In the canon of angry white males produced by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is hardest to figure out. Richard III chokes on self-pity; Macbeth buries himself alive with ambition; Lear is felled by the family neglect born of his own megalomania. To identify exactly which of Hamlet’s peccadilloes finally undoes him…
The 1950s often are cited as this century’s watershed for American theater. It was then that Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio, whose members worshiped at the altar of a Russian psychoanalytic guru named Stanislavsky, dominated Broadway and off-Broadway headlines with a method based on recalling real-life emotional moments and transferring them…
The critical disdain into which playwright Edward Albee sunk from the late ’70s through the early ’90s isn’t the surprise of his career. That he ever enjoyed the relatively brief affection of Broadway audiences and critics is the real anomaly. Albee has been called the heir to Arthur Miller and…
The neglect of American playwright Clifford Odets is partly his fault, partly ours. It’s certainly true that Odets–who applied his talents to screenwriting but could barely stomach the Hollywood establishment in the ’40s and ’50s–had a sanctimonious tone in his author’s voice. Indeed, his political affiliations were more naked than…
There’s a moment near the beginning of Into the Woods, Theatre Three’s latest production, when you know you’ve ventured into Sondheim territory–and director Jac Alder has provided you with a whip-smart, conscientious map. Little Red Riding Hood (Emily Parsons) has just detailed her purpose for traveling through the trees–to bring…
Just three months into the gig as Dallas Observer stage critic, I found myself in a peculiar situation: hiding from the performer I was about to review. I wasn’t alone when I arrived at the opening night of performance artist Fred Curchack’s latest one-man symphony, The Comeback of Freddy Chickan:…
The word “improvisation” is often bandied about when people talk about stand-up comedy; indeed, the most famous comedy club chain in America was named after it. But watching HBO’s Comedy Showcase or Comedy Central’s A-List, you’ll find precious little real improvisation. The reason is simple: Improv comedy by its very…
Although different scenes may hop from century to century, a stage play really must concern itself with the moment. In the theater, real time isn’t a trick the director and producer pull from a toy box full of gimmicks, as in filmmaking. The playwright, the actors, and the director are…
Nicky Silver is probably the hottest young playwright lurking in off-Broadway right now, with his last play The Food Chain easily his most critically and financially successful New York production to date. Additionally, since the ’90s began his works have been staged dozens of times by big-city theaters, including three…
The author of more than 30 plays, recipient of three Tony Awards and a U-Haulful of dramatic accolades, and the next likely Pulitzer Prize winner, playwright Terrence McNally possesses a keener ear for dialogue than any other celebrated American dramatist now alive. The language he creates is a pure theatrical…
The program for Kitchen Dog Theatre’s latest production, the racial-sexual drama Porcelain, contains some astute notes by director David Irving, who is the newest member of Kitchen Dog. His essay reads: “‘Shocking plays’ always seem to raise a question of validity in people’s minds, as though the plays want to…
Watching the latest production by Theatre Three, a pair of one-acts from reigning theatrical neurotic Christopher Durang aptly dubbed Disgraceful Acts, the viewer is intrigued. In one evening, Dallas’ 35-year-old theater company offers the simultaneous experience of watching a skillful satirist at his prime and said writer floundering for inspiration…
Legendary New York theatrical producer Joseph Papp and his New York Shakespeare Festival are generally credited with the idea of “restaging” Billy the Shake’s comedies and tragedies. This was a decision both commercial and artistic from a man and a company for whom those considerations were rarely in conflict. Papp…
There’s good news and bad news from the Great White Way. The good news is that, after years of premature closings, skyrocketing ticket prices, and dismal press, Broadway is enjoying its best season in years. The massive crossover success of Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk and the…
Don’t ask why, but about two years ago I found myself on a tour of a hospital located at the base of the Appalachian mountains. The hospital’s administrator, a Catholic nun, was explaining some of the unique pathologies seen at the facility, most of them derived from the effects of…
It’s one of the enduring enigmas of great literature. Why did Archie have such a fixation on Veronica, and such little regard for Betty, when the two females (hair color aside) were virtually identical? Why didn’t he just glom on to both of them? The timeless conundrum of sexual attraction…
When I die, let me come back as a guest in an English country home as depicted by Noel Coward or P.G. Wodehouse. Let there be plenty of potty English gentry about the place and calm, competent butlers named Jeeves or Jenkins to straighten out the inevitable romantic imbroglios. Let…
Cecil O’Neal, director of Kitchen Dog Theater’s pressure-cooker production of Oleanna, proclaims in the playbill that “no one is right in this play…Both characters are flawed.” Bullshit, Cecil. The dude is right, and the chick is wrong. You know it, I know it, and any one who sees this play…
Back in the ’60s there was a TV show called The Time Tunnel about two guys with military haircuts who get hurled through a time-space-continuum contraption and land in a different era each week. The first thing they had to do was figure out in what epoch they were, but…
It’s a debate that dates back to at least Plato’s time. What is reality–that which we can objectively perceive and quantify with our senses, or that which we interpret through our subjective and particular points of view? Teatro Dallas takes a crack at this timeless conundrum in Tales From the…
The one thing we all have in common is our separateness. Once launched from the womb, we are all so many Ishmaels seeking connection to a larger whole. Some people seem to feel this sense of isolation and rootlessness more keenly than others. For Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August…
What is it with Texas actresses and product endorsements gone wrong? First Brenda Vaccaro rasped about the absorbent properties of tampons, then Sandy Duncan chirped about the healthy, wholesome taste of Wheat Thins in TV ads that have hung like albatrosses around their necks ever since. Vaccaro couldn’t get arrested…
