Vulture - Devouring Culture

Theater Review: Californicated David Duchovny Denied True Schmuckery in Neil LaBute’s Break of Noon

Two new plays, 'The Coward' and 'Break of Noon,' embrace the tradition of lilly-liveredness.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Welcome Back, Pee-wee, You Were Sorely Missed

A fallen martyr of our youth retakes the stage, his glory restored, his strangled giggle un-gagged.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Two Mind-blowing Shows (One Involving Charlie Chaplin — or Parts of Him)

When a man eats a lightbulb for your wincing pleasure, you'll follow him anywhere.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: For Colin Quinn, History is One Long Barroom Brawl

In Long Story Short, Quinn skims thousands of year with an autodidact's stentorian emphasis and a drinking buddy's beer-breath bonhomie.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Let Me Spare You Lisa Kron’s Claustrophobic In the Wake

The play tries to expand the scorched-earth self-analysis of Kron's 'Well,' but it's a far more conventional work.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: The Brilliant Blunt Force of The Scottsboro Boys

Kander and Ebb's final collaboration, which turns a civil-rights parable into a minstrel show, is, on its own discomfiting terms, utterly successful.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Julia Stiles Leads the Jittery Collegiate Thrills of Persephone

If Baz Luhrman and Laurie Anderson got stoned listening to late-night college-radio electro-pop, this is what they'd hallucinate.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: For Aching Male-o-drama, See Spirit Control

I intuit something deeply personal in Ben Willimon's play, but every aspect of it points to a sloppy wallow in musky self-pity.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones Drive an Angrier Miss Daisy

Apart from Boyd Gaines, we're treated to two very famous voices, and very little else.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Wings Soars With Jan Maxwell

In a whooshing 65 minutes, Maxwell delivers a tremendous theatrical head rush playing a former wing-walker trying to recover from a stroke.

By Scott Brown

Stage Dive: There’s a Theater in Their Mouths, and Everyone’s Invited!

Mark Rylance's goofy set of fake choppers in 'La Bête' are not alone on Broadway, and off.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Lombardi’s Well-Worn Playbook

Even the cheesiest Cheesehead may not find much to move him here.

By Scott Brown

Stage Dive: Did Philip K. Dick Dream of Downtown Theater?

It's damned hard to resist deploying a "Blade Re-Runner" pun

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: What Do Charles Busch and Linda Lovelace Have in Common?

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: Is Natasha Lyonne the Next Kathleen Turner?

"There's often a fine line between the stupidest thing you could do ... and the sexiest thing you could do."

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: A Spellbinding Six-Hour Gatz

Anyone seeking this generation’s true second coming of 'Gatsby' should clear a day for a trip to the Public Theater.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: A Friendly Clash of Charms in Mrs. Warren’s Profession

"A more voluptuous Cherry Jones than we're accustomed to."

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: The Art-Appreciation Lectures of The Pitmen Painters

This feel-good story with a grim social undergirding, from the writer of 'Billy Elliot,' feels far, far less personal.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: The Inside-Out Audience Experience at Hotel Savoy

You enter the house, which is also the main character; you're directed to your room; and things begin to happen — or no happen, as the case may be.

By Scott Brown

Theater Review: A Brief Encounter That Unleashes Long-Repressed Emotion

A cabinet of wonders, built atop David Lean's dour 1945 film about an impossible extramarital affair.

By Scott Brown

Stage Dive: The Night Tony Curtis Put the Moves On Me

"Everything, Scott," he told me, draping a pal-o-mine arm around my shoulders, "is flirting."

By Scott Brown

Stage Dive: The Small-Town Desperation of A Bright New Boise

This is a rube tragedy — a respectful and honest-feeling one, for a change.

By Scott Brown

Edelstein on Iron Man 2: ‘A Stylized, Screwball Comedy’

And more from the magazine's critics.

By Amos Barshad

‘Last Night on Late Night’: Weiner ‘Would Have Beaten Bloomberg Like a Rented Mule’

Plus: Tina Brown on the secret to web success, on our regular late-night roundup.

By Dan Duray