Three strong new revivals offer an instructive comparative lens through which to view the form’s development over the decades.
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 inArts & Culture, Theater
Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan bring love and revolution to life in ‘The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window’
A lovingly crafted new revival of “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music makes a fresh case for reconsideration of Lorraine Hansberry’s less well-known second play, which followed the classic “A Raisin in the Sun.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Broadway’s ‘Between Riverside and Crazy’ uses the hilarious and profane in a restless search for moral clarity
As ever, Stephen Adly Guirgis writes hilarious, profane dialogue and puts his characters in contention over matters both petty and portentous.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
From ‘Death of a Salesman’ to ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ theater explores the Black American dream
‘Death of a Salesman,’ ‘The Piano Lesson’ and ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ showcase the strivings for Black economic independence and self-determination.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Broadway’s ‘1776’ revival casts women and non-binary actors as founding fathers. Can it succeed in the shadow of ‘Hamilton’?
While Lin-Manuel Miranda’s popular Founding Fathers remix was built for performers of color, “1776” has been retrofitted onto this troupe of talented women.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
In ‘Corsicana,’ playwright Will Arbery writes an ode to his sister with Down syndrome
“Corsicana,” named for the small Texas city in which it is set, is odd and stiff—qualities that are only exacerbated by director Sam Gold’s spare, often awkwardly formal staging.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
‘Macbeth’ and ‘Cyrano’ are two classic plays getting fresh interpretations — with very different results
Classic plays don’t require updates or new translations to stay fresh, but if they are indeed classics, they can withstand new interpretations.
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‘A Case for the Existence of God’ is not a theological argument. It’s a parable.
Hard truths spill out in the tentative friendship of two men in Samuel D. Hunter’s Off Broadway play, “A Case for the Existence of God.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Two new Broadway musicals show the pitfalls of turning complex history into song and dance
With “Suffs” and “Paradise Square,” Broadway offers two new musicals that address the great animating subject of the American musical: America itself.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: What would the great silent film clown Buster Keaton make of the smartphone era?
In “Camera Man,” the critic Dana Stevens uses the biography of the great silent film clown as a lens to explore the early days of movies, the cultural forces that gave them birth and the social upheavals they in turn engendered.