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Review: “Heart” with Jade Anouka
If you saw Phyllida Lloyd’s series of Shakespeare productions set in a women’s prison you likely remember what an arresting impression Jade Anouka made as Mark Antony and Hotspur. She has returned to New York in a solo piece called Heart as part of Audible’s series at the Minetta Lane Theater. The lights come up Continue reading
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“Winter Adé”
On an impulse, I watched Helke Misselwitz’ documentary, Winter Adé on Mubi streaming. The film is mostly a collection of interviews by the director of women in East Germany. The interviewees are of various ages. Two teenagers who don’t want to live the life the country has mapped out for them and so choose to Continue reading
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“The Bedwetter” and “Mr. Saturday Night”
Two new musicals are co-written by people who came to fame via stand-up comedy. Mr. Saturday Night, the Billy Crystal vehicle (which he co-wrote with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, composer Jason Robert Brown and lyricist Amanda Green) is about a comic’s life post-fame. The Bedwetter, which Sarah Silverman co-wrote with Joshua Harmon and the Continue reading
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Telling it Clearly — “Macbeth” vs. “Cyrano”
I’m a story guy. I think the roots of the theater lie in people sharing stories. I’ve written before about a conversation I had in the mid-Seventies with novelist Louis L’Amour that influenced my thinking. He described how Native Americans, upon their return from a hunt or a battle, knew it was part of their Continue reading
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“American Buffalo” on Broadway
In 2001, I served on a grand jury. At one point, an ADA played for us a recording from a wiretap. It was a conversation between two members of a violent drug gang. One was assigning the other to kill the girlfriend of someone who had displeased him somehow. (The ADA assured us that the Continue reading
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Reviewing or Criticism?
I’m going to make a purely personal discrimination. It seems to me that reviews and pieces of criticism are different things. A review exists to give the reader advice on whether or not the work being covered is worth attending. It is a consumer’s guide. If your taste matches a given reviewer’s, then you may Continue reading
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“Plaza Suite”
Neil Simon wrote a lot of plays I admire and have watched with pleasure multiple times. But inevitably there are some that appeal to me more than others. I saw the original production of Plaza Suite. It was directed by Mike Nichols and starred George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton. I saw it from standing Continue reading
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“The Weissensee Saga”
It’s common for the author of historical fiction to want to cram in as many aspects of the period being covered as can be managed. Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War and War and Remembrance moves various branches of “Pug” Henry’s around the globe so as to be witness to as many aspects of WWII Continue reading
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Lee Grant
One of the treats about living where I have (and do) on the upper west side is that, walking my dog, I kept (and keep) running into Lee walking her dog. We always stop and swap stories. One time, I saw her on the street, we chatted, and then I sat down at our local Continue reading
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SPACE DOGS and ENGLISH
It’s no surprise that American playwrights usually write plays set in America. It is a little surprising that three current off-Broadway plays by American playwrights are, in fact, set outside our borders. I wrote recently about Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, set in Paris. Joining this are two very different off-Broadway offerings, Space Continue reading
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Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 