Sep 30, 2006
Sep 29, 2006
Old School
My review of Jay Johnson: The Two and Only is here. And I've got a coupla New York Musical Theatre Festival reviews on Broadway.com's festival blog: J.O.B. the Hip-Hopera (shout out to L.A. homie Stefan Novinski), Night of the Hunter, and The Man in My Head.
Sep 27, 2006
Why I Don't Blog More
These aren't actually good excuses (considering what some colleagues are doing in their non-blogging hours), but I'm currently singing with these folks and composing with this scrappy troupe, plus I've got new product. La-di-dah.
Sep 24, 2006
A Blow to the Center
The teaching moment has arrived, and the LA Times' McNulty steps up in a big way, surveying the Michael Ritchie reign at CTG thus far and saying exactly the sort of thing only a disinterested critic has the authority, and frankly the responsibility, to say. McNulty's best and sharpest line:
Bravo--and may the criticism prove constructive to an institution that still matters too much to be mishandled.
The Taper built its reputation on little-known playwrights, but there's not much in the new season that can be characterized as a Ritchie discovery. The theater should be in the business of nurturing original material rather than shopping for it.
Bravo--and may the criticism prove constructive to an institution that still matters too much to be mishandled.
Sep 22, 2006
Raised in Arizona
I'm back in my hometown of Phoenix for a high-school reunion, won't be seeing any theater here. Been a little buried in finishing up the Brian Cox piece—he's an infinite subject, it seems, with a career that spans everything from Titus Andronicus to the X-Men to this (if you're even remotely familiar with his work, you won't regret checking this out).
I have to say the man was definitive in Stoppard's Rock 'N' Roll, and I confess I was somehow both left cold and blown away by the play, an ambitious but very singular reckoning of the author's prickly entente with the Western left—at least that segment of it, represented by Cox's character, Max, an unreconstructed Marxist don at Cambridge, which apologized for the Soviet Empire and dismissed its dissidents as distractions at best, traitors at worst. Largely due to Cox's conviction in the role, Max holds his own. And there's something about Stoppard's intellect that seems to repel direct emotional involvement, that somehow creates the expectation that he's working on a Shavian level of discourse and we're not supposed to feel for his characters, when in fact that's just a front, a mask, worn as much by the characters as by the playwright. What dawns on you, particularly upon later reflection—and this is a play I hope comes to New York, so I can see it again—is that for all its highbrow chatter, this is sweeping, old-fashioned, deeply emotional storytelling. For some reason I thought of Spielberg, an artist who's tried to trade up from his popcorn showman's origins, with results that have similarly both stirred and confounded our responses; under his literate trappings, Stoppard is essentially as much a ripping good showman. Reportedly Mick Jagger has the film rights to the play. If they don't get Milos Forman, Mr. E.T. would make a fantastic choice.
I have to say the man was definitive in Stoppard's Rock 'N' Roll, and I confess I was somehow both left cold and blown away by the play, an ambitious but very singular reckoning of the author's prickly entente with the Western left—at least that segment of it, represented by Cox's character, Max, an unreconstructed Marxist don at Cambridge, which apologized for the Soviet Empire and dismissed its dissidents as distractions at best, traitors at worst. Largely due to Cox's conviction in the role, Max holds his own. And there's something about Stoppard's intellect that seems to repel direct emotional involvement, that somehow creates the expectation that he's working on a Shavian level of discourse and we're not supposed to feel for his characters, when in fact that's just a front, a mask, worn as much by the characters as by the playwright. What dawns on you, particularly upon later reflection—and this is a play I hope comes to New York, so I can see it again—is that for all its highbrow chatter, this is sweeping, old-fashioned, deeply emotional storytelling. For some reason I thought of Spielberg, an artist who's tried to trade up from his popcorn showman's origins, with results that have similarly both stirred and confounded our responses; under his literate trappings, Stoppard is essentially as much a ripping good showman. Reportedly Mick Jagger has the film rights to the play. If they don't get Milos Forman, Mr. E.T. would make a fantastic choice.
Sep 15, 2006
Across the Pond
In London briefly to interview the estimable Brian Cox. Caught Frayn's Donkey Years tonight. I'd been looking forward to it, as he's written both the last word in contemporary farce (Noises Off) and the era's greatest political play (Democracy), and this promised to be a sort of combination of both, about an Oxbridge college reunion headed by a pompous government minister (Thin Blue Line's David Haig). Alas, no; I'm a bit jetlagged, admittedly, but the show seemed like tiring piffle to me (especially given how it might have resonated, as I've got a high school reunion in Phoenix next week). Tomorrow: Stoppard's Rock 'N' Roll. Tried to dip into the script of his Coast of Utopia on the flight over; I'm finding it brittle and overpopulated. More anon.
Sep 13, 2006
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