2005 | 2004 | 2003

Singing the Standards, by Gwynn Dujardin
More thoughtful and less sentimental than its playful and endearing facade suggests, the Tony-winning musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee "atones for the ways spelling has set Americans apart."

Animating Animals, by Martin Puchner
The wonder of Tall Horse, Handspring and Sogolon Puppet Companies' collaborative play about the gift of a giraffe to a 19th-century King of France, is that the puppets animate the humans as much as the humans do the puppets.

Profound Pathologies: A Defense of The Pillowman, by Jonathan Kalb
Martin McDonagh's Broadway success has been called hollow, insincere and meaningless by several distinguished critics, but it's actually rich and resonant--a cheeky contribution to a longstanding debate about the artist's reponsibility to society.

A La Recherche du Temps Perdu: The Proust Screenplay, by Stanley Kauffmann
On the occasion of Harold Pinter's receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature, HotReview.org reprints Kauffmann's moving paean to Pinter's extraordinary, and still un-made, Proust Screenplay.

The Cyclist, by Vijay Tendulkar
An English translation of an allegorical, tactically naive journey-play by India's foremost living dramatist, written in the mid 1990s and intended to be his last drama. Translator Balwant Bhaneja provides an informative Introduction.

The Age of Terror, by Terry Stoller
In separate London theaters, two new documentary plays by Robin Soans--Talking to Terrorists and The Arab-Israeli Cookbook--present a fascinating range of viewpoints about rage, despair and everyday life in the age of terror.

Bloody London, by Caridad Svich
A critical survey of recent theater in London examines a rash of shows filled with menace and blood, but also (despite local grumbling) a healthy environment for innovative new work.

Teaching at Hunter, by Tina Howe
On the occasion of a celebration of her William Inge Festival Award, Tina Howe shares some thoughts about teaching playwriting at Hunter College for the past 15 years.

Eight Poems for a New Theater Century, by NoPassport
Members of a newly reconceived writers collective protest the cancellation of multicultural playwriting programs at South Coast Rep and the Mark Taper Forum.

No More Enemies, by Babak Ebrahimian
Robert Knopf's Theater and Film: A Comparative Anthology--the first book of its kind--is an ambitious compilation of essays, conversations, interviews and statements comparing theater and film by and with dozens of prominent historians, critics and practitioners.

Inviting the Audience: Phelim McDermott in Conversation with Caridad Svich
The co-founder of the U.K.'s Improbable Theatre speaks about Shockheaded Peter, The Hanging Man, 70 Hill Lane, the company's history and technique, their new project (Theater of Blood), and much, much more.

Tribunals at the Tricycle, Nicolas Kent in Conversation with Terry Stoller
The artistic director of London's Tricycle Theatre discusses his long history of political projects--including Guantanamo, The Colour of Justice, and Bloody Sunday--and describes documentary theater as the ideal form for the contemporary world.

Interrogating Drama, by Caridad Svich
Martin McDonagh's "The Pillowman" uses the well-oiled mechanisms of TV cop shows and thrillers to speak of the evils of censorship and totalitarian government, but there is nevertheless "something hollow at the heart of this play."

Choose Your Poison, by Martin Harries
Isabella's Room is a "great mess of a dance-theater piece" that deals bravely and disturbingly with "the wreckage of Belgium's colonial past" by refusing easy historical equivalences and satisfactions of narrative.

New Rags, New Bones, by Gordon Carver
A response to Yeats's famous poem "The Circus Animal's Desertion," Noah Haidle's play, Rags and Bones, at Long Wharf Theater, is "a fantasy of literalness, of being literal-minded to the point of fantasy, where one might imagine actually making a ladder up to heaven."

Sarah Kane Was Not a Suicide, by Martin Harries
French actress Isabelle Huppert stands rigidly in place for an hour and three quarters in Claude Regy's extremely demanding production of 4.48 Psychose, Sarah Kane's last play, but the experience is singular, an extraordinary Artaudian exercise in "resisting idenfications."

