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Animal Wisdom @Signature Theatre

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The Play: Animal Wisdom; a revival of the self-proclaimed 2017 requiem that aims to simultaneously mourn and celebrate its MacArthur Genius author’s childhood in Natchez, Mississippi and the ancestors, or ghosts, who helped shape it Written by: Heather Christian        Directed by: Keenan Tyler Oliphant  One good thing: Kenita R. Miller has stepped in to play the main character and her powerhouse vocals lend layers of soul-stirring jazz and blues to the show’s eclectic but largely folk-roots score One not-so-great thing: The show is a purposeful patchwork of memory and imagination but the pieces—including a rambling narrative, an onstage band costumed as though going to a Sgt. Pepper's theme party and a final 25-minute section that takes place almost entirely in the dark—don’t fit together quite as well as intended and while they do seem to reduce some audience members to tears they can also come across as self-indulgent and pretentious to others   ...
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Indian Princesses @ the Atlantic's Linda Gross Theater

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The Play: Indian Princesses; a satire about young girls of color who attend a misguided program that’s supposed to help them bond with their white dads Written by: Eliana Theologides Rodriguez      Directed by: Miranda Cornell One good thing: Centering a play around interracial families, particularly those who are working hard to love and support one another, is more than welcomed in these fractious times One not-so-great thing:   Yet it's hard to shake the feeling of been-there-seen-that as the play succumbs to the lengthening string of angry-young-women dramas in which girls get together, start noting how society has misunderstood or mistreated them and then exorcise their frustrations by performing some kind of ritual, usually a manic dance.  
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What Happened Was... @ Audible's Minetta Lane Theatre

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The Play: What Happened Was...; a revival of the 1992 two-hander about the awkward first date between two low-level co-workers at a law firm Written by: Tom Noonan        Directed by: Ian Rickson One good thing:   Corey Stoll  and  Cecily Strong give a master class in supportive scene work as they peel back the layers of two lonely people clinging to the belief that it’s not too late to make their dreams come true One not-so-great thing:  It’s understandable how desperate today's theatergoers are for excuses to laugh but I wish those at the performance I attended had appreciated the pathos in this poignant production as much as they did its humor    
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Cable Street, a Brits Off Broadway production @ 59E59 Theaters

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The Play: Cable Street; a perhaps too ambitious Hamilton-wannabe (complete with some awkward raps) about the real-life clashes in 1936 between the British fascist Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirt troops and a coalition of East End residents composed of communists, Jews and other freedom fighters Written by: Tim Gilvin and Alex Kanefsky        Directed by: Adam Lenson One good thing: A show about people coming together to resist fascism is obviously timely One not-so-great thing: The story isn’t as well-known here as it is in Britain and the attempt to make it relatable by knitting three demographically separate storylines together in Ragtime fashion ends up turning its archetypes into stereotypes 
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Othello, A Bedlam Theatre production @ the West End Theatre

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The Play: Othello, a thrilling four-person production of the Bard’s tragedy of envy, love, racism and revenge when a Moorish general is tricked by his duplicitous second-in-command into believing that his Venetian wife has been unfaithful  Written by: William Shakespeare        Directed by: Eric Tucker One good thing: Each of the four actors—Tucker,  Susannah Millonzi,  Ryan Quinn  and  Susannah Hoffman —plays multiple roles and— without the aid of a set, props or costume changes — does so terrifically One not-so-great thing:  Adding a coda with an excerpt from a recorded speech by James Baldwin was really unnecessary    
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Kenrex @ the Lucille Lortel Theatre

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The Play: Kenrex; an imaginative retelling of a true crime story about a small town bully who terrorizes his neighbors until they join forces to stop him  Written by: Jack Holden & Ed Stambollouian        Directed by: Ed Stambollouian         One good thing: Holden shows why he won the Olivier’s Best Actor award over such better-known heavyweights as Bryan Cranston, Sean Hayes and Tom Hiddleston as— aided by terrific sound design and excellent lighting — he deftly plays 35 different characters; and John Patrick Elliott is equally versatile as he plays guitar, drums and keyboard to provide the brooding country-rock score that punctuates the narrative One not-so-great thing: The show is clearly meant to be an indictment of the loopholes  in the American legal system but also kind of comes off as an uncomfortable endorsement of vigilante justice  
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Seagull: True Story @ The Public Theater

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The Play: Seagull: True Story; a meta fantasia about a director whose avantgarde staging of Chekhov’s classic play results in his having to flee Putin’s Russia only to find that making theater in American comes with its own set of restrictions  Written by: Eli Rarey        Directed by: Alexander Molochnikov One good thing:   The battle between art and creative freedom is clearly timely and it's interesting to view it through a style of theater that unabashedly mashes up high and low sensibilities, ranging from dream ballets to slapstick comedy  One not-so-great thing:  The 2-hour-and 30-minute show might have packed a more powerful punch as a one act    
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