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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
‘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…
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…
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 –…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Without a doubt, fate led me to see in the same week the New Theatre’s rendition of Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit and playwright William Inge’s Natural Affection, produced by the Miami Actor’s Studio. Though Sartre penned his work in 1944 and Inge in 1963, they share an almost uncanny…
When people in the South Florida theater community protest that the area is mainly interested in developing new plays instead of producing tired old revivals, I listen politely but with cynicism. During the two years I’ve done this job, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard this…
When the long-awaited revival of Hair, the quintessential Sixties musical, opened in London two weeks ago, the critics unanimously agreed on one thing: not all plays wear well. Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph summed up the expensive mistake succinctly: “It would have been far kinder to have let Hair…
All plays are not created equal. Apart from the obviously weak entries, there exist some works of “light” dramatic art suitable for a wide range of acting companies, from the competent troupe to the spectacular. Neil Simon froth, English drawing room comedies, and large-cast mysteries fit under this umbrella. Appropriately,…
