off-Broadway
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“The Honey Trap”
I first saw English, The Buena Vista Social Club, Eureka Day, Prayer for the French Republic, Dead Outlaw and Liberation at small non-profit venues before they were picked up for critically-praised productions on Broadway. If I were going to place a bet on current off-Broadway offerings that might make the move, I would put my Continue reading
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AVA and Elizabeth McGovern
A couple of months back, Jodie Markell played actor-director Leni Riefenstahl in a piece called Leni’s Last Lament. I enjoyed Markell even as I had reservations about Gil Koffman’s script. Now we have Elizabeth McGovern playing actor Ava Gardner in Ava. Again, I enjoyed the performer while I had reservations about the script. The script Continue reading
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Talking to the Dead
One of my favorite sketches from the San Francisco improv-satire troupe, The Committee, is a scene between a man and a woman that is made up not of dialogue but of brief summaries of what the characters say. So, instead of saying something like, “You fill out that sweater well,” the guy says, “Suggestive remark.” Continue reading
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Notes on VLADIMIR
Not so long ago, Peter Morgan’s play, Patriots, featured an account of how a Russian oligarch named Boris Berezovsky helped raise Vladimir Putin to power and lived to regret it. Putin, played by Will Keen, was a formidable presence. In Erika Sheffer’s Vladimir (now playing at Manhattan Theater Club’s off-Broadway space at City Center), Putin Continue reading
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“Our Class” and “Fatherland”
Compare and contrast. Does anybody use that phrase any more in high school English? I remember the groan that would arise when one of our teachers assigned a paper and began with that phrase. Compare and contrast The Great Gatsby with To Kill a Mockingbird, or whatever two titles could be randomly paired together. And Continue reading
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James Earl Jones
I wouldn’t presume to call James Earl Jones a friend, but I had four encounters with him that immediately leap to mind. Some years ago, I was involved with a group attempting to revive the theater in Stratford, Connecticut. If the outfit had been successful, I was told I would become literary manager, a gig Continue reading
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Thoughts on Two Solo Shows
Some years ago, a famous singer contacted me to explore the idea of my writing a solo show for her. We had a few pleasant meetings to talk about structure and tone and which out of her catalogue of songs to include in the evening. Part of her history, though, included the death of a Continue reading
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Review: “Brooklyn Laundry”
I sometimes wish I knew less about how plays are built. I’ve been going to the theater regularly since my early teens and putting up plays professionally for more than 50 years, so the techniques and conventions of naturalistic dramatic writing are imprinted as pathways as broad as six-lane highways in my brain. On the Continue reading
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Thoughts on “Aristocrats” and “Appropriate”
Brian Friel’s Aristocrats is set in Ireland and Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate is set in the American South, but they have similar things in mind. Aristocrats takes place in and near a crumbling Irish manor house. Appropriate takes place in a crumbling Southern mansion. The two are crumbling because of a lack of money and will Continue reading
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Review: “Job”
I’ve said it before, but what the hell: I think there is a difference between being a reviewer and being a critic. A reviewer is someone you check with to decide whether you want to see something. A critic is someone who discusses the work in some kind of depth, on the assumption that you’re Continue reading
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 