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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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Thoughts on MAESTRO
One of the many posters on Facebook said he didn’t see where the drama was in Bradley Cooper’s film about Leonard Bernstein, Maestro. Here was an enormously successful and talented guy who had one artistic triumph after another who managed to hold onto his family and still shtup whoever he wanted. Where were the obstacles… Continue reading
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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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Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 