Bill Marx
For me, the fact that Bread and Puppet Theater has survived for 50 years is very hopeful, essentially because company members have never wavered from their principles. Imagine that. You can be radically principled and survive!
The Whistler in the Dark production does right by the gaunt power of “Vinegar Tom” — if only dramatist Caryl Churchill hadn’t served up such a tidily edifying coven of alleged sorceresses.
An adaptor has to make choices, and this theatrical version of “Invisible Man” focuses on the novel’s most straightforward narrative strand.
In this production, director Piotr Fomenko “wanted to explore whether family happiness is even possible, the fight to keep it and the fear of losing it.”
Nervous mainstream audiences could breathe easy, the messy cultural ruckus of the ’60s was over: it was ok to find yourself in the suburbs.
Bare bones, determinedly unhokey, and intimate, director David Cromer’s matter-of-fact approach does away with the irritatingly self-conscious fussiness that afflicts so many productions.
In Memphis, the risqué exhilaration of early rhythm and blues is airbrushed away, to the point that the show appears to argue that from its inception black music sold out to mainstream tastes.
Larry Coen directs “Chinglish”’s awkwardly written romance with a savory earnestness, but he can’t put the pieces of the fragmented script (you laugh/you cry) together.
By Bill Marx Arts Fuse: Tell me how Leeches came about, given how different it is from your other books, at least those in translation. David Albahari: It is different from other books of mine. But then, there were several things that made me, in the end, write the book. First of all, I wanted…
Two warhorses of the theater come to town: Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” trots along in the Globe Theatre touring production, while “War Horse” shows off the equine puppet body beautiful.
The Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll at Mid-Year: Warming Up a Riff — How It Happened, and Why It Matters