Email Author Michael Feingold

Awards

• 2010 - The Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism/Columbia University

  Theater Reviews

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2008 Stories by Michael Feingold

• Michael Stuhlbarg's Hamlet: Jangled Out of Tune

  published June 24, 2008

  It was a balmy night in Central Park, and it must have put me in a ruminative mood. As I wandered back toward the West Side after three-plus... More >>

• Three New Plays Struggle With Information

  published June 10, 2008

  It actually took less than a century for playwriting to get out from under the thumb of Eugène Scribe, the guy who, in the... More >>

• Prisoner of the Crown's Hero: Traitor or Greater?

  published June 3, 2008

  Patriot and traitor, liberator and exploiter, hero and failure—you could hardly find a more dramatic central figure for a play than Roger... More >>

• Conor McPherson and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Chase Their Tales

  published May 27, 2008

  Playwrights these days tend not to finish the stories they tell us. I don't mean those who flat-out refuse to do so, on the basis of some... More >>

• Stefan Zweig's Twisted Cinderella, Translated

  published May 20, 2008

  The Viennese author Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) belonged to a paradoxical class of writers peculiar to continental Europe between the two... More >>

• Musical Theater's Spring Thaw

  published May 20, 2008

  People in the far north call it "icebreak": the moment just before springtime when frozen rivers start to flow again. The theater knows its... More >>

• Unhinged, Unexpected Old Comedy sends America to Hell

  published May 20, 2008

  I'd meant to devote most of this column to the superb revival of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, which looks better than ever, as acted by... More >>

• Steve & Idi Is Intriguingly Weird

  published May 13, 2008

  I know the theater's a magical place, and when I'm there I sit in readiness, eager for its magic to sweep me away. But sometimes, the spell... More >>

• Three New Productions Tackle Color Lines

  published May 6, 2008

  It isn't fair, of course. If history really is the nightmare from which we're trying to escape, we ought to be able to rewrite it in the... More >>

• Cry-Baby: Partial Arts

  published April 29, 2008

  Those who sneered at A Catered Affair, the Broadway musical that opened just prior to last week's new arrival, Cry-Baby, must be... More >>

• A Catered Affair's Identity Crisis Management

  published April 22, 2008

  We live, if you haven't noticed, in an increasingly confused and confusing world. The difficulty of understanding others is only equaled, these... More >>

• Two New Plays and the Perils of Autobiography

  published April 15, 2008

  All plays, even the most abstract, are autobiographical. Pre-plan the structure however tightly, make the approach as abstract as you can,... More >>

• When Musicals Matured: Three Revivals Recall Another Age

  published April 8, 2008

  South Pacific, Gypsy, and Juno: While the last was on view, briefly, you could sample three rich dollops of what might be... More >>

• Three Evenings With Young Playwrights: This Is Our Youth

  published April 1, 2008

  I've just spent three evenings watching the work of young playwrights—well, relatively young, since they all turn out to be over 30,... More >>

• Two New Productions Play Politics

  published March 25, 2008

  First criterion for a political play: usefulness. When people complain about the theater not being "political" enough, they usually mean that... More >>

• Three New Productions, Defined By Place

  published March 18, 2008

  In the theater, as in real estate, location is everything. I don't mean the location of the performance, but of the events that take place... More >>

• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Prowls

  published March 11, 2008

  What a relief it is to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. You're likely to hear plenty of complaints about the new production of Tennessee... More >>

• New Musicals: Of Three I Sing

  published March 4, 2008

  I went to three musicals this week and I enjoyed them all. But please, don't summon the men in the white coats just yet; my reasons are easy to... More >>

• Three Plays Just In From London

  published February 26, 2008

  I wish I could fathom the obsession some American theater types have with all things British. Granted, our culture, theater included, came from... More >>

• Flat-Panel Tuners

  published February 19, 2008

  I suppose I'm too demanding. All through Next to Normal, the new musical at Second Stage, I kept wondering what it would be like if it... More >>

• The Sad Funny Man

  published February 5, 2008

  Melancholy was his stock in trade. All his songs deal with misery, pain, and violence, usually visited on him. His primary activity in performance... More >>

• Slicing It Thin

  published February 5, 2008

  God may or may not be in the details, but most people seem to think reality is. The multitude of technological devices humans have invented to... More >>

• A Whirlwind Calmed

  published January 29, 2008

  How much factual information should a historical play contain? Like most big questions, this one leads to further questions rather than simple... More >>

• Disillusioning America

  published January 22, 2008

  The big, explosive laughter that starts early in David Mamet's November is of a kind I haven't heard in decades: It's the laughter of... More >>

• Spinoza debates God in David Ives's The New Jerusalem

  published January 15, 2008

  The full-evening length and entire seriousness of David Ives's Spinoza play, The New Jerusalem, may surprise people who think of Ives as... More >>