One thing you could say about John Collins: He likes an oral challenge. Under his direction, the New York-based ensemble Elevator Repair Service (ERS) has staged, among other things, three modern American novels--usually recited in their entirety...
In April 1993, a show took place at MOMA that turned the world of pictures inside out. The result of five trips made by New York photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia to L.A.'s rent-boy underbelly--the strip between La Brea Avenue and Santa Monica Boul...
Last autumn, the fearless folks at The Chocolate Factory in Long Island City let Big Dance Theater into their basement to stage Sybil Kempson's Ich, Krbisgeist. Performed in an invented language based on German (with bits, according to the company'...
Not a lot happens in the Apple Family plays. In each of Richard Nelson's four dramas, the Apples (three sisters, one brother, an uncle, a boyfriend) gather in the same room of the same upstate house. They eat, they sing, they talk. A dog gets loose ...
Royal Ballet September 17-29 Britain's premier ballet troupe arrives at the Joyce with an award-winning dance version of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, choreographed by Arthur Pita and featuring principal dancer Edward Watson as Gregor Samsa, who ...
Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks Keith Houston ? September 24, W. W. Norton & Company, 320 pp., $25.95 Pilcrow. Interrobang. Octothorpe. No, not the names of obscure demons from The Less...
Chris Burden: 'Extreme Measures' October 2-January 1, 2014 In 1971, L.A. artist Chris Burden spent five days jammed inside a school locker. Later that year, he got an assistant to shoot him in the arm with a .22 rifle. In 1974, he was crucifie...
Essays: Art: The Return of the Real by Christian Viveros-Faun Philip-Lorca diCorcia on turning the ultimate photographic trick Dance: Smashing Pumpkins by Elizabeth Zimmer Big Dance Theater creates a culture that destroys itself Film: Bor...
The Machine Performances begin September 4 You might think that observing a chess match has all the spectatorial thrill of watching paint dry or grass grow. But playwright Matt Charman thinks otherwise. He has crafted a play about chessma...
An Italian guy, a gay guy, a black guy, and a girl show up in Savannah looking for action. If that sounds like the setup for a bad joke, it is--or rather, it's the setup for two and a half hours of bad jokes courtesy of the Amoralists in their new p...
Some specifics, of course, have staled since 1935: the idea of Soviet Russia as a society ours should emulate, or that a premarital pregnancy would necessitate a family conspiracy, or that it takes a clean-spirited young man to dare to seize hold of...
Although the Museum of Modern Art garnered prestige (and occasional derision) by bringing such European exemplars as Picasso, Czanne, and van Gogh to the New World, the institution did not forsake homegrown talent, including the 50-plus artists gat...
Ken Urban'sThe Awake begins with a disorienting swirl of scene shifts. Malcolm (Andy Phelan) prepares to visit his mother (Dee Nelson), who later lies comatose in a hospital; Nate (Maulik Pancholy of 30 Rock) faces arrest, captivity, and brutal inte...
George Orwell inhabited a certain counterfeit Chinese curse like a silk kimono: He lived and wrote in interesting times. Having experienced world wars, ideological smackdowns, intellectual lunacy, and what George Packer (editor of an Orwell collecti...
Rabbis don't usually take center stage in Broadwaymusicals. But nothing could be more natural in Soul Doctor, a new production celebrating the real onstage and offstage life of Shlomo Carlebach, aka the 1960s' "rock star rabbi." Carlebach, who sough...
First, for the record, Ronald Reagan lied. In late October 1980, candidate Reagan and his campaign sent a letter to Robert E. Poli, then the president of the air traffic controllers' union, pledging staunch support to that union--PATCO--and its f...
In the theater, the age-old fantasy of a happy marriage between art and science has given us some truly great plays about the lives of scientists: Brecht's Galileo and Michael Frayn's Copenhagen, to name just two that have set the bar quite high. Un...
Like time spent staring at roof pigeons, the summer doldrums in New York are good for stocktaking. A recent lunch with an uptown museum curator led to some, as we debated a type of show popular with local institutions since 2008: the historical sur...
Four ladies, four dudes, some wacky clowns, and lots of wordplay--sounds like a foolproof formula for Shakespearean comedy, right? In the case of Love's Labour's Lost, though, it's not that simple: On its surface, the play is a love-fest celebratin...
First Date is a new and aggressively stupid Broadway musical that follows a young man and woman through a blind dinner-date. Even its lone moment of fun is embarrassing. That moment arrives when the female lead's phone rings, the call goes to voice...
The Film Society Can't Quite Make the Leap From Past to Present
What happens to a political play that's three decades old? Can it keep its emotional charge, or does it wither when its social relevance fades? You may be asking these… More >>
Blame It on Magritte
You might assume that the Photoshop fantasias of our age would make the visual conundrums of René Magritte's pre-war paintings feel quaint. Certainly the beguiling originality of his fractured figures… More >>
Deceptive Practices: The Glass Menagerie's Poignant Con Game
The theater is a swindle, an exercise in sham. Every play operates on principles of treachery: Flimsy set pieces substitute for solid spaces; people assume names and accents other than… More >>
Not What Happened: A Meditation on Truth and Historical Accuracy
Provocations don't come much gentler than Ain Gordon's Not What Happened, which concluded a brief run at BAM's Next Wave Festival. A meditation on truth and historical accuracy, directed by… More >>
Arguendo Is Full of Supremely Naughty Charm
Who knew Supreme Court justices have such complicated, libidinous inner lives? Anthony Kennedy muses on adults-only car washes. Sandra Day O'Connor contemplates pornographic videos. Antonin Scalia obsesses over nude opera.… More >>
Tragic Lovers Get Teenage Kicks in Romeo and Juliet Revival
The ardor animating the latest Romeo and Juliet seems less the marriage of true minds than the commingling of hot bods. In David Leveaux's revival at Broadway's Richard Rodgers, Orlando… More >>
The Propeller Group Take on the Art World's Celebrity Fixation
"Are celebrities the new art stars?" asked a Newsweek cover story in July. A few months later, certain windy developments (or popcorn farts) that passed for world-shaking events on TMZ… More >>
Q&A: Mario Alberto Zambrano on Taking the Leap From Dancer to Novelist With Lotería
The game Lotería can best be described as a Mexican version of bingo, but instead of numbers, each card bears a striking image, such as beautiful sea goddess La Sirena… More >>
Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Latest Movingly Illustrates a Sexual Awakening
Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s Life and Times: Episodes 4.5 and 5—at this year’s Crossing the Line Festival—are the newest installments in an epic performance depicting the life story of Kristin… More >>
Anna Nicole: A Cautionary Tale Against Gigantic Breast Implants
What homeless diva recently threatened to commit suicide if her rich patrons didn't cough up $20 million by the end of the year? That's right—the New York City Opera. So… More >>
