Lacrima , written and directed by Caroline Guiela Nguyen. Set design by Alice Duchange. Photo : Jean-Louis Fernandez I went to Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s Lacrima at BAM with great eagerness and curiosity. This was a major new work by the only woman with serious clout in the French theater (she is artistic director of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg). This much-acclaimed artist of Vietnamese, North African and French heritage wrote and directed Lacrima , a three-hour, inter

Ragtime , directed by Lear DeBessonet, Vivian Beaumont Theater. Photo: Matthew Murphy The Terrence McNally/Stephen Flaherty/Lynn Ahrens musical Ragtime  is not the subtlest theater contraption. Premiered on Broadway in 1998, it’s a big, galumphing machine with very big things to say about America; multiple, interwoven storylines; whimsical interactions of fictional and historical characters; and a 30+ member ensemble. I remember thinking back in 1998 that it was a miracle thi

Keanu Reeves (Estragon) and Alex Winter (Vladimir) in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot , directed by Jamie Lloyd. Photo: Andy Henderson Absurd as it may seem, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , a demanding play about existential despair and cosmic futility first performed in 1953, has just opened on Broadway for the fifth time. Godot  is the sole Beckett work that Broadway’s glitz-and-glamor-merchants have ever bet big money on, and three of those bets have occurred in th