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.
The Encores! production of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” is like a dessert stuffed with juicy morsels. Why quibble because the cake doesn’t always hold the fruity bits together? The lushest nibble in this happy, Jazz Age...
May 11, 2012 12:00 AM
If the New Group company’s new drama, “An Early History of Fire,” were by a rookie, you could blame its mediocrity on inexperience. But the author is David Rabe, the Tony-winning writer of “Hurlyburly” and “Streamers,”...
May 01, 2012 12:00 AM
Few people today remember journalist Joseph Alsop, but once upon a time he was a big deal.Or so everybody in “The Columnist,” a new Broadway show about him, repeats over and over. That “everybody” includes the man...
April 26, 2012 12:00 AM
There’s a lot of fun stuff in “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” a new musical made of old parts. For starters, this Gershwin jukebox is loaded with unimpeachable classics and a few brilliant obscurities. They’re strung...
April 25, 2012 12:00 AM
Ben may be in the throes of terminal cancer, but his wife, Rita, is determined to know what he thinks about redoing their living room.“I’m dying,” he groans.“Yes, I know,” she replies. “Try to be positive.” Nicky Silver...
April 24, 2012 12:00 AM
Something peculiar is happening in “Ghost the Musical.” It’s nothing to do with the plot, which involves a dead man looking after his (living) girlfriend, and a sham psychic with a 4G connection to the afterlife — this...
April 24, 2012 12:00 AM
If pumping up improved acting, Sylvester Stallone would have as many Oscars as Meryl Streep, and Channing Tatum would be playing Hamlet.But sadly, bulging biceps and taut pecs aren’t enough to fill a role — something...
April 23, 2012 12:00 AM
The new Broadway show “Clybourne Park” is about cultural stereotypes and race relations.Wait, don’t run away!Bruce Norris’ play is also razor-sharp and funny as hell. When some characters unleash a barrage of offensive...
April 20, 2012 12:00 AM
Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” are unhappy all the time. The two who work are miserable. The married one doesn’t love her husband. All of them are sick and tired of their dreary country life, and pine for change.Yet instead...
April 20, 2012 12:00 AM
The humor in the new Broadway farce “One Man, Two Guvnors” is so broad, you could drive an 18-wheeler through it — which the actors gleefully do, at 100 mph and without seat belts.Pratfalls, spit takes, puns,...
April 19, 2012 12:00 AM
Too many shows these days are workshopped or focus-grouped to death. As a result, they’re nicely crafted but comfortably safe. “In Masks Outrageous and Austere” is the exact opposite.This Tennessee Williams play, which...
April 17, 2012 12:00 AM
You can do a play about Peter Pan and his gang with top hats, wire-assisted flying and sets that dutifully evoke a 19th-century British home or a tropical island.Or you can do it with jokes about Ayn Rand and Philip...
April 16, 2012 12:00 AM
The opening of “Massacre (Sing to Your Children)” is the single scariest minute of the year.It would spoil the surprise to describe the scene in detail, so let’s just say it involves loud music and characters wearing...
April 13, 2012 12:00 AM
What makes “Magic/Bird” work isn’t the mystique still attached to its subjects, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, legends though they are.Rather, the joint tale that opened on Broadway last night successfully trades on a...
April 12, 2012 12:00 AM
Unlike Broadway’s “Magic/Bird,” which really is about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, “Federer Versus Murray” doesn’t focus on those two tennis champions.That’s a bummer, because Gerda Stevenson’s slight one-act play...
April 11, 2012 12:00 AM
Last night, “Evita” returned after a 30-year absence from Broadway. The wait was worth it: This is a big, fat, juicy blockbuster of a show.Naturally, everybody’s flipping out over the hot new bombshell in town. Usually...
April 06, 2012 12:00 AM
How refreshing that the mismatched leads of “4000 Miles” don’t look or act like one of the odd couples we’ve seen a million times.Vera — the extraordinary Mary Louise Wilson, who was Big Edie in “Grey Gardens” — is an...
April 04, 2012 12:00 AM
Big Broadway performances are polished, sometimes to a fault: They’re perfectly enjoyable, but they often lack a certain unpredictable battiness. Not so with Tracie Bennett’s tour de force in “End of the Rainbow,” which...
April 03, 2012 12:00 AM
Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” has such a bad rep that this new production’s program is full of scholarly quotes that basically say, hey, it’s really not as chauvinistic as everybody thinks it is!The problem’s...
April 03, 2012 12:00 AM
The most memorable part of “The Best Man” is the women.Gore Vidal’s 1960 chestnut may center on three powerful male politicians, but it’s the ladies hovering on the periphery who steal this new Broadway revival. Despite...
April 02, 2012 12:00 AM
As Disney shows go, “Newsies — The Musical” covers all the familiar bases: a wily scamp of a hero matched with a plucky girl, a blustery villain, and a young smarty-pants overcoming every obstacle thrown his way. That...
March 30, 2012 12:00 AM
Watching “Pipe Dream” at City Center, you have to pinch yourself now and then to make sure you’re not hallucinating.Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1955 show — presented in concert by Encores! — boasts some seriously...
March 30, 2012 12:00 AM
A magic show is a magic show is a magic show. You’ve got illusions, mentalist feats and sleights of hand. Animals appear out of thin air. Someone may or may not be cut by a sharp blade. The funny, inventive “Elephant...
March 29, 2012 12:00 AM
Back in 2006, the sly little tuner “[title of show]” made a pretty big splash. As quirky as its moniker, this was a selfreferential musical about writing and performing a musical, starring the authors.“[title of show]”...
March 29, 2012 12:00 AMThe new drama “Regrets,” set in 1954 Nevada, looks quite nice: Small wood cabins are huddled onstage, with the desert sky in the back and a cooking fire in the center. You can almost smell the mesquite.At least Rachel...
March 28, 2012 12:00 AM
If “’Tis Pity She’s a Whore” debuted today, John Ford’s gory, perverse play would land in a downtown hole and possibly cause a ruckus comparable to past NEA scandals. But “Pity” was published in 1633, so it’s considered...
March 23, 2012 12:00 AM
It’s hard to pin down Jesus in the 1971 rock musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Sometimes, co-creators Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice seem to agree with Mary Magdalene, who sings “He’s a man, he’s just a man,” in the...
March 23, 2012 12:00 AM
The new off-Broadway show “The Big Meal” is high-concept, to say the least. In just 90 minutes, playwright Dan LeFranc tracks Nicole and Sam over several generations — romance, marriage, tensions with in-laws, arguments...
March 22, 2012 12:00 AM
The new Broadway musical “Once” doesn’t have a swinging chandelier, tap-dancing showgirls or brand-name stars. There’s only one set — and it doesn’t levitate.The show wins its standing ovations the old-fashioned way:...
March 19, 2012 12:00 AM
Violence, fantasy, jealousy, dominance and submission, death — Jean Genet’s play “The Maids” has it all! Two sisters working as servants for a rich woman engage in elaborate role-playing games in which they impersonate,...
March 16, 2012 12:00 AM
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