Category: theatre

“Once upon a time, the Edinburgh festival fringe was all about finding the next big thing in Hungarian experimental theatre. Now, its integrity has disappeared as commercialism reigns, personified by big-name performers familiar from TV, such as Jimmy Carr, Ricky Gervais and Frank Skinner. That, at least, is the complaint from those who believe that household name comedy is drowning out more pioneering art.”

Why did the Broadway hit “The Drowsy Chaperone” flop in London, despite the enthusiasm of critics there? “With very few exceptions, London’s West End is a cultural wasteland. The heart and soul of contemporary London theatre is in the subsidized section and venues like the National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse and the Royal Court. But, to me, Drowsy’s fate underlines the different meanings of camp and irony between Broadway and the West End – particularly as they apply to musicals.”

“The shadow of Osama bin Laden fell across the start of the Edinburgh Fringe festival yesterday as a new show, ‘Jihad: The Musical,’ publicized as ‘a madcap gallop through the wacky world of international terrorism,’ prompted an online protest to Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain….”

Performing on Second Life, the Sawston Players are “following in the footsteps of comedian Jimmy Carr (who was the first to do an interactive internet gig) by presenting the first online musical. I can’t disagree with composer and musical director Graham Brown, who says it’s a neat way to drum up a bit of publicity in the run-up to the Fringe. But can the performance be described as theatre in any other sense?” And “could it actually damage its real-world equivalent?”

“Playwrights who dedicate themselves to working in the American theater can look forward to lives of lonely scribbling, mystified condescension and relative penury…. As their careers lengthen, they can expect our culture’s congenital amnesia to enshroud them, either in the mantle of the one play that made their name or in the outer realms of utter obscurity. And then James Houghton might give them a call. ‘I think every single playwright in this city, maybe the country, is wondering when and if it’s gonna happen,’ said Tony Kushner….”

“Mark Twain is a name not usually associated with Broadway, unless he is being portrayed by Hal Holbrook, the actor responsible for the one-man show ‘Mark Twain Tonight!’ But now a play by Twain called ‘Is He Dead?’ — adapted by David Ives — will receive its world premiere Nov. 29 on Broadway.” Written in 1898 and never performed, the play is about “a group of starving artists who stage the death of their mentor in an effort to increase the value of his work.”

Yes, yes, we’ve heard it over and over, many times before. But “today the crisis is real. Never in my lifetime has London’s West End theatre looked so narrow in its range of choices or so out of touch with contemporary reality. And it is high time the crisis was confronted and a debate launched about what we expect of commercial theatre.”

Apparently, plot concepts that would be considered far too stale and cliched for even a hackneyed TV sitcom are thrilling audiences in London theatres this summer. Ben Brantley can’t quite explain the appeal, but he knows it’s real: “If any of these premises reared up on my television screen, I’d change the channel before the first canned snicker could be sounded. But I have to confess that I, along with hordes of other London theatergoers, experienced an almost childlike pleasure watching these crude concepts translated to the stage.”

“Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner are in negotiations to star in a revival of ‘Cyrano de Bergerac'” on Broadway, according to Michael Riedel. The revival will be a limited 10-week run, set to open in October.

A musical about a pair of rare book collectors? Really? Yes, but these aren’t your garden-variety book collectors. These are the collectors turned literary detectives who exposed the secret life of Louisa May Alcott, and one friend saw something stageworthy in their life and work.