Geoffrey Paddy Johnson

New York City is host to two concurrently running productions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth this Spring: Aquila Theatre‘s presentation at the Gym at Judson (April 18th – May 6th), and Epic Theatre Ensemble‘s interpretation at the 47th Street Theatre (April 20 – May 26th). A stable of many a theatrical company’s portfolio, apart from its matchless, [...]

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  There’s much more than a touch of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in the character of Katharine Sherman‘s Christopher Marlowe in her new play,

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  I can’t remember, before this show, the last time I saw an adult person unhesitatingly put their whole big toe in their mouth and suck on it with a sense of blissful satisfaction. You can marvel at the flexibility of such a feat even as you cavil at the notion of exactly how clean, [...]

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Breathe, Love, Repeat: A Near Life Experience (2012 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson February 25, 2012 Festivals

  Suzen Murakoshi‘s self-authored, one-woman performance, Breathe, Love, Repeat, presently playing at Under St. Marks as part of this year’s Frigid New York Festival, is an autobiographical recounting of her last days with her mother. For anybody this might represent a daunting theme, vast, self-examining, possibly too much. But Murakoshi has an imaginary alter ego to [...]

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Stabat Mater Fabulosa, Morningside Opera Productions

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson January 31, 2012 Manhattan

The Morningside Opera company offered up a quite singular interpretation of Pergolesi‘s Stabat Mater in their Fabulosa rendition on January 26th at Dixon Place, which proved, at once, a scholarly as well as a quite literal undressing of the original. Composed in 1736 – the year of Pergolesi’s death at the august age of 26 [...]

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Review – Horripilation! By John Sowle, Kaliyuga Arts (Times Square International Theater Festival 2012)

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson January 26, 2012 Festivals

John Sowle in Horripilation!
 / Photo by Steven Patterson The writer and performer of Horripilation!, John Sowle, is unquestionably a shining light in the fields of research and preservation of obscure global theatrical traditions, as well as being an imposing performative figure in the relating and embodiment of these same traditions. In 1973, with a [...]

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Review – Superman 2050 By Theater Un-Speak-Able (Times Square International Theater Festival 2012)

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson January 23, 2012 Festivals

Deploying a short and narrow raised, wooden platform, with a total area surface of 21 square feet, seven actors in blue spandex outfits (that’s 3 square feet each they have to work with; you do the math!), no scenery or lighting effects, and just 35 minutes, Theater Un-Speak-Able set out to tell that well-worn saga [...]

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Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History Of The Robot War

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson January 12, 2012 Manhattan

In a late hour email before I attended the first night performance of The Mad Ones‘ Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War at the New Ohio Theatre, I was notified that Con Edison were currently addressing a problem with the theatre’s heating system and I should consider dressing in a thick [...]

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3 Ghosts By Pipe Dream Theatre Productions

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson December 13, 2011 Music

Younger minds may find entertainment and diversion at 3 Ghosts, this stage musical adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ story, A Christmas Carol by Pipe Dream Theatre Productions. Everything about it resonates with an enthusiastic note of, well, glee. The attractive and animated cast strut and stand about stage looking very pleased with themselves, and the energy [...]

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Mad Women By John Fleck

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson December 5, 2011 Manhattan

Does being a “fan” always mean that in some sense you are intrinsically a “fanatic”? There is ample, and shocking evidence at this point in the twenty-first century to suggest that there is, well, to some degree, a measure of being “touched” in our adoration of public and performing figures, aka “celebrities”. Some performers, of [...]

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The National Acrobats Of The People’s Republic Of China

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson November 4, 2011 Brooklyn

With the rise (and rise) of circus performances in the mold of Cirque de Soleil, western audiences have become more familiar with the astounding acts of physical ability acrobats can achieve, and also increasingly with an old school notion of razzle-dazzle to accompany such acts. Sets and costumes have evolved to elaborately frame these displays [...]

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DUBH – Dialogues In Black, At The American Irish Historical Society

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson October 20, 2011 Art

  In an era of virtual reality the prospect of visiting an exhibition dedicated to products of designer craft presents a salutary experience. Here, at least, one can be assured of an encounter with the visual imagination made tangible; ideas translated into something that can be touched, held, worn, or reclined upon. The exhibition DUBH [...]

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The Woman Standing On The Moon

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson September 23, 2011 Manhattan

  Attempting to grapple with the national ideological landscape of the present, James Haigney‘s new drama, The Woman Standing on the Moon, playing at United Stages on 30th Street, is undeniably ambitious. This is a serious minded engagement with the extremism of the times – religious and atheist. Set around Fayetteville, NC in 2006, the [...]

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BogBoy, By Deirdre Kinahan, At The Irish Arts Center

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson September 13, 2011 Manhattan

Immediately arresting in this production of Deirdre Kinahan‘s new play, BogBoy, at the Irish Arts Center, is Ciaran Bagnall‘s simple stage set of several scrim panels reflecting projected landscape imagery. The mood is heavy and still – darkening flat vistas of bogland stretching off to meet a cloud-crowded sky broken only in places to admit [...]

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Elysian Fields (Fringe Festival 2011)

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson August 30, 2011 Festivals

        There is a delightful episode in Chris Phillips’s play Elysian Fields, which was presented at the Kraine Theatre during this year’s New York Fringe Festival, when the characters Maggie (“the cat”) and Skipper, from Tennessee Williams‘s play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, are talking. Skipper is recounting to Maggie the [...]

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Happily Ever After (Fringe Festival 2011)

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson August 28, 2011 FRINGE 2011

Imagine what it would be like if you had always dozed off to sleep during your childhood bedtime stories, and you never got to hear the words -”and they lived happily ever after”? You were awake for the introduction of the main story characters – a fair maiden, a prince, a beast, a witch – [...]

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What The Sparrow Said (Fringe Festival 2011)

by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson August 27, 2011 Festivals

      Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me? Wait a minute now – what? Just what is Danny Mitarotondo’s new play, What the Sparrow Said, at CSV Latea, trying to say? Or is it really trying not to say anything? The language has certainly been put through a crafty shredder, stripping it of any [...]

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