Hamlet's Wit, by Stanley Kauffmann
The tragic magnitude of Hamlet is as dependent on the title character's wit as on his gravity, and that wit is also the essence of the enduringly modern note the play strikes.

Anatomy of Abandonment, by Caridad Svich
The title character of Will Eno's Thom Pain (based on nothing) is easily ridiculed and reviled, but "this nobody among nobodies, this loser slacker drifting through the ardent episodes of his bored little life" is surprisingly prophetic, a "misanthropic figure for our times."

Remarks on Parks: A Symposium on Suzan-Lori Parks
Part One -- Critics/Scholars Panel.
Part Two -- Directors Panel
The transcript (in two parts) of a public discussion of Parks at Hunter College on April 30, 2004, moderated by Jonathan Kalb, features remarkable presentations by Robert Brustein, Shawn-Marie Garrett, Marc Robinson, and Alisa Solomon (part one), and by Richard Foreman, Liz Diamond, Leah C. Gardiner and Bill Walters (part two).

Mourning Mourning, by Marvin Carlson
The National Theatre production of O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra in London, directed by Howard Davies, is astonishingly inept despite some powerful moments.

Blood Metal Lullabies, by NoPassport
Motels burn, jukeboxes reign and saliva tastes like watermelon in this collaboratively written text for "virtual performance" by the artistic collective NoPassport.

Psycho Streetcar, by Marvin Carlson
At the Volksbühne in Berlin, director Frank Castorf's daring reworking of A Streetcar Named Desire earns whistles, cheers and the scorn of the Williams estate.

Come Burning, by Caridad Svich
A new text for performance channels the shades of T.S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne, ushering them through four seasons of "elegance" and "rattling wind" before returning to their "beaded tomb."

Cape Town Races, by Robert Brustein
Reporting on a recent trip to South Africa, Brustein describes the brave satire of Marc Lottering, a bizarre Macbeth with Scottish thanes in Mohawks, a strong revival of Paul Slabolepszy's Saturday Night at the Palace, and much more.

Lost and Found and Lost Again, by Debra Hilborn
Bartless Sher's production of Shakespeare's Pericles (Theater for a New Audience) creates a magical world in which" the things we mourn the loss of" are returned to us.

The Madness of King Rufus, by Jonathan Kalb
The latest Ontological-Hysteric Theatre production, King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe, takes aim at the warmongering cowboy-poseur George W. Bush, but its political overtness jangles a bit with Richard Foreman's idiom.

The Academic Abject, by Una Chaudhuri
In Melissa James Gibson's Suitcase, or Those That Resemble Flies From a Distance, academia is (again) the ultimate de-sexing force: two "terminal dissertation-writers" wallow, fret, hang on the phone, and hyperarticulately abuse their boyfriends.

Railroaded, by Terry Stoller
David Hare's new play The Permanent Way, at the National Theatre in London, is a powerful docudrama about the disastrous state of the British rail system.

Shakespeare's Geography, by Robert Brustein
An 11-day sailing trip with Harvard alumni, entitled "Shakespeare in the Mediterranean," becomes the occasion for a meditation on the bard's special understanding of his plays' locations.

Animal Acts for Changing Times, by Una Chaudhuri
A provocative essay considers the use and depiction of animals in recent drama, challenging readers to think anew about "the mystery of the non-human."

Injustice is Served, by Terry Stoller
The documentary drama Guantanamo: "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" serves a vital political function by telling stories of the war on terror's extra-judicial "detainees."

Getting a Hedda, by David Finkle
A critic irritated and annoyed by Ivo van Hove's previous deconstructions of classics at New York Theater Workshop explains why he loves the current Hedda Gabler.

What the Mirror Sees, by Caridad Svich
The American premiere of Sarah Kane's last play, 4:48 Psychosis, reveals a writer of classical ambition, despite her aggressive punk spirit and extreme violence and rage.

