Bill Marx
By Bill Marx After four years in the position, Louise Kennedy is leaving her post as theater critic for the Boston Globe to work on a book project. I wish her well: she’s had to persevere as the position becomes the afterthought of a Tweet. Perhaps she sees the handwriting on the printer’s wall. Her…
Read MoreThe Arts Fuse began as my blog after the untimely end of NPR/WBUR Arts Online. But, as more writers and critics wanted to make their voices heard, the blog became a magazine. So, I decided to make it a New England focused magazine modeled on other pioneering efforts to cover the news online, such as…
Read MoreA whole lot of deconstruction of the classics going on this month, along with productions of scripts by familiar homegrown names, from William Inge and David Mamet to Sarah Ruhl. A visit from a master puppeteer and a show about race that’s “recommended for mature audiences” look intriguing. By Bill Marx The Real Inspector Hound…
Read MoreShakespeare’s tragic characters, on the other hand, suffer from the Christian sin of pride: knowing you aren’t God, but trying to become Him—a sin of which any of us is capable. — W. H. Auden on Othello in Lectures on Shakespeare Othello by William Shakespeare. Directed by Steven Maler. Staged by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx In my other life, as editor of World Books for The World, BBC/PRI’s national radio program dedicated to international news, I write and edit book reviews as well commentaries and interviews. I also host a monthly podcast dedicated to global literature, which is available through ITunes. The most recent pieces posted on…
Read MoreCharm’d magic casements, opening on the Foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. — To a Nightingale, John Keats, 1819 GRIMM: The Brothers’ Tales Remixed & Re-imagined . . . Written by Gregory Maguire, Kristen Greenidge, Melinda Lopez, Marcus Gardley, Lydia R. Diamond, John Kuntz, and John ADEkoje. Directed by Summer L. Williams and…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx In English, Polish novelist, playwright, short story writer, and brazen, metaphysical gadfly Witold Gombrowicz remains under appreciated, a modernist who was never pulled into the highbrow bandwagon. Part of that neglect is thanks to bad translations that, in some cases, bowdlerized the Polish text or were translated from a French version of…
Read MoreLondon Assurance by Dion Boucicault. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. The National Theatre production presented by NTLive at the Coolidge Corner Cinema, Boston, MA, July 14. A bonus simulcast has been added to the NTLive lineup; on July 14th Coolidge Corner Cinema will, once again, simulcast Dion Boucicault’s comedy London Assurance starring Simon Russell Beale and…
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