Bill Marx
The tragicomic idea is that the existential futility of Franz Kafka’s world reflects life in the theater. The characters gloriously quixotic love for the stage battles against commercial greed, egomania, and psychological mess-ups. The Understudy by Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Larry Coen. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at the 140 Clarendon Street…
Read MoreIn this valuable book, Gabriel Josipovici raises radical doubts about the aesthetic and spiritual satisfactions of conventional storytelling as well as the unquestioned values of realism, at one point condemning writers simply content to tell a story “and telling it in such a way as to make readers feel that they are not reading about…
Read More@Discographies is closer to marketing jingles or consumer guide advice than it is to reviewing—the exercise is fun but limited because it deals with the least valuable part of criticism: the opinion, the verdict. By Bill Marx. Further tongue-in-cheek (?) proof that the traditional conception of arts criticism—that there’s a difference between critical judgment and…
Read More“My condition was like that of a man who has fired a gun at people he dislikes, and finds these same people coming and giving three cheers for him: inadvertently he had been firing loaves of bread. – Bertolt Brecht, “Drums in the Night’s Success With the Bourgeoisie” By Bill Marx Granted, some of Brecht’s…
Read MoreThe set-up sounds promising, a look back at a time of furious intellectual and artistic ferment, especially with its demand for art that challenges rather than caters to conventional tastes, creativity that revels in distortion, the surreal, the political, and the visceral. The Blue Flower. Music, Lyrics, and Script and Videography by Jim Bauer. Artwork,…
Read MoreI figure you know where the killer Scrooges are, so this month I look for alternatives to the usual holiday fare. The American Repertory Theater and GAN-e-meed Theatre Project are serving up something different, and SpeakEasy Stage Company says it has found “hip” holiday fare. I have heard that one before, but you never know.…
Read MoreCall it anarchistic boorishness, an artist chomping on the hand that feeds him. But at least Thomas Bernhard is honest about why he welcomes awards — he wants the money, especially because the amounts, given European largess to its culture-makers, are considerable. My Prizes: An Accounting by Thomas Bernhard. Translated from the German by Carol…
Read MoreGish Jen’s novel about New England small-town life in the new millennium, “World and Town,” has just come out in a paperback. We greeted the hardback edition of the book with a Judicial Review, a fresh approach to creating a conversational, critical space about the arts. It is a good time to highlight the innovative approach again. The aim is to combine editorial integrity with the community—making power of interactivity.
Read MoreYears (or would that be decades?) ago, editors had the self-respect to be embarrassed by critical incompetence, perhaps because there was the assumption that knowledgeable people were reading the paper. Those discriminating readers are long gone from the marginalized arts section of The Boston Globe . . . By Bill Marx I haven’t seen the…
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