-Matthew Murray's review at Talkin' Broadway
This kind of deep insight into a work's dramatic heritage opens up whole new vistas of critical consideration that hadn't even occurred to me. Like:
"The word 'Israel' is not uttered at all in Glengarry Glen Ross, but that long-contested homeland hangs like a specter over David Mamet's play. The real estate office where aging salesman Shelley Levene struggles to survive is, if anything, a battleground where land takes on symbolic, even spiritual value in ways the outside the world simply cannot understand."or
"The word 'Ireland' is not uttered at all in The House of Blue Leaves, but that mythic isle hangs like a specter over John Guare's play. The Queens suburb where the Shaughnessys play out their dangerously dysfunctional marriage, against a backdrop of Catholic shame and a terrorist bombing, is, if anything, a satellite of old Erin, a land of absurd poetry and deep-seated conflict the outside world simply cannot understand."It's almost like every playwright's ancestral country of origin provides a readymade cultural/dramatic template with which to view their work.
Mind accordingly blown.
Play at home!
4 comments:
"The word 'Clowntown' is uttered rarely, if ever, in Matthew Murray's critical output, but the storied burg of buffoonery hangs like a specter over his entire body of work, haunting every banal non-insight, every failure of comprehension; indeed, Murray's column can plausibly be interpreted as a series of signals to his ancestral home, alerting his fellow bozo-eoise to his presence, E.T.-like, and pledging his dedication to the cause of disseminating fatuity and anti-wisdom across every last corner of cyberspace."
"The words 'Castro Street' are never uttered in 'Brokeback Mountain', but the San Francisco gay district hangs like a specter over Ang Lee's movie. The Wyoming hill that gives the work its title is, if anything, a satellite colony, where the inhabitants are united by romantic feelings the outside world simply cannot understand."
e theseduaI haven't seen the play yet but I just read the entire review and all I see is a reviewer trying to communicate what he believes the playwright was trying to accomplish. Sometimes racism is a matter of interpretation and someone's completely innocent observation can be taken a different way. Did you consider discussing the review with Matthew before calling his review racist?
Ah, thanks for pointing out that you did not, in fact, call his review racist. That description came from elsewhere and that's what I was responding to above.
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