The Walking Wounded

Miss Saigon — that monster musical hit from the creators of Les Miserables and producer Cameron Mackintosh, now playing at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts — reminded me of the Vietnam War, which serves as its backdrop. Like the war, the show contained some striking and poignant scenes,…

The Cliche Corner

If playwright Geoffrey Hassman were a high school freshman, and if his play Jacob’s Blanket A currently running at the Drama Center in Deerfield Beach A were his first attempt at writing, I might cut him some slack. Some of the characters are endearing, the pace is not slow, and…

Willy’s Wild West

Before the antics of Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, before Jerry Lewis won over the fickle hearts of the French, lo, even before Milton Berle was belted with numerous pies in the face and Buster Keaton tripped over his own feet, a very famous writer wooed the crowds…

Dearly Departed

While pure lighthearted entertainment is fine from time to time, I freely admit to preferring art, whether on stage, screen, page, or canvas. If someone were to pin me down and demand a definition of art — a term so often abused — I would state that it is simply…

O Solo Mio

Even though it’s my usual task to comment on the work of playwrights, directors, and performing artists, I must open this review with a barb directed toward a fellow critic. William A. Henry III recently wrote an impossibly ignorant paragraph in the February 14 issue of Time magazine. In discussing…

Moe’s the Pity

A great evening at the theater is composed of a whole host of elements, some obvious, some more subliminal. The basic minimum is an excellent script and superb cast. Then lighting, sound, costumes, and other technical effects — or the stark absence of them — contribute more. But what about…

Blahs in the Night

Remember the old scenario about describing a blind date? “Is she (he) cute?” you ask. “Well,” comes the halting answer from your friend. “She (he) has a great personality.” Of course this means a night with a refugee from the animal shelter. But let’s suppose we update that anecdote for…

Revue-ing the Situation

Finally, the theatrical famine that plagued South Florida this year at Yuletide 0.is ending, and new shows are actually opening again. Barry Steinman, president of the Theatre League of South Florida, told me he isn’t sure why so many houses went dark over these holiday months (unlike last year and…

Wanted: Real Stars

My mind is capable of doing a couple of things at once. Therefore, while watching Shirley MacLaine Live! at the Jackie Gleason Theater, my thoughts drifted to the current sorry state of the modern musical and the dramatic arts in general — but that is not a negative comment on…

Waiting in the Wings

Normally, the second half of South Florida’s theatrical season comes up rosier than the first; this is the time of the tourists, when artistic companies present their most interesting offerings and try to appeal to a broader audience in terms of age and interests. Unfortunately, this year — partly owing…

Unsteady As She Goes

To sum up South Florida’s theatrical menu in 1993, I must use one of the most famous — if rather cliched — passages in English literature, Charles Dickens’s opening of A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the…

Bar Me, Kitten

Without a doubt, A Criminal Sorority provided me with one of the most entertaining evenings I’ve spent watching theater since I moved down here. Presented in a less than perfect location — Rose’s Bar & Lounge — where glasses clink, people shoot pool and bar patrons shout on the telephone,…

Vows of Mediocrity

Playwrights often complain bitterly about the subjectivity of critics. A.R. Gurney, author of such classics as The Dining Room, has given several lectures around the country in which he rants about the fact that everyone, including professional viewers, comes to the theater with certain preconceptions that make it impossible for…

Xmaz Exorcism

‘Tis the season to be jolly, go shopping, trim the tree, and light the candles. And to be falsely pious. Right this moment it’s ultrachic to embrace that Christmas and Chanukah spirit, even if it doesn’t extend as far as helping a homeless man on the street, or committing a…

Geeks and Greeks

While I am genuinely thrilled by the growth in the number of small theater companies and theatrical experiments cropping up in the local scene over the past two years, I am also aware of certain demons that nascent groups may encounter no matter how hard they try to avoid them…

Dave’s World

It may sound surprising to some, but I have long suspected that David Mamet may one day be regarded as highly as Shakespeare is today: as a playwright of such skill, breadth, and intellect that every element of his work — from dialogue to plot to premise to characterization –…

Don’t Be Absurd

There’s a certain time in every would-be playwright’s life when he or she feels compelled to imitate the so-called “absurdist” authors such as Pinter, Beckett, or Ionesco. In many cases, because the tyros don’t understand that these grand masters do not randomly choose their symbolic dialogue and situations, the novices…

The Play’s Still the Thing

When I first learned of David Cronenberg’s plans to film the play M. Butterfly, I declared that the project was doomed to disaster. Now that the movie is out, people mention my prediction and commend its accuracy. How did I know? Mainly because certain plays do not translate into the…

Shear Delight

Time is alarmingly relative. Anyone who is rapidly aging knows the truth of time’s subjective effects. When you’re ten or eleven, it seems as though your next birthday will never arrive. However, when you pass 40, years fly by with such alarming speed you suffer from emotional whiplash. What, 1994…

Pinball Lizard

As John Lennon and Paul McCartney once wrote: “I should’ve known better.” Rock and roll has always worked best as anthems of youthful power and rebellion, so something had to be rotten in the state of Broadway when the majority of the critics and theater audiences so readily accepted and…

The Phantom Strikes Again!

On January 26, 1988 at the Majestic Theatre in New York, I was privileged to attend the opening of one of the greatest theatrical spectacles ever to grace a stage, a show that featured thrilling and innovative music wedded to a delicately woven romantic plot. Putting aside my own elitist…

Consider Yourself…Washed Up

I recently phoned a publicist friend of mine who moved here from Los Angeles about the same time I moved from New York — in 1989 — and told her I was reviewing Lionel Bart’s zippy 1960s musical Oliver! at the Actors’ Playhouse. Her immediate reaction was: “What? I haven’t…