Bill Marx

Theater Review: A First-Rate “Flick” From Company One

March 3, 2014
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In “The Flick,” Annie Baker creates youngish characters that my students at Boston University would call “relatable,” exploring how self-delusions, stereotypes, and fear keep them from connecting in a meaningful way.

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Theater Review: A Moderately Powerful “Death of a Salesman” from The Lyric Stage Company

February 25, 2014
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A lack of dramatic combustion sometimes makes the Lyric Stage Company production, despite its intelligent detail, more staidly melodramatic than it should be.

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Theater Review: “Witness Uganda” — From Africa, With Schmaltz

February 17, 2014
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“Witness Uganda” is a quintessential American musical — a work of cultural tourism that condemns cultural tourism.

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Theater Review: “Absence” — Movingly Moving Toward the Null Point

February 14, 2014
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The protagonist may necessarily be passive in the face of his or her diminishing mental condition, but art must rage against the dying of the light.

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Fuse News: Elizabethan Genius Gets Its Due — An Edition of Ben Jonson For the Ages

February 4, 2014
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The “Cambridge Jonson” volumes are available online, and the site is a bibliographical joy to behold, Ben Jonson’s plays, poems, masques, and prose arranged in chronological order and in a searchable format.

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Theater Review: Bread & Puppet Theater’s “Shatterer of Worlds” — Apocalyptic Art

January 26, 2014
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Those willing to accept that powerful political theater can be as much about depicting pain as providing hope will find much to admire in this visually striking, dramatically compelling piece.

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CriticIsm Commentary: The Welcome Buccaneers of Arts Criticism

January 13, 2014
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“Criticism will always have the force of the child in the story about the emperor’s new clothes, because there will always be naked emperors who everybody says are wearing today’s Crown Jewels.” — Eric Bentley

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Theater Review: “Venus in Fur” — No S & M Please, We’re American

January 10, 2014
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“Venus in Fur” could be best described as cheeky rather than kinky, more of a talky intellectual exercise than a zesty exploration of the allure of sexual domination and submission.

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Book Interview: “1941: The Year That Keeps Returning” — Doubt is not a Fatal Weakness

January 7, 2014
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Through meticulous research, interviews, and reminiscence, this compelling book illuminates a nook in the heart of darkness.

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Fuse Coming Attractions: What Will Light Your Fire This Week

January 3, 2014
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Arts Fuse critics select the best in dance, film, and theater that’s coming up this week.

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