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Revivals – Anna Christie, Richard II, Tartuffe
Thomas Kail’s revival of Anna Christie is staged a stone’s throw from where some of the action of the play takes place – a waterfront dive where sailors and prostitutes keep company. Or where they kept company in 1910, when the play is set. The East River flows a handful of yards west of St. Continue reading
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“The Seat of Our Pants”
Stephen Sondheim famously quipped that he had spent much of his career trying to fix the second act of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro. Allegro didn’t work when it premiered in 1947 and it still didn’t quite work when CSC presented a 90-minute revisal in 2014 directed by John Doyle. But something in Allegro’s conception intrigued Continue reading
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“Kyoto”
One of the things I value about Lincoln Center Theater is it has a history of putting up large-scale plays that no other management in town would attempt. Now, sometimes they’re from the UK. But then American writers have been discouraged by our managements from writing large-scale non-musical plays. (Among my least-produced plays is American Continue reading
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“The Honey Trap”
I first saw English, The Buena Vista Social Club, Eureka Day, Prayer for the French Republic, Dead Outlaw and Liberation at small non-profit venues before they were picked up for critically-praised productions on Broadway. If I were going to place a bet on current off-Broadway offerings that might make the move, I would put my Continue reading
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“Crooked Cross” and “And Then We Were No More”
I was raised in a suburb of Chicago, and, though I’ve lived in New York since 1967, when the word “home” is mentioned, it is that place that comes to mind. I spent the summer of 1968 in that suburb (Evanston). I did not go downtown when the cops of Chicago went nuts and beat Continue reading
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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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“Saturday Church” and “Mexodus”
You go into the usual jukebox musical probably somewhat familiar with the song catalogue that will be the source of the score. I was never an ABBA fan, but I could appreciate how Mamma Mia re-purposed their songs to serve its unpersuasive plot. Not being familiar with the catalogue of songwriter Sia, I didn’t experience Continue reading
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AVA and Elizabeth McGovern
A couple of months back, Jodie Markell played actor-director Leni Riefenstahl in a piece called Leni’s Last Lament. I enjoyed Markell even as I had reservations about Gil Koffman’s script. Now we have Elizabeth McGovern playing actor Ava Gardner in Ava. Again, I enjoyed the performer while I had reservations about the script. The script Continue reading
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George White and Finding the Way at the O’Neill
Lucy Rosenthal’s playwriting professor at Yale was critic and anthologist John Gassner. Her memories of him are not warm. “He advised me to transfer to the education school so I could be home at three o’clock to give the children milk and cookies. And then he said – if you want to know what the Continue reading
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Actors Better Than the Plays That Make Them Look Good
Sometimes, at the end of a show, I feel pulled in two directions — admiration and dismay. Four recent shows made me feel this way. As the lights came up I found myself clapping fervently for the performances but feeling that the scripts that made those performances possible fell short as writing. I was particularly Continue reading
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Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 