Theater is seen as a cleansing illness that sets out to obliterate the illness we blithely accept as health.
Arts Commentary: Pestilence on Stage, Part One — Karel Čapek’s”The White Plague”
The White Plague uses dread to shock us into empathy for ourselves, to be alarmed by the fragility of our bodies as well as the resources and ethics of the medical system.
Book Commentary: “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” and the Literature of COVID-19
“The body is a curious monster, no place to live in, how could anyone feel at home there? Is it possible I can ever accustom myself to this place?”
Theater Commentary: A Memorable “Merchant of Venice” — Squeezing Blood Out of a Rubber Chicken
This was an enormously exciting production of Merchant of Venice, a reminder that theater can be (in fact, must be!) nervy.
Film Review: “What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael” — Rebellion Has an Expiration Date
Pauline Kael capitalized on counterculture snobbery, the pecking order of the oh-so enlightened.
Theater Review: “Sweat” — Icarus’s Children
For me, Sweat hits its riveting stride in its second half, when the pressures of the strike tests the relationships of its working class characters.
Theater Review: “King John” — Fractured History Lesson
Praxis Stage picked the right time to stage a Shakespeare play about a head of state who doesn’t have anything on his mind but corruption.
Book Review: “The Stakes” — For America, Higher Than You Think
For America to get back on track, “It will take inspired radical leadership, mass organizing, and citizen mobilization of the kind that we see only in America’s finest hours.”
Theater Review: “We All Fall Down” — Flat
In the spirit of Passover’s four questions, I will ask: Why this play of all plays?
Theater Review: “Timon of Athens” — Greed is not Good
Timon is a fascinating, if lumpy and bumpy, black comedy with a nihilistic sting, a lacerating parable about how the worship of gold warps individuals and society.