David Greenspan is one of the most entertaining actors working in New York theater. We've previously enjoyed his sly, intelligent performances in The Beebo Brinker Chronicles and The Dinner Party, and he's currently back on stage in a revival of his solo show The Myopia. Like his award-winning turn in The Argument, which was a surprisingly engaging staging of Aristotle's 2,200-yearold lecture, The Myopia is nothing but Greenspan. The only set pieces are a bottle of water and a chair, in which Greenspan is confined for the entire two hour production. more ›

Ann Bannon’s 1950s lesbian pulp novels, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, have long been beloved for their vivid portrayal of secretive homosexual subcultures in ultra-repressed America. The series has been recently adapted for the stage by Hourglass Group; their production charts the parallel lives of two amorous sorority sisters who painfully part ways after graduation. Beth settles down and starts a family; Laura heads to New York where, after a torrid affair with the titular Beebo – the Donna Juan of the lesbian bar scene – she is able to ultimately embrace her sexuality. When, years later, Beth breaks her bonds of domestication and tracks Laura down, she’s subjected to a traumatic tour of a life that might have been hers. more ›

THEATER: HERE Artistic Director Kristin Marting concludes the OBIE-winning art center’s season by directing performer/dancer Alexandra Beller in us, “a highly athletic, sensual and dynamic blend of movement with song, text and a layered soundscape. Beller created this deeply personal commentary on the state of the union from the perspective of a woman who is at a crisis point in a love relationship.” As we haven’t seen it, we’ll defer to The New Yorker on this one: “The former Bill T. Jones standout dresses herself in the American flag, uses it as a jump rope, breast-feeds it. A sound score assaults her with conservative rhetoric, circa 2004, and she enlists the audience in pointing out contradictions in Leviticus.” Just another reason why we love New York. ENDS SUNDAY! – John Del Signore more ›

If you’re anything like me, there sits somewhere on your bookshelf a neglected copy of Aristotle’s Poetics that hasn’t been opened in years. And if you’re even more like me, the odds of you wading through those dense waters again are about as slim as Kansas legalizing pederasty. Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t stimulating and, yes, immensely influential philosophical ideas set forth therein. The extant text of The Poetics was transcribed from Aristotle’s lectures on the nature of theatrical tragedy: why our species craves imitative narrative performance, what separates a well-made tragedy from cheap melodrama, and the alchemical power of catharsis – to name a few. more ›

In yesterday’s theater round-up, we noted the Stadttheater festival of new German theater at HERE Arts Center, but right now you can also see a staging of one of the most cherished works in classic German literature: Goethe’s Faust. For three years, Target Margin Theater Company has been working toward a full presentation of the 18th century masterpiece, newly translated by Douglas Langworthy, and on Sunday – probably not coincidentally, Walpurgisnacht, which, as those familiar with Faust know, is quite an important day for the story – the two-part, six-hour extravaganza opened. more ›