Category: Theatre

  • “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness”

    “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness”

    A few days ago I mused very briefly about how audiences and theatre artists in this fraught 21st century might respond to the “absurd” drama of the 20th. Soon we’ll have a chance to see just that with a new production of Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame.

  • Back to basics

    Back to basics

    Maybe, just maybe, the Theatre of the Absurd of the 1950s and 1960s makes just as much sense in the 2020s.

  • Like father …

    Like father …

    A continuum of theatre experience runs through my six decades (so far) and denying it won’t do anyone any good; one must face the facts.

  • Opera as high (and low) drama

    Opera as high (and low) drama

    A few Saturdays ago, I found myself in the unusual position of having three full hours at home alone, family temporarily scattered around Manhattan, and I took the opportunity to do something I hadn’t done in years: listen to the live Metropolitan Opera broadcast on WQXR. Turning up the volume on the stereo, I sat […]

  • Richard Foreman

    Richard Foreman

    I stopped writing about theatre a decade ago, around the same time that Richard Foreman retired from the stage. I’ve been back to the theatre a few times since then, but I haven’t yet come across theatrical experiences quite as liberating as Foreman’s plays. His work was something of an acquired taste, perhaps, but I […]