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ARTICLES BY DATE

2004

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.

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