Theater

Theater Commentary: George Jean Nathan — The Divine Devil of American Theater Criticism

May 29, 2008
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“The best of the regular theater critics … the brightest America ever had.” – Eric Bentley “Intelligent play-goer number one.” – George Bernard Shaw “The truth is that Mr. Nathan is both a theatrical storehouse, full of the most voluminous and astonishing information, and a whole theatre in himself. He maintains an impetus and lustre…

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Theater Commentary: Our Arthritic Stage Awards

May 17, 2008
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Those who think that accolades should go to the fresh or the marginal — work in Boston that could use the recognition rather than the usual suspects — will have a long wait.

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Theater Review: Barker’s Hard Heart – Riddler Me This

April 22, 2008
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By Bill Marx I narrate disintegration among rulers And the kindness of the enemy I report the speed at which fear grips the innovative And the intolerable loneliness of the habitually free — From Howard Barker’s poem “Gary Upright” A Hard Heart by Howard Barker. Directed by Richard Romagnoli. Presented by Whistler in the Dark…

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Fuse Flash: Revving up Cultural Tourism

April 13, 2008
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By Bill Marx “Boston is adrift in the brave new competition among big American cities vying for tourist dollars.” Maureen Dezell, WBUR Maureen made that charge back in July 2006 in an article that turned out to be one of the last posts on the late WBUR Arts Online. Now that the quote, along with…

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Theater Views: Breaking News on Breaking Ground

April 3, 2008
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By Bill Marx The Huntington Theatre Company’s Breaking Ground Festival of new play readings turns five this year. The latest lineup runs through Sunday at the shindig’s venue, the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. Scripts by Melinda Lopez, Ken Urban, Mat Smart and Nathan Louis Jackson, as well as a…

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Theater Commentary: The Ruhling Class

March 30, 2008
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by Bill Marx “Catharsis isn’t a wound being excavated from childhood.” – Sarah Ruhl NPR as well as New York theater critics think playwright Sarah Ruhl, the “Golden Ruhl” with “The Midas Touch,” is sure money in the artistic bank. A winner of a MacArthur “genius” grant and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005 for…

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Stage Remembrance: Saluting Paul Scofield — A Titanic Figure in the History of the Theater

March 25, 2008
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By Caldwell Titcomb If you ask the British public who the foremost actors of the 20th century were, you will likely get the names of Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Laurence Olivier (later Lord Olivier), and Sir Alec Guinness. You are not likely to hear the name of Paul Scofield, who died last…

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Theater Views: Barker’s Back and Other Good News

March 24, 2008
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By Bill Marx “I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.” — Howard Barker Given the New York Times’s unenthusiastic review of an off-Broadway staging of Howard Barker’s A Hard Heart back in December – “Kathleen Chalfant can perform such miracles onstage that she has…

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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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