Bill Marx

Book Commentary: Thirty Years Ago Stanley Elkin Raised Hell

August 15, 2009
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By Bill Marx The ruckus kicked up by Yale University Press’s refusal to include cartoons offensive to some Muslims in a forthcoming book called “The Cartoons that Shook the World” underlines the ironic difference between offensive words and images. (Perhaps Yale U Press should re-title the censored version of the book “The Cartoons That Only…

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Theater Commentary: Boston’s “Comedy of Errors”

August 14, 2009
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The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Directed by Steve Maler. Presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company at the Boston Common Parkman Bandstand, through August 16. Reviewed by Bill Marx Shakespeare can be punished by his own success. In “The Comedy of Errors” he juggles two sets of identical twins on stage with the dizzying aplomb…

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World Books Update

August 8, 2009
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By Bill Marx Two new World Books reviews up at PRI’s The World. Alexander Nemser lauds “An Elegy for Easterly,” a collection of sharply-written stories by Petina Gappah that explores the hyperbolic disaster of Robert Mugabe’s presidency. “Here are the daily lives of the country’s mechanics, bankers, students, housewives, traveling salesmen, beggars, and madwomen, everyone…

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Theater Review: Bearing “The Torch-Bearers”

August 4, 2009
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By Bill Marx George Kelly’s 1922 comedy about amateur theatrics gone wild is showing its age. The Torch-Bearers, by George Kelly. Adapted and directed by Dylan Baker. Presented by the Williamstown Theatre Festival, through August 9, 2009. Katie Finneran, Edward Herrmann, and Andrea Martin acting up a storm as amateur thespians in The Torch-Bearers. Critics…

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Theater Commentary: Stages Search for a New Balance

August 1, 2009
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By Bill Marx Kate Warner, the New Rep’s new Artistic Director, wants to strike a new balance. WGBH’s Jared Bowen is more of a publicist/fan than a journalist, but his recent “Greater Boston” interview with Kate Warner, the new Artistic Director of the New Repertory Theatre, gives the honcho a chance to talk about some…

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World Books Update

July 28, 2009
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By Bill Marx Two more reviews posted on my World Books page at PRI’s The World.

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Theater Review: “After the Quake” at Company One

July 20, 2009
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An elegant and sleek meditation on the reverberations of trauma adapted for the stage from a collection of stories by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. After the Quake, based on the stories “Honey Pie” and Super-frog Saves Tokyo” by Haruki Murakami, which were translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin. Adapted for the stage by Frank…

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World Books Update

July 17, 2009
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By Bill Marx You want a racy, nineteenth-century epic about sex, sin, drugs, and prostitution set in China? Here it is. Two more pieces on international fiction for World Books, the feature I edit for PRI’s The World.

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Theater Commentary: Last of the Red Hot Anachronisms

July 11, 2009
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By Bill Marx If the age turns away from the theater, in which it is no longer interested, that is because the theater has ceased to represent it. It no longer hopes to be provided by the theater with myths on which it can sustain itself. –- Antonin Artaud

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World Books Update

July 4, 2009
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By Bill Marx I am juggling editing and writing duties between two blogs, theartsfuse and World Books for the website of BBC/PRI’s radio program The World, which is produced at WGBH in Boston. The section aims to be a critical conversation made up of reviews, commentaries, interviews, podcasts, and news stories about international literature. Respected…

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