Bill Marx
Not every critic is inspired by British playwright Tom Stoppard’s epic, Tony award-winning trilogy about the trials and tribulations of the 19th century Russian radical Alexander Herzen. Download the podcast By Bill Marx I had high expectations for Tom Stoppard’s labor of love, but walked away from his bloated homage to the great Russian journalist…
Read MoreBill Marx talks with the Fogg Art Museum’s Susan Dackerman about DISSENT!, an exhibit that surveys printmaking and the history of political protest. [audio:https://artsfuse.org/podcasts/protest.mp3] DISSENT!,” an illuminating exhibition (closed) at the Harvard University Art Museums through February 25, provided some valuable insight into what it was like when protest art had some cultural clout. And…
Read MoreIn the first installment of “Condition Critical,” Bill Marx speaks with the author best known for his wryly written non-fiction books. By Bill Marx Welcome to the first installment of “Condition Critical.” This podcast (no longer available) kicks off the first in an ambitious effort to create intelligent and passionate cultural coverage online. To do…
Read MoreA real life collision of legends of stage and screen that took place almost 50 years ago is a seductive, but dangerous, idea for a play.
Read MoreGiven the growing inclination, in the name of security, to regulate public expression, is it any wonder that protest art is scarce?
Read MoreSince it is the innovators who make up the real history of the novel, Milan Kundera muses on the increasing tenuousness of this tradition of eccentric innovation. He also charts how the new arises from a collision between forgetting and remembering images of the past. The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts. By Milan Kundera.…
Read MoreIncreasingly, artistic directors are expected to be super-successful fundraisers, an unstable hybrid of peddler and visionary that throttles artistic independence. By Bill Marx The failure to renew the contract of Robert Woodruff as artistic director of one of America’s major regional theaters, the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University, is symptomatic of a new…
Read MoreThis final ArtsCast features the conclusion of our series examining Boston at the cultural crossroads. Bill Marx speaks with Maureen Dezell who has written for the arts in various publications including the Boston Globe and the Phoenix and you have heard on the podcast interview various cultural movers and shakers about Boston lagging in cultural…
Read MoreIn an op-ed column, Bill Marx pointed out that for major American cities — beset by shrinking revenues, global competition, and the migration of corporate headquarters — tourism is essential. Some cities, such as Philadelphia, understand this but others, such as Boston, are slow learners. You will recall that last week featured a conversation with…
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The Floundering State of Film Criticism
Ana Rivas sent in this piece on a recent confab at Boston University featuring two film critics – Renata Adler, who for a short time in the ’60s was a film critic for The New York Times and A.O. Scott, who is the current chief film critic for the paper. The conversation contained some interesting…
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