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“The Seat of Our Pants”
Stephen Sondheim famously quipped that he had spent much of his career trying to fix the second act of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro. Allegro didn’t work when it premiered in 1947 and it still didn’t quite work when CSC presented a 90-minute revisal in 2014 directed by John Doyle. But something in Allegro’s conception intrigued Continue reading
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“Crooked Cross” and “And Then We Were No More”
I was raised in a suburb of Chicago, and, though I’ve lived in New York since 1967, when the word “home” is mentioned, it is that place that comes to mind. I spent the summer of 1968 in that suburb (Evanston). I did not go downtown when the cops of Chicago went nuts and beat Continue reading
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“Punch” and “Caroline”
I’ve gotten tired of thuds. They are particularly obnoxious in the coming attractions for films in which every other cut is accompanied by a huge WHOMP! In combination with the images of explosions and fireballs, the effect can be numbing. The relentless noise suggests that the filmmakers don’t believe the subject matter might be sufficient Continue reading
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“Saturday Church” and “Mexodus”
You go into the usual jukebox musical probably somewhat familiar with the song catalogue that will be the source of the score. I was never an ABBA fan, but I could appreciate how Mamma Mia re-purposed their songs to serve its unpersuasive plot. Not being familiar with the catalogue of songwriter Sia, I didn’t experience Continue reading
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George White and Finding the Way at the O’Neill
Lucy Rosenthal’s playwriting professor at Yale was critic and anthologist John Gassner. Her memories of him are not warm. “He advised me to transfer to the education school so I could be home at three o’clock to give the children milk and cookies. And then he said – if you want to know what the Continue reading
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Actors Better Than the Plays That Make Them Look Good
Sometimes, at the end of a show, I feel pulled in two directions — admiration and dismay. Four recent shows made me feel this way. As the lights came up I found myself clapping fervently for the performances but feeling that the scripts that made those performances possible fell short as writing. I was particularly Continue reading
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Leni and Nat
Gil Koffman was attracted to writing a solo piece (with instrumental accompaniment) about Leni Riefenstahl, the German movie star turned director whose film, Triumph of the Will, depicted Hitler as a god descending from the heavens to preside over the Nuremberg rallies. After the war, Riefenstahl tried to distance herself from Hitler and gain acceptance Continue reading
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Completing the Inge Cycle: Bus Stop
The core of William Inge’s reputation rests on four plays he wrote in the 1950s – Come Back Little Sheba, Picnic, Dark at the Top of the Stairs and Bus Stop. (Add to this the Oscar-winning screenplay he wrote for Elia Kazan’s 1961 film, Splendor in the Grass, and you have a pretty significant body 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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“Cherry Orchard,” “Streetcar,” and More
As it happened, some of the productions I saw in the weeks after my return from London have been productions I had heard about a lot while I was in London. I’ve already commented on Vanya, so I’ll focus on the others. Benedict Andrews’s staging of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (at St. Anne’s) and Rebecca Continue reading
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 