criticism

Arts Commentary: The Declining State of the Art of Arts Journalism

February 13, 2024
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Theater critics, film reviewers, A&E editors, and arts columnists have been stripped from our dailies and weeklies. Why should you care? Oscar Wilde warned that an age without criticism is “an age that possesses no art at all.”

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Theater Commentary: Facing Some Hard Truths

February 13, 2024
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The time is overdue for a serious discussion of what is happening (or not happening) in Boston-area theaters. Just don’t expect to see anything in our sheepish mainstream media.

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Theater Commentary: Theater in a Time of Emergency? — The Same Old Same Old

September 28, 2021
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Are Boston’s stage critics disengaged from reality? Or is it that they are afraid to speak up?

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Arts Remembrance: “Why Not Say What Happened” — Morris Dickstein’s Memoir About Living a Life of the Mind

March 29, 2021
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RIP Morris Dickstein, among the last of the generation of the New York School of Jewish intellectuals, scholar/critics of massive knowledge and intellect who came from humble backgrounds.

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Critical Commentary: The Shaky Life of a Film Critic

August 6, 2020
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Cinema reviewing exists as a respected profession only as long as the traditional role of the critic is honored.

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Arts Commentary: Reviewing Music, Re-viewed

July 14, 2020
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Our opera-loving reviewer contrasts his own pieces, written 48 years apart, on the same Offenbach operetta.

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Arts Commentary: WBUR’s Clogged “ARTery”

December 30, 2019
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Every organization in the Barr Foundation’s charmed circle — large arts groups and The ARTery — have a financial stake in reinforcing the belief that the Barr’s money is being put to supremely successful use.

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Critical Commentary: A Few Thoughts about John Simon

November 28, 2019
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Few critics proclaimed that the emperor was naked as a jaybird with as much savvy panache.

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Cultural Commentary: Arts Criticism — An Embarrassment of Whiteness

July 24, 2019
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Can anyone — with a straight face — argue that our largely white critical contingent in Boston is interested in generating hard hitting debate, controversy, and unconventional ideas?

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Theater Commentary: An Open Letter — to the “Open Letter”

June 9, 2019
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The media big boys should be part of the discussion, if only because they have the resources to change the situation for the better.

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