Portside

It could be a Shakespeare play, a tragedy that engulfs a complex, larger-than-life figure. And one who is brought down by his own hubris. The story moves between the civil rights movement and the American war against Vietnam. Closes Nov. 30.

“Hadestown,” written and composed by Anaïs Mitchell and directed by Rachel Chavkin, is a very radical play. It takes the audience to Hell, which is peopled by oppressed workers who have been indoctrinated to fear those who are poorer.

Wildly funny and clever, this is a play a serious theater-goer cannot miss. It's a terrific campy surreal take on murderous war from the point of view of the workers who have to clean up the mess, the bloody bodies of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

This is a feminist theatrical. A very political play. If you don't want to go to a lecture about what is wrong with how the US government treats women and minorities, it's more interesting to go to a play.

New play, about Reconstruction. This was really a turning point in US history when America almost did the right thing. The South was writing new state constitutions and African Americans were getting elected to local and national offices.

The politics of the theatrical adaptation of “Network” have not changed since the Chayefsky film was screened in 1976. The story is still based on the reality that a corrupt upper class screws the middle class and poor.

The great mystery to me, is why the play was a failure. Originally it ran for only 3 days, and then closed. Hellman was responding to an all-too-common ethical dilemma that persists down to today. Her own sympathies lay with the striking workers.

Fifteen years after she slammed the door, Nora returns to Torvald’s house as the Betty Friedan of 19th-century Norway. As created by Laurie Metcalf from the script by Lucas Hnath, she is smart, witty, sarcastic, tough and likely to make women cheer. I did!

You might never see a more powerful, stunning production of Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" than this one directed by Richard Jones and starring Bobby Cannavale at the Park Avenue Armory. This is a play about class, and class consciousness.