1,084 stories by "Matthew Murray"
"Why, you ask, was I bound and chained in this cold and dismal place? / Not for any mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face." . . .
Wondering what the most suspenseful moment is in New York theatre right now?
The clang of a pipe, the zing of a chain spinning too fast, the unmistakable moaning from a pornographic video approaching its, uh, climax.
Music hall is in no danger of dying out as long as Jim Dale is still around.
If you like " or can learn to like " silver bodysuits, then you'll have one solid reason to see The Anthem, the new musical that just opened at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre.
Forbidden Broadway, Gerard Alessandrini's enduring and acidic tribute to the Great White Way and its inhabitants, has never been one for pulling its punches.
I'm not sure even Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill could wring much drama from a fast-food sandwich shop running out of ingredients.
With her arms arched high above her head and the blood red, dangling-with-spangles dress she's wearing draping off her body like a waterfall, Audrey Langham at first glimpse resembles a sear…
As last season's Broadway production of Shakespeare's Globe's Twelfth Night reminded everyone lucky enough to see it, it's not impossible for one of The Bard's works to be silly and sublime …
If Encores! was going to now and forever abandon its former tagline " one might even say mission statement " of "Great American Musicals in Concert," it couldn't have picked a more flamboyan…
Of the characteristics that musicals and nightclubs share, perhaps the most enticing " and the most frustrating " is their tendency to be there one moment and gone the next.
Heat can come by way of strong bursts or a long, slow, steady smolder, and which you prefer for your theatrical consumption is what's likely to determine your reaction to the new revival of …
What makes the theatre both addictive and maddening are charisma and talent: qualities that exist only in the now, and that, at their best, can't be fully captured on video.
A great night of clubbing never looks quite the same when viewed without beer goggles.
The burden pressing down truly is wearying: the accumulated weight of countless people, bearing " and creating " untold tons of indifference which, contrary to their almost-certain intent, u…
"Passing undetected is our zenith," one character tells another early in Casa Valentina, the new play by Harvey Fierstein that just opened at the Samuel J. Friedman in a Manhattan Theatre Cl…
Dress it up with all the denim, fake fur, fishnets, and sequins you like, a second-rate talent shouldn't fit easily into a first-rate house.
The sprawling mountain vistas lurking just at the limits of your vision loom large over Annapurna, the play by Sharr White that just opened at the Acorn Theatre in a production of The New Gr…
Given the amorous activities suggested by the play's title, it's probably a good thing that Kirk Lynn's Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra is not significantly about anyone's parents havin…
One of Anton Chekhov's most widely cited rules about writing concerns waste: If you're going to show a rifle when the curtain goes up, you'd better have fired it by the time the curtain come…
Special effects don't get much more special than in Violet, the Brian Crawley"Jeanine Tesori musical that just opened at the American Airlines in a scintillating Roundabout Theatre Company p…
Can you ever believe your ears? In the Michael Grandage Company production of The Cripple of Inishmaan, which just opened at the Cort following a London run last year, the answer would seem …
If Ridiculous has begun seeming less ridiculous in recent years, that doesn't mean it still can't be incredibly funny.
It's a tale tested (and honored, and wrinkled) by time: a bright-eyed youngster falls in love with art, pursues it to no avail, gets discouraged, plans to quit, and then, at the last possibl…
Dreams can be magical, uplifting, portentous, or oppressive " or, sometimes, all four at once.
