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Immmigrants
It’s been a while since I’ve heard anybody use the term “the melting pot.” If I remember my high school history correctly, the idea was that people arriving in this country would bring with them the cultures they had left (or fled). They and/or their children would inevitably meet, socialize with, marry and produce offspring 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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All the Devils are Here
Patrick Page is blessed with a voice which tests the capacity of the woofer in your speaker system. Since we tend to link low, rumbly voices with power and associate power with its abuse, he has the natural equipment to play villains. And so he has, making a career of playing not only Shakespearean villains, 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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“The Doctor” – written and directed by Robert Icke
I do wish that Robert Icke the director had trusted Robert Icke the writer a bit more. Icke the writer has composed a script about a doctor named Ruth Wolff who strides through her life utterly certain of her ethical imperatives at every turn. Well, whenever you introduce a character so full of certitude, you Continue reading
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“Days of Wine and Roses”
Popular culture has stamped the Fifties in our minds with images of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Mickey Mantle and Annette Funicello. The war was over, the economy was booming, bebop and abstract expressionism were bringing new ideas to music and art, and musicals like Guys and Dolls, Bells Are Ringing and The Music Continue reading
Broadway, film adaptation, Golden Age of Television, movies, musicals, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, television, theater12 Angry Men, 1950s, Adam Guettal, Atlantic Theater, Blake Edwards, Cliff Robertson, Craig Lucas, Criterion, Executive Suite, Fred Coe, Jack Lemmon, John Frankenheimer, JP Miller, Judgment at Nuremberg, Lee Remick, Leonard Bernstein, Mad Men, Marty, Michael Greif, Patterns, Philco Playhouse, Piper Laurie, Playhouse 90, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The, The Apartment, The Trip to Bountiful, United States Steel Hour, Westinghouse Studio One
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Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 