July 21, 2023
What else was going on in the city, or the world, that might have enabled a figure like Moses to do what he did for decades?
Pinning the blame on Moses, or celebrating Jacobs, or vice versa is a way out of a big question that neither the political left or right in the United States has many clear answers to: how to resolve the tension between the benefits and pitfalls of large-scale planning and local control.
December 21, 2015
“Who in Russia lives well?”
Theater has long been at the center of political struggle in Russia. The theatricalization of life was one of the key aims of the Russian avant-garde, which embraced the 1917 revolution in part because it promised to transform everyday life into living theater. With the advent of socialist realism in the 1930s, Stalin turned theater into an instrument of state propaganda, but restrictions loosened again in the period of late socialism, from the 1960s to the 1980s, at which time theater acquired a near sacred status in Soviet culture.
Sometimes when freedom is yours for the taking, you still want permission to take it.
October 7, 2015
On John, Judy, and Empire Travel Agency
Will the actor driving this car, talking to another actor via Bluetooth, turn too fast and hit a jogger? Is that man on the street corner in the play? Are these people exercising under FDR drive in the play? Is that horrible smell in the play? Am I in the play?
Saadallah Wannous and the war on stories
It struck me on starting the first page of Historical Miniatures that Mazen had terribly misjudged my Arabic ability. I was ready for a challenge, but this was real literature, wildly above my level of comprehension.
April 17, 2013
The rawness of Realness is perhaps the perfect foil to the garish industry conference.
March 14, 2012
The movie is practically a catalog of everything Brecht thought you shouldn’t do.
September 19, 2011
For years, major performing arts institutions have struggled to affirm what is important about presence at an event.
February 2, 2011
When I moved here after college, I wanted to be a copywriter. Actually, what I really wanted to do was write novels
September 23, 2010
I cringed at the thought of spending four hours with a Hemingway narrator, but the piece quickly gathered momentum.
January 13, 2009
Every play Pinter wrote was based on the same fundamental understanding of drama: words on stage.
September 8, 2006
Part of Mahfouz’s achievement is its sheer extent, its superabundant precision.
