Though piercing doubts and discontents surface in “The Saviors,” one never gets the sense that the playwright has an anti-clerical axe to grind.
Rob Weinert-Kendt
Rob Weinert-Kendt, an arts journalist and editor of American Theatre magazine, has written for The New York Times and Time Out New York.
Posted inTelevision
‘The House of Spirits’: a sumptuous miniseries based on a classic Chilean novel
The series creators deserve credit for deftly compressing Isabelle Allende’s dense, sprawling novel into eight very watchable episodes.
Posted inBooks
Bob Dylan and the Beatles: New book captures how music changes its makers
The musical and personal lives of Bob Dylan and the Beatles were intertwined in myriad ways, as author Jim Windolf teases out in his pleasurable new book, ‘Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other—and the World.’
Posted inTelevision
In Netflix’s ‘Beef,’ we can’t stop watching unsympathetic jerks
The baseline rule of storytelling is that we are interested in what happens; sympathy may arise but is not required.
Posted inTheater
‘Dog Day Afternoon’: Stephen Adly Guirgis revisits the iconic 1975 film
A single-set hostage drama needs to feel like a pressure cooker, but this “Dog Day Afternoon” has a comedic, almost casual tone throughout.
Posted inTheater
Separating the art from the artist? Broadway’s ‘Giant’ wrestles with Roald Dahl’s antisemitism
The tragedy of Dahl’s antisemitism isn’t that it colored his art but that it clouded his vision and tainted his outrage.
Posted inTheater
In ‘Every Brilliant Thing,’ Daniel Radcliffe embraces the sacramentality of small pleasures
On the list of things that make my life worth living, I can now gladly add the experience of seeing “Every Brilliant Thing.”
Posted inTelevision
‘How to Get to Heaven from Belfast’ can’t match the high-wire comedy of ‘Derry Girls’
“How to Get to Heaven From Belfast,” Lisa McGee’s new series for Netflix, is a wobbly, unsuccessful blend of comedy, mystery and would-be thriller.
Posted inTelevision
‘Pluribus’ asks big questions about human freedom. It’s must-think TV.
‘Pluribus’ asks: Would we be willing to give up the struggles of the human condition for life in a friction-free bubble of contentment?
Posted inTheater
‘Liberation’ on Broadway jokes its way into hard truths about feminism
“Liberation” is, really, a play of ideas and argument, in the tradition of George Bernard Shaw or Tony Kushner.