Punch @ Manhattan Theatre Club

-


The Play: Punch, a kinetic adaptation of a memoir by Jacob Dunne, a former British rowdy boy who threw a punch that killed a man but who, after serving a sentence in prison, found redemption—and a new life—through his later encounters with the dead man’s parents

Written by: James Graham        Directed by: Adam Penford

One good thing: Will Harrison is giving a star-making performance as Dunne that hits every beat from macho bro to anguished penitent

One not-so-great thing: Even though the staging is dynamic, the production can’t evade the color-by-numbers sensibility of an afterschool special or an advertorial for the restorative justice movement that helped Dunne move on from his deed

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gospel at Colonus @ The Amph on Little Island

-
Image
The Show: The Gospel at Colonus; the story of the death and redemption of Oedipus that Sophocles dramatized in the second of his plays about the tragic mythological king is filtered through the spirituals and other rituals of a Black Pentecostal church service Conceived and adapted by: Lee Breuer        Music by:   Bob Telson      Lyrics by:   Lee Breuer and Bob Telson                Directed by: Shayok Misha Chowdhury One good thing: The music is gloriously performed and the setting looking out over the river from Little Island on a warm summer night is almost as awe-inspiring One not-so-great thing:   Following the narrative can be tricky because three different actors play Oedipus; on the other hand, they—Stephanie Berry, Davón Tines and Frank 
Senior—are all so fantastic that it barely matters    
Read more

Ava: The Secret Conversations @ New York City Center's Stage I

-
Image
The Play: Ava: The Secret Conversations; a too-lightly fictionalized recreation of the testy relationship between the midcentury movie star Ava Gardner and the journalist she hired to ghostwrite her memoir Written by: Elizabeth McGovern        Directed by: Moritz von Stuelpnagel One good thing: The video projections of scenes from Gardner’s movies and the photos of the actress with her many famous husbands (Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra) and other lovers convey a sense of the star’s mystique One not-so-great thing:  McGovern, who also stars as Gardner, and Aaron Costa Ganis—playing the journalist and all three of the husbands—work hard but are unable to make it clear why we should care about either of these people or their woes    
Read more

Rolling Thunder: A Rock Journey @ New World Stages

-
Image
The Play : Rolling Thunder; a concert-style revue in which iconic songs from the ‘60s illustrate stories about the soldiers who served in Vietnam and the families who anxiously waited for them to come home Book by: Bryce Hallett        Directed by: Kenneth Ferrone One good thing: The singing by a talented cast (all young enough to be the grandkids of people who actually served in the war) is across-the-board terrific, particularly the performances by Deon’te Goodman, channeling all of the soul of Motown; and Drew Becker just as strongly representing the San Francisco sound that also defined the era One not-so-great thing: The narrative adds little to the now-familiar stories of the Vietnam soldiers killed, addicted to drugs and generally alienated when they return home     
Read more