What follows is a pithy textual representation of The Babylon Line, Richard Greenberg’s oh-so Greenberg-ian new play currently running at Lincoln Center’s off-Broadway Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through January 22:[1]
Continue reading “THE BABYLON LINE After Line After Line After Line After Line After Line After”
2. But with 1 of the worst last lines of the season: “This is the end…or is it a sort of beginning?” Bit too on the nose, no?
— Steven Strauss (@aintnohero) January 6, 2017
The Sparknotes version of the essential background information that you need to understand my impending temper tantrum: one of the best off-Broadway, nonprofit theatre companies – Second Stage (2ST) – recently upped their digs to the Great White Way by buying the Helen Hayes Theatre, the smallest on Broadway and thus perfectly suited for plays and more intimate musicals. For anyone who bemoans the lack of new plays on Broadway, this is objectively a stupendous development because 2ST has long been devoted to exclusively producing such work (they also stage new musicals like Next to Normal and Dear Evan Hansen, but despite the superior quality of these, I just can’t be AS excited about the prospect of more always-prevalent new musicals on the Great White Way). To quote lyrics from the former musical: “It’s gonna be good/It’s gonna be good/It’s gonna be great/It’s gonna be fucking great!” Or is it?
Amidst the seemingly endless array of doomsday scenarios regarding the onset of Trump’s America being bandied about by many artists – a majority of whom are obviously liberal – a rare, commonly held bright spot in this darkness is the promise that at the very least some amazing art will be created in response to the years ahead. Very few have ever countered the quasi-adage ‘misery inspires better art than happiness’ for a reason.
2. Namely: lack of thematic focus in favor of packing play with as many intellectually witty conversational observations as possible
— Write All Nite (@aintnohero) December 22, 2016
Continue reading “Tweet of Consciousness: THE WOLVES (Sarah DeLappe, Playwrights Realm)”
2. but still can’t overcome artistically crippling feeling this story was CLEARLY written for another medium. Dramatically inert dramaturgy
— Write All Nite (@aintnohero) December 21, 2016
Continue reading “Tweet of Consciousness: TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS (Nia Vardalos, Public Theater)”
THIS DAY FORWARD (Vineyard): Nicky Silver is the 21st century’s inferior AR Gurney (not really praise from me: https://t.co/IG0GobmZZG
— Write All Nite (@aintnohero) December 19, 2016
Continue reading “Tweet of Consciousness: THIS DAY FORWARD (Nicky Silver, Vineyard Theatre)”
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE (Roundabout) Many of the dramatic strengths of Mike Bartlett’s other, superior plays are not on display here. 1/)
— Write All Nite (@aintnohero) December 14, 2016
The Signature Theatre Company’s revival of “Master Harold”…and the boys by Athol Fugard – which he also directed – unexpectedly called to mind the necessity of the separation of church and state to a country’s success. Even though the play does not particularly delve into civic theology (religion is only mentioned in passing), Signature’s production served as yet another reminder of one of my more tried-and-true artistic tenets that’s just as crucial to the continued vitality of theatre as the ol’ ‘church and state’ adage is to government: the separation of a playwright from his play through the all-important intermediary of a director.
Continue reading ““MASTER HAROLD”…AND THE BOYS: Great Playwrights…make average directors”
Three recent off-Broadway productions – Horton Foote’s The Roads to Home at Primary Stages, A.R. Gurney’s Two Class Acts at the Flea Theater, and En Garde Arts’ Wilderness at the Abrons Arts Center – made me ponder how much accurately depicting the lives of specific people not often given the time of day on stage should be valued. Though holding up a mirror to nature has always been one of the foundational tenets of art, after years of audiences being treated to ‘reflections’ of almost every different type of character imaginable, I’m now left wondering if plays that achieve nothing more than presenting these now-familiar reflections can justifiably be criticized for not striving for, well, more…
Write All Nite 