe) crashes into the room. When Duchamp purposes chess, you get that he and Cody may have been playing an infinite game. When the Baroness ( Sarah Teed ) floats through the room and Duchamp dramatically calls her a thief, it's but a ripple in her trajectory through time with a bright scarf. It is a scarf, ostensibly lost, that brings Jos ( Ashley Versher ) and her wife, Frankie ( Fleur Voorn ) to return to the de...