SHOWTIME AT THE APOLLO.

Throughout his career, George C. Wolfe has consistently been less influenced by the theatre than by film. Whether as the playwright of considerable promise who brought us "The Colored Museum" (1986), or as the director of considerable skill who put on "Jelly's Last Jam" (1992) and "Angels in America" (1993) and now runs New York's Public Theatre, he has always been a savvy populist at heart; he knows that the theatre has become an art form for the relatively few, but that it can be reinvigorated by the grammar of movies, which almost everyone speaks. The scenes he writes rarely drag, and the shows he stages often use blackouts to signal shifts in time and perspective ...