Word: chekhovs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...know who else theater companies say that about?" asks Night Music director Nunn. "Chekhov." When it