Dynastic Reflections, by Jonathan Kalb
Three classics at Berlin's leading theaters--Threepenny Opera at the Gorki, The Wild Duck at the Berliner Ensemble, and Andromache at the Schaubühne--offer rich food for thought about Germany's theater dynasties.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind, by Jeff Turner
A "Gen X" critic challenges Neil LaBute's claim to "authenticity" in his newest portrait of youthful alienation, The Distance from Here. Is the play really social naturalism or yet another violent variation on teenie porn and commodified nihilism?

Dead Girl's Dance, by Caridad Svich
Bryony Lavery's Frozen is a clear-eyed, restrained and intelligent play of steady poetic power, which asks us to consider unthinkable acts of mercy.

Player's Dispassion: The Style of Marlon Brando, by Robert Brustein
The death of Brando signifies the end of an entire era of realistic American acting, but this genius was lazy, "a poor caretaker of his talents," and his "greatest artistic delinquency" was that he never returned to the stage.

Fiction's Hold, by Caridad Svich
Brooke Berman's The Triple Happiness seems to be a conventional American coming-of-age story about a young man on holiday break from Vassar but its real subject is fiction itself: how a writer is born, and how stories get made.

Courtside Drama, by Rebecca Fried Weisberg
Deb Margolin's Three Seconds in the Key opens a window into the inner life of a terminally ill woman who "hemmorhages poetry" and purges her demons with a preacher and basketball player who appear in her living room.

Elevate Me Later, by Martin Harries
There is "something good and gross" in the all-male Midsummer Night's Dream, recently brought to BAM by Edward Hall's British company Propeller.

Terminal Skinflint, by Bill Marx
The ART/Theatre de la Jeune Lune co-production of Moliere's The Miser, directed by Dominique Serrand, has an inspired Harpagon in Steven Epp but is ultimately exhausting.

Büchner: A Revelation, by Stanley Kauffmann
Add to the enduring astonishments of Georg Büchner the notion that Danton's Death was written as a film script 60 years before film was invented. The play "responded to an aesthetics that did not yet exist," says Kauffmann.

Lessons of War, by Martin Puchner
Christopher McElroen's staging of Mother Courage for Classical Theatre of Harlem is finely attuned to Brecht's "insistence on individual, historical objects and gestures," but its implied connections to our current war are somewhat murky.

Unfinished Stories, Charles L. Mee, Jr. in conversation with Caridad Svich
Speaking with a trusted admirer, Mee holds forth about adaptation and originality, love and politics, the overlooked affinities between history and theater, and more.

Crritic! The Structure of Aunt Dan and Lemon, by Martin Harries
In a vigorous response to a vituperative review by John Simon, a different sort of critic examines the political provocations behind the structure of Wallace Shawn's incendiary play.

Animated Operas, by Martin Puchner
Recent New York productions of Manuel de Falla's Master Peter's Puppet Show and Monteverdi's Return of Ulysses spark illuminating reflections on the use of puppets in opera.

Eugene O'Neill: The Native Eloquence of Fog, by Tony Kushner
In a remarkably sympathetic, discerning and comprehensive essay, a renowned playwright assesses the life's work of one of his most renowned predecessors.

Who Am I? or The Hidden Properties of Objects, by Caridad Svich
In My Arm by the British actor Tim Crouch, the audience is asked to empty their pockets and purses to offer up, as it were, the cast for the evening's performance.

Multiple Selves, by Caridad Svich
The splendid American premiere of Caryl Churchill's A Number at New York Theater Workshop, starring Sam Shepard and Dallas Roberts, "diagrams the de-evolution of a new world order" in which cloning has become an instrument of inter-generational conflict.

Spy Trails, by Jonathan Kalb
Part spy thriller, part political love story, part bio-play, Michael Frayn's Democracy falls between several horses and is strangely driven by a fascination with the humdrum nature of coalition politics.

