drama
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Encountering Rose Franken
Continuing to wander through obscure corners of American playwriting, I have stumbled across a forgotten phenomenon. A writer named Rose Franken created a character who appeared first in a series of stories for Redbook, then in a series of eight novels, then as the leading figure in a Broadway play, then as the lead in… Continue reading
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Both Your Houses
I was determined to witness the moment when Joe Biden overtook the Orange Thug in Pennsylvania. I plopped down on the sofa in the living room under the illusion that this might happen at 2AM (which is about the time I usually go to sleep). I didn’t want to watch TV nonstop, so I thought… Continue reading
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Election Day Distraction
Don’t know if it’s true for anybody else, but I’m just trying to get this day out of the way. Latest avoidance tactic, an hour or so at the City Diner with my dog at my feet, reading some chapters in Jan Herman’s biography of William Wyler, A Talent for Trouble, about Wyler shooting Mrs.… Continue reading
Abraham, Bill Bryden, City Diner, City Hall, democracy, Directors Guild of America, Ex Libris, Film Forum, Frederick Wiseman, Green Mansions, In Jackson Heights, Ira Krutch, Isaac, Jan Herman, Mrs. Miniver, National Theatre of Great Britain, New York Public Library, Ol’ Man Adam an’ His Chillun, PBS, Rex Ingram, Roark Bradford, television, The Bible, the Blitz, The Golden Age of Television, The Mysteries, Tony Harrison, William Wyler -
Two Contrasting Plays
I continue my casual tromp through plays of the past, alternating reading from an anthology of early Pulitzer Prize-winners and an anthology of postwar African-American plays. The two most recent plays I’ve encountered, by coincidence, are about flawed Black authority figures. The Amen Corner (published in 1954, premiered in 1965) by James Baldwin is about… Continue reading
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TROUBLE IN MIND — Alice Childress
I continue to read plays from the past I’ve never gotten to see. Mostly, as I’ve said before, I’m alternating between an anthology of plays that won the Pulitzer Prize early on and an anthology of post-war plays by Black writers. Finally caught up with Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress. It’s been going through… Continue reading
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Another obscure Pulitzer Prize-winning play
Continuing my lackadaisical progress through Pulitzer Prize-winners of the past, hit Hell-bent Fer Heaven by Hatcher Hughes. As the “fer” in the title suggests, this is a play written in dialect about hill people in the South (reportedly based on a branch of Hughes’s family). And yes, it is troublesome to plow through the dialect.… Continue reading
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Terrence McNally Documentary on AMERICAN MASTERS
Having been involved in NY theatre since 1967, watching Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life stirred up decades of memories. Some of them involve Terrence. I can’t claim to be a close friend, but he and his work have been a constant presence for decades. He probably doesn’t remember it, but I played organ for… Continue reading
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Bad Behavior
Richard in Richard III is intended to be a villain. Shakespeare paints him as evil on legs. And yet, we get impatient when he’s off the stage. Clarence has a long speech filled with poetry. Yes, yes, beautiful, but could you wrap it up and bring the monstrous brother on again? Richard’s treatment of the… Continue reading
A Streetcar Named Desire, Aaron Sorkin, Abby Rosebrock, Alan Cumming, Atticus Finch, Blue Ridge, Carnal Knowledge, Christopher Walker, Daddy, Downstairs, Halley Feiffer, Hamish Linklater, Happy Birthday Wana June, Harper Lee, Heidi Schreck, Hillary and Clinton, Iago, Ink, Jack Nicholson, Jenny Allen, Jeremy O. Harris, Jessica Tandy, Jez Butterworth, John Osborne, Jules Feiffer, Kurt Vonnegut, Look Back in Anger, Marin Ireland, Marlon Brando, Mike Nichols, Network, Othello, Paddy Chayefsky, Restoration, Richard III, Rita Moreno, Rupert Murdoch, Shakespeare, Socratese, The Double-Dealer, The New Yorker, The Pain of My Own Belligerence, Theresa Rebeck, Tim Blake Nelson, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tyne Daly, What the Constitution Means to Me, Wheelhouse Theater -
Thoughts on Rosie’s Theater Kids
I accepted an invitation to attend a performance on Sunday of Rosie’s Theater Kids. Rosie is Rosie O’Donnell, who started the organization to introduce theater to kids in the New York area who might otherwise not be exposed to it (many of them children of color). I haven’t researched this in detail, but what started… Continue reading
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After by Michael McKeever
At first, After, a play by Michael McKeever, is reminiscent of God of Carnage, the Yasmina Reza play about two sets of parents meeting to sort out a conflict involving their sons. Carnage, however, plays out in one act in real time, and the mostly comic play deals with how the parents are reduced to… Continue reading
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 