Bill Marx

Theater Review: A Shining City on the Yawning Heights

March 22, 2008
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By Bill Marx Shining City, by Conor McPherson. Directed by Robert Falls. Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company, through April 6 at the Boston University Theatre. John Judd and Jay Whittaker gas on about a pesky ghost At their best, ghost stories frolic in the freedom of the imagination: the writer generates his or her…

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Theater Commentary: Marketing Away Reality

March 20, 2008
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By Bill Marx Television offers so little discussion of local stages that I had to check out WGBH’s Greater Boston segment on the state (artistic and financial) of the city’s theater, which aired last week. Of course, I wasn’t expecting much, but I was surprised that – in a predictable effort to assuage the anxieties…

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Theater Review: Where’s Avenue Q? – Take a Right on Easy Street

March 14, 2008
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by Bill Marx Avenue Q, though March 23 at the Colonial Theatre, Boston, MA. Music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, book by Jeff Whitty. Based on an original concept by Lopez and Marx. Directed by Jason Moore. Puppets and people warbling up a storm in the touring production of Avenue Q Where…

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Cultural Commentary: Crunch Time for Arts Coverage at The Boston Globe

March 13, 2008
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by Bill Marx A recent study in Editor & Publisher delivers the lowdown; with its circulation down about 20% in four years, The Boston Globe is in free fall. Two major investors in The New York Times, which owns the Globe, are “challenging the company’s investment decisions, including its commitment to the struggling newspaper industry…

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Theater Commentary: Dead American Theater Walking

March 12, 2008
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by Bill Marx In a New York Times article I wrote about earlier this week, dramatist Marsha Norman suggests ways to soften nasty stage reviews, which she claims chase audiences away from the glories of theater and into the decadent arms of television. But how would she discipline a successful homegrown dramatist, Neil LaBute, when…

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Theater Commentary: It’s Not Just the Economy, Stupid!

March 11, 2008
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by Bill Marx Has anyone actually read the recent Boston Foundation Arts Report? A column in Boston.com suggests that the sputtering economy is essentially to blame for what The Boston Foundation sees as an increasingly tough time for nonprofit theaters. The solution for Boston’s theaters, suggests the starstruck observer, boils down to new and improved…

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Theater Commentary: Critics, Be Good or Be Irresponsible?

March 9, 2008
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By Bill Marx The war over critics-as-bullies is over, but some diehards keep fighting the same old battles to the point of arthritic absurdity, like Lee Marvin and Toshirô Mifune as old and forgotten American and Japanese veterans of WWII slugging it out in the 1968 movie Hell in the Pacific.The latest retread salvo comes…

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Theater Views: Farewell, Laurence of Shaviana

March 8, 2008
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By Bill Marx For any self-respecting Shavian, the major attraction of Canada’s Shaw Festival is the chance to see first-rate productions of plays by GBS and his contemporaries, especially the opportunity to take in ace stagings of scripts that fall outside of the greatest hits list. But during the `80s a close second was the…

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Boston Foundation To Small Theaters — Drop Dead Please!

January 20, 2008
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by Bill Marx A recent report from the Boston Foundation helpfully advises that if a small arts group’s vision “either dissipated or lost its resonance with its audience or supporters” the troupe should either die quietly or merge with other struggling companies, apparently so they can vanish in bulk more efficiently. But what about larger…

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Critical Condition: The Book Review Blues

January 10, 2008
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ArtsFuse editor Bill Marx speaks with Gail Pool, the author of Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America, about the slow decline of literary criticism in the United States.

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