Manhattan Theater Club
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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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Notes on VLADIMIR
Not so long ago, Peter Morgan’s play, Patriots, featured an account of how a Russian oligarch named Boris Berezovsky helped raise Vladimir Putin to power and lived to regret it. Putin, played by Will Keen, was a formidable presence. In Erika Sheffer’s Vladimir (now playing at Manhattan Theater Club’s off-Broadway space at City Center), Putin 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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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
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 