Heavier on theater events than its predecessors, this year's Lincoln Center Festival (which will have ended before these interim thoughts appear) is also unusual in featuring works made by foreign troupes for viewing in their home cities. Past festivals were plagued by the kind of vibrancy-free theater that always seems to have been manufactured in grant expediters' offices, solely to bore the rich suckers who patronize the world's festival circuit. This year's offerings may reflect the same troubling questions about the condition of theater worldwide, but at least you could believe, while watching, that they existed because an audience residing in France or Chile or Taiwan might actually go to see them. In lieu of the numbing hours of artistic emptiness that the culture snobs cure with gulps of overpriced champagne, this year's festival was full of moments�though too often they were only moments�when theater seemed like something human beings could enjoy, take pride in, and want to share with people in... More >>>