Category: theatre

“Heavily influenced by Surrealist imagery, and laden with references to Mesoamerican and Greco-Roman myths, Paz’s 1957 poem is a rapturous, metaphysical rumination on erotic life forces and the search for an authentic self (or selves) within other people, other cultures and the flow of time and history.” The performance aims to “immerse audiences in Paz’s … universe.”

“Rupert Goold’s production of Lucy Prebble’s broad-stroke comic strip was as gimcrack as any American idiot could want. … Not since Faye Dunaway moaned ratings numbers during a sex scene in ‘Network’ have lust and power been so entertainingly entangled.” But someone forgot to let the audience in on the joke.

“Mr. Guare will choose the winners for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. Past judges have included Edward Albee, for the series’ first two prizes in 2007 and 2008, and David Hare, who chose the 2009 award as well as this year’s winner, Virginia Grise, for her play ‘blu.'”

Irene Lewis, “who has guided Baltimore’s venerable company for nearly two decades, surprised her staff yesterday, saying that she will no longer provide artistic leadership after next season. The announcement signifies a major shift in direction for a troupe that once enjoyed a national reputation for producing daring new shows and reimagining classics, but that in recent years has become less prominent.”

“Two-handers, as two-person plays are nicknamed in the trade, have a respectable history and a particular appeal — and not just for acting classes. The form could be said to date back to the Greeks.”

“I would never have picked “Million Dollar Quartet.” Heck, I thought producer Gigi Pritzker would have been better off taking “Million Dollar Quartet” to London, lest it not fill out those planned Broadway shoes.”

The young cast members of “Jerusalem” and “Enron,” in the West End, “do a particular, and quite peculiar, job: they are child actors who perform in a wholly adult environment, in shows their parents would never take them to see.”

Michael Billington: “Opinions are two a penny. What’s damnably difficult is to write well; and, for me, there is still a personal challenge every night in trying to set down my views in 45 minutes with any degree of lucidity. And, when I dip into the critics of the past, it is less for their views on the event than for their style.”

“A survey by British entertainment industry bible The Stage has voted the Guardian‘s two theatre critics the most valued in the business.”

“There was a time, not so long ago, when if a Broadway diva – say, Carol Channing or Patti LuPone – wanted to watch somebody else singing her signature songs in her signature style, she had to leave her dressing room and find a drag show. Now she need only turn on her computer and settle in at that 24-hour virtual piano bar called YouTube.”