Myanmar: Yangan, Bagan & Lake Inle
Egypt in 9 Days
Essential Vietnam North – South 12 Days
Jordan in Brief
Sri Lanka 7 Days in Paradise
5 Days Taste of Turkey 2018
The Waverly Gallery
By Michael Reubens The title of The Waverly Galley at the Golden Theatre refers to a small privately owned art gallery in New York’s Greenwich Village. Other scenes in this highly passionate and emotional drama by Kenneth Lonergan focus on Upper West side Manhattan homes from 1989-1991. A highly-charged, deeply profound and extremely disturbing melodrama involves a woman of a certain age with alzheimers. The breakdown unraveling physically and mentally in a two year period, the stressful toll it has on her immediate family and an artist that pops into her life are themes of this complex drama. Elaine May…
The Winning Side
Off-Broadway theatre review By Michael Reubens New and talented playwrights burst onto the worldwide theatre community from time to time and James Wallert is a prime example. Wallert has chronicled this thought-provoking documentary form of live theatre The Winning Side at the Acorn Theatre into a work of art. By laying out fundamentally asked questions and delving into historical facts, Wallert has researched the life and fast times of Werner von Braun, a Chief Rocket Engineer of Hitler’s Third Reich empire (1912-1977), the cloak and dagger movements associated with foreign governments, including the US., his clandestine love affairs and suspicious…
Bernhardt/Hamlet
By Michael Reubens There’s something explosive happening right now on stage by the Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway. And that is Acclaimed British actress Janet McTeer who brings to life a stunning and highly-charged French actress, Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923). Bernhardt was way ahead of her time, a time when women were treated as subservient and no way entrepreneurs – especially running her own theatre in Paris – which she did, and very successfully. Among her many roles were Medea and Camille but it is Theresa Rebeck the playwright, that channels McTeer into Bernhardt as the…
Girl from the North Country
By Michael Reubens The title above comes from just one of 600 songs Bob Dylan composed being part and parcel of a biographical play variation featuring the works of Dylan, interwoven in this award- winning London import about life in Dylan country, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Written and Directed by Conor McPherson, this play with music is a true ensemble piece that needs to be seen at whatever cost and at too short a limited run at The New York Public Theater. Set in a Duluth Boarding House, we, the audience, eavesdropp at every opportunity as the plot thickens, while introduced…
KT Sullivan in cabaret
KT Sullivan, the chanteuse exceptionnelle was back in town at Beach Café, New York City. By Michael Reubens On this occasion and in front of a jam-packed audience over dinner and drinks recently, KT entertained, joked, sang, and recited poetry & prose. A Swing Time Kern-U-Copia featured works by Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, P.G. Wodehouse, Oscar Hammerstein II to name but a few that filled the room with songs-a-plenty, from I’m Old Fashioned to Can’t Help Loving That Man to A Fine Romance to The Last Time I Saw Paris to Old Man River. KT brought life and…
Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin
Off Broadway Theatre Review By Michael Reubens Run, don’t walk to the 59E59 Theatre, to see the remaining few weeks of a very talented writer/performer Hershey Felder as he recreates his one-man show on the equally talented American composer and lyricist, Irving Berlin. The Scenic Design, also by Felder, says it all: a grand piano, a Christmas tree, a wheelchair – depicting the old and young I.B., amidst assorted chairs and living room furniture and large windows in which we see the snow falling. Felder unscrolls a history of the man and his music, from his Russian roots as a…
Operation Finale
Film review By Michael Reubens I’m of a certain age, but I hasten to add, not that old! Having said that, films about WWII and Hitler are everywhere globally at a cinema near you, and will continue to educate and surprise all of us with facts, fiction and even poetic license. Case in point Operation Finale, a thriller on the capture and subsequent trial of Adolph Eichmann, indisputably the chief architect of the holocaust and an amazing covert operation to abduct and capture him in Buenos Aires circa 1960, where he subsequently was brought back to Tel Aviv to stand…
My Fair Lady
Broadway theatre review Michael Reubens New York By now the whole world should know about or have seen the enormously successful mega global stage or screen sensation My Fair Lady which made Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle the cockney flower seller a Broadway star way back when, despite the film role going to Audrey Hepburn. The rest is history, as they say, propelling Ms. Andrews into one of the world’s top film stars. This current incarnation at Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont has Lauren Ambrose as Eliza (to Oct 21) and Laura Benanti assuming the role Oct 23….
Ruby’s Café. Australia in USA!
Michael Reubens New York To describe Ruby’s Café as intimate, cosy, friendly and inexpensive, would be an understatement! It is that for sure. Located in the Murray Hill area of Manhattan, this hole-in-the-wall restaurant (and even smaller kitchen) is a money-making gold mine and deservedly so. The volume of diners is intense and there’s always the feel of hurry up and wait – inside and out – and that’s a good thing! Suffice to say the service is quick and orderly and the menu, varied and delicious. Myself and my guest arrived at 7pm recently for dinner when the space…
Tuttles, a great pub!
Michael Reubens New York New York City is a never-ending surprise – just walk up or down one avenue or street and you’re sure to find and explore a restaurant, diner, coffee shop, wine bar or pub that you hadn’t stumbled on before. Case in point, Tuttles, pub and restaurant, located in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan on 2nd Avenue and 39th Street. My local drink hole and eaterie and a home-away-from-home where my friends and I always feel welcomed by the friendly staff no matter day or night. The Greeks own the Diners and the Irish, the Bar…