In the spirit of growth, the New World School of the Arts (recently named the best arts high school in the country by Redbook magazine) presents a conference and play festival featuring the work of critic/translator/author/playwright Eric Bentley, who introduced American audiences to Brecht and Pirandello, and who today remains…
During one wrenching scene near the end of Lee Blessing’s Independence, the oldest sister, Kess, tries to convince her unstable mother and two bitter siblings to join in a civil afternoon tea and say positive things about one another. According to the town psychiatrist, she insists, it’s more important to…
My husband, a research scientist and well-educated man, has a mental block when it comes to the arts. Using the logic and empirical knowledge that serves him so well in the laboratory, he wonders aloud at the end of a cinematic or theatrical disaster – as an impressive list of…
Eugene O’Neill believed that artists who try to save the world lose themselves. I don’t think he meant to discourage the role of theater as a social or religious force, but instead recognized the contrivances possible when one tries to write something “important.” Like expert lovemaking, great plays insinuate themselves…
It’s tourist season, which means you can expect local theaters to pull a few bunnies out of their hats. Most venues try to open top shows, or at least new shows, to snag the attention of snowbirds temporarily bored by beach and bar. Catering to audiences wired on a vacation…
As bizarre as any form of sycophantic behavior is – whether it’s tearing out chairs in a frenzy over Sinatra, or throwing underwear on stage at the feet of Axl Rose – one of the most perplexing and bloodless incarnations has to be the literary groupie. While living in New…
What’s a theatrical producer to do? Grants are being slashed without warning, ticket sales plummet in proportion to the economy, while the salaries of some artists strain modest budgets to the point of cancellations. Minimizing set changes and elaborate costumes may help, but usually not enough, so the producer resorts…
It’s a challenge to define the term illuminati in all its incarnations. Several science fiction novels, as well as historical documents, describe a secret society of white and black magicians – including the legendary British sorcerer Aleister Crowley – who planned on ruling the world through esoteric rituals and spiritual…
The question most frequently asked of a theater critic is whether a particular production was good or bad. This often is not answered simply, but requires a lengthy discussion. Actors may be deficient, while the direction is innovative; an excellent play may suffer because of a markedly inadequate presentation. Among…
Neil Simon is the most prolific and successful of contemporary playwrights. And the most maligned. Legendary director and theatrical scholar Harold Clurman wrote an article back in the Sixties called “In Defense of Neil Simon.” Whereupon Simon’s business manager asked Clurman “why a man who earns $40,000 a week needs…
On a fateful night in February, 1964, en route to pick up custom-made plaid tuxedos for their first big gig, an eager but amateur singing quartet is slammed broadside by a busload of parochial-school virgins bound for the Beatles’ debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. All four members of the…
Rita, a working-class hairdresser from the north of England, bumbles and bounces into the life of Frank, an overeducated college tutor and failed poet. Sporting a red fright-wig and rag-doll clothes, she comes on teetering heels to the open university, which she aptly dubs “degrees for dishwashers.” Here she hopes…
At the age of eight, after the bite from a cottonmouth snake failed to scare him, Truman Capote visited a legendary witch in his hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Armed with Grandma’s ornamental necklace – stolen to bribe his fondest wish out of the crone – he demanded to become a…
“Work in progress” — it’s a theatrical tradition, a sacred one that conjures up visions of feverish writers and composers relentlessly chiseling masterworks into perfection, guided by enthusiastic audiences and patient critics. Unlike the novel, rarely revised after its formal public introduction, musicals and plays may be recrafted several times,…
Rita and Peter, New York singles tentatively looking for love, find each other at a friend’s garden party, pursue a relationship, and marry after only six weeks. But at the wedding, an old lush kisses Rita and transacts a soul switch, leaving Peter with a stranger in his bed and…
Consider the plight of the Garcia family, which faces the biggest decision of nearly any Cuban-American’s life: To return to the island or not if Castro falls. Part Cuban, part Miamian – to varying degrees, depending on the generation – the Garcias mark el exilio time, waiting for a free…
Luis Santeiro, born in Cuba and raised in Miami, uses his roots and a finely-tuned sense of humor to draw unforgettable portraits of Cuban-American Miamians living in exile. He’s won seven Emmy Awards creating laughs for the bilingual sitcom Que Pasa, U.S.A?, and for Sesame Street, and his Mixed Blessings,…
According to a popular Broadway anecdote, Noel Coward didn’t like Anton Chekhov as a playwright, and really didn’t appreciate Chekhov’s The Sea Gull. When Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne opened in a 1938 production of the play, Lunt, upon seeing the set, quoted his witty friend. “I hate plays,” Coward…
In 1959 Robert Penn Warren’s play, All The King’s Men (based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) opened off-Broadway, and asked a relevant question: Is it possible for a corrupt politician to be a man of the people? Do true statesmen exist any more? Have they ever? The premise is a…
Bessie Smith earned the right to sing the blues. Her first husband died soon after the wedding; the second one cheated on her regularly, and kidnapped their adopted son and placed him in a foster home. Bessie herself died in an auto accident, but not before making more than 50…
