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“Pericles”
Often when an improv scene is going nowhere, the director will shove an actor onto the stage to bring a new energy, a new texture, a new something to play. And sometimes it works. Particularly if the new actor comes on with a powerful objective or obsession and the people onstage can turn from the unrewarding… 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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Review: “Jonah”
I recommend Rachel Bonds’s new play Jonah (currently playing at the Roundabout’s off-Broadway venue) despite the fact that it doesn’t quite work for me. But I often get something valuable out of plays that I don’t think work. Despite the title, Jonah is not primarily about the character of Jonah. He is one of three… 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
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References
I’ve seen something north of 5000 plays in my life. I saw Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, The Penny Wars and La Strada on Broadway, and When You Coming Back Red Ryder? in its original off-off-Broadway run over a shoe store. I saw David Hare and Howard Brenton’s Pravda at the National in London,… Continue reading
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THE PIANIST and Two Saints
There are times when it’s not appropriate for me to review works that I’ve seen. I am primarily a playwright. A lot of my friends are playwrights. I also teach playwriting, and a number of my former and current students get produced. Sometimes I feel I can maintain objectivity, sometimes not. I avoid conflicts of… Continue reading
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Musicals in London
I saw eight shows in London. I chose mostly productions I thought would be unlikely to move to New York, including three musicals. The immersive staging by Nicholas Hytner of the Broadway classic Guys and Dolls at the Bridge turned out to be as joyous as promised. I sat in a gallery and it was… Continue reading
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Review: “PATRIOTS” by Peter Morgan
Writing from London … I wonder if Peter Morgan is familiar with a similarly titled play by Sidney Kingsley called The Patriots. In 1943, to remind America what we were fighting for during WWII, Kingsley wrote about the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Though he was obviously on Jefferson’s side philosophically, Kingsley used… Continue reading
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Small-Town Drama
During lockdown, not being able to see plays, I read them. I made a particular project of plowing through the first ten years of Pulitzer Prize winners. What struck me about those ten is that there were two dominant themes – the economic and social subjugation of women, and the repressive nature of small towns.… Continue reading
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Homeless, Lizzie Borden and Three Plays With Brooklyn Connections
A few days ago, as I was leaving the Upper West Side building where my wife and I live, I ran into one of our neighbors, a former state Supreme Court judge. She knows I’m a playwright and a theater journalist and she wanted my take on a play. A minute or two later we… Continue reading
A Doll's House, A Raisin in the Sun, Alexander Zelden, Anne Kauffman, August Wilson, Becomes a Woman, Betty Smith, Brooklyn, Crumbs From the Table of Joy, David Mamet, Eric Tucker, Fall River Fishing, Frederick Wiseman, Herman D. Farrell III, Jamie Lloyd, L:loyd Richards, Lorraine Hansberry, Love, Lynn Nottage, Mint Theater, National Theater of Great Britain, Oscar Isaac, Rachel Brosnahan, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 