Word: broadway
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...BROADWAY BOUND Jokemeister Neil Simon has proved himself an artist in the trilogy that began with Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues. He reaches a pinnacle in this comic yet unflinching reflection on his parents' troubled marriage and the psychic origins of his own career...
FENCES In Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, August Wilson launched a cycle about black life in each decade of the century. His new work, mounted by the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Chicago and Seattle and scheduled for Broadway in March, depicts a baseball player turned sanitation worker in the 1950s. James Earl Jones has his most exciting role since The Great White Hope...
...liking this adaptation of the Off-Broadway musical hit -- it has no polish and a pushy way with a gag -- but the movie sneaks up on you, about as subtly as Audrey II. The songs are neat pastiches of '60s pop. The plant is an animatronic wonder, all blue gums, naughty tendrils and mighty mouth. Moranis and Greene make for a comely-homely pair of thwarted lovers, and Martin is his hilarious self, libeling all dentists who had just managed to forget Marathon Man. Then Bill Murray shows up as the perfect dental patient, sublime masochist to Martin's cheerful...
...surrender to the Hollywood Cast System. Roles played on Broadway by sharp actresses of minimum star wattage become brass rings for Oscar winners looking for the Next Big Thing. Though Crimes is an ensemble piece, the top gals inevitably compete for the dynamite scene and the revealing close-up. (One wag suggested that the producers should have cast Meryl Streep in all three roles.) So: good intentions, classy names, and what happens? Crimes is ossified into a movie misdemeanor...
...stars will end their touring in Palm Beach. "I was 73 the other day," says Martin. "My body doesn't have the resilience. People think it does because that's all they see. But the next day . . ." Channing, 63, who first met Martin when both were working on Broadway in the '40s, will also bow out. "I wouldn't consider doing it without Mary. The whole idea was doing it together." The legends may be leaving, but Legends will go on, perhaps even to Broadway in the spring. Alexis Smith is among those being considered for the task of following...