Toying with Ibsen, by Martin Puchner
Lee Breuer's bizarre blend of dumb-joke literalism, high opera, and radical chic in Mabou Mines Dollhouse rescues Ibsen's classic work from preachiness, over-familiarity and mechanistic melodrama.

Car Trouble, by Alexis Greene
Paula Vogel's new play, The Long Christmas Ride Home, is a conventional American family drama that uses Asian theatrical conceits to camouflage its dramatic weaknesses.

Moreness or Lessness, by Jonathan Kalb
The multi-play evening Beckett/Albee is a study in triumph and disaster--half of it sparkles while the other half is spoiled by the very sensibility that fuels the sparkle.

A Good Fast by Caridad Svich
In a provocative essay, a respected playwright proposes a moratorium on theater, an interval of reflection on its purpose and seriousness during a slick, consumerist age.

Theater Games, by Kathleen Dimmick
In his new stage adaptation of Chekhov's beloved story "Lady with a Lapdog" at American Repertory Theatre, Russian director Kama Ginkas plays on basic distinctions between the dramatic and the theatrical.

Having Your Cage, by Martin Harries
Charles Mee and SITI Company's bobrauschenbergamerica is an irritatingly perky celebration of clichéd, ebullient, and tiresome Americana that has little to do with the "brutal power" of Rauschenberg's best combines.

To Whom It May Concern, by Terry Stoller
Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo speaks again in all his acerbity, anger, righteousness, love, and humor in Trumbo, a play his son Christopher constructed from his letters.

Divided to Conquer, by Jonathan Kalb
Hope for the world or a passing fluke? Avenue Q and Big River, Broadway musicals that opened within a week of one another, both display fascinating techniques of split focus with much of their complicating power intact.

Somebody's Watching by Don Shewey
This personal narrative of The Angel Project, director Deborah Warner's "walking meditation" for one spectator at a time through 9 NYC locations (highlight of the 2003 Linclon Center Festival) describes the piece's quiet power.

Odysseys in America, by Martin Harries
Heather Woodbury's 8-hour solo performance, What Ever, aspires to both Shakespeare and jazz--or "Shakespeare as jazz"--and shares important affinities with Angels in America.

FORUM ON I Am My Own Wife

• On Being a Museum by Robert Brustein
  In Doug Wright's new play about the famous East German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, I Am My Own Wife, the playwright "has found a way to use his gay identity as a universal criticism of life," says Brustein.
  
  
• Artifact as Survivor by Alexis Greene
  Wright's play is flawed but fascinating, says Greene--a portrait of a "veiled and not quite human" character whose greatest virtue is Jefferson Mays's "daring, imaginative performance."
  
  
• Capturing the Artifact by Jonathan Kalb
  An editor's note on Wright's play describes an unremarked aspect of its power and appeal: its ambiguous twist on the genre of docudrama.
  

Landscape for a Saint, by Robert Marx
In a uniquely comprehensive and penetrating essay, Marx reviews the entire opera career of director Peter Sellars, citing his much-debated Salzburg production of Olivier Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise as the pivotal event.

How I Watch a Richard Forman Play, by Jonathan Kalb
A reflection on being a veteran Foreman-watcher, originally written for the program book of Panic! at the Wiener Festwochen

Family Americanus, by Alexis Greene
Peter Gaitens's stage adaptation of Michael Cunningham's mammoth 1995 novel Flesh and Blood at New York Theater Workshop is stunningly acted, but the writing doesn't do justice to the book's Aeschylean ambitions.

The Poison Talking, by Una Chaudhuri
Robert Falls's Broadway production of Long Day's Journey Into Night, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Dennehy, offers "endless insights into the American cultural imaginary."

Enter Shylock: A Note on Language, by Stanley Kauffmann
Shakespeare's infamous Jew is reconsidered through the lens of his first four words.

Hard Laughter, by David Finkle
Douglas Carter Beane's Mondo Drama and Foley and McColl's The Play What I Wrote provide grist for a critical meditation on the "rules" of comedy.

Close Encounters: My Blacks Story, by Una Chaudhuri
Genet's rarely produced, classic play is a terrifying meditation on the Manicheanism of racial perceptions. The Classical Theater of Harlem's hard-hitting, courageous production extends its run and moves downtown.

Permanent Brain Stasis, by Marc Robinson
Richard Foreman's 35th-anniversary Ontological-Hysteric Theater production, Panic! (How to Be Happy!), gives theatrical life to "a mind tormented by its own ingenuity."

Lost Postcards, by Caridad Svich
A multi-linqual playwright draws heart-breakingly on her extraordinarily travels in these "monologues for a new world map."

Deadly Theater Meets Dead Horse, by Gordon Rogoff
A veteran critic ponders "visual chic" and other alarming matters in the current BAM theater season, including Fiona Shaw's Medea and the Donmar Warehouse Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night.

A Child Is Being Beaten, by Charles McNulty
Two current Broadway offerings--Peter Nichols's A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and Reza's Life (x) 3--prompt a critical meditation on the haunting figure of the abused child in modern drama.

Pictures at a Non-Execution, by Jonathan Kalb
The powerful docudrama The Exonerated couples reality-theater with what may be its ideal subject: capital punishment.

Come Again?, by Jonathan Kalb
Yasmina Reza, author of the slick and implausible hit Art, does it again, and again, and again, in Life (x) 3--her new play at Circle in the Square, which keeps starting over.

Secrets of Attraction, by Kathleen Dimmick
Soho Rep stages the New York premiere--35 years delayed!--of Marie Irene Fornes's "mordantly unique look at love, dependency, repulsion and sexual need," Molly's Dream.

Colorless Van Gogh, by Robert Brustein
Nicholas Wright, author of Mrs. Klein, imagines an early romance of one of modernism's greatest painters and renders it indistinguishable from Harold and Maude.

Torn Limb, by Caridad Svich
The author of Iphigenia Crash Land Falls writes "a torso-monologue for private viewing from a human opera"

In Colder Blood, by Jonathan Kalb
Karin Coonrod transforms Shakespeare's Julius Caesar into a sleek and lucid meditation on democracy for the Bush/Enron era.

Bernard Shaw, Coincidentally, by Stanley Kauffmann
How the author of You Never Can Tell, Man and Superman and Heartbreak House made absurdly convenient coincidences into subtle instruments of dramatic art.

Song Logic, by Jonathan Kalb
Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan team up to reconceive Georg Buchner's Woyzeck as an avant-pop musical.

Dirty Thoughts About Money, by NoPassport
A "virtual performance collective" that is also a band composes a serial dialogue-cum-manifesto about theater, money, and creativity.

Home to Roost, by Christine Evans
An Australian playwright who travels frequently to Macedonia writes a disturbing text on the "post-performance" of war: "an impossible play cannibalized by events."

Paper Wins Again, by Patricia Sternberg
The director of one proud children's theater, the Hunter College Mad Hatters, reflects on the 45-year history of another, The Paper Bag Players.

Decibelle Level, by Dorothy Chansky
Director Michael Kahn gives new life to Ben Jonson's complicated comedy in the rarely produced Epicoene;, or The Silent Woman in Washington, DC, but the work's misogyny is left intact.

Different Hats by Una Chaudhuri
Caryl Churchill gives ominous new meaning to the "hat trick" in Far Away, her chilling play about horror and dishonesty about horror.

FORUM ON A.R.T.'S Children of Herakles

• P.C. for the Ages by Alisa Solomon
  Director Peter Sellars uses the rarely produced Children of Herakles by Euripides as anchor for an evening-length forum at ART on international refugees. Solomon says the evening doesn't quite gel.
  
  
• Real Children and Other Quandaries by Scott T. Cummings
  The ART evening does gel, says Cummings. Sellars' use of real refugee children in the chorus, along with the accompanying panel discussions and film series, give the marathon undertaking "arc and amplitude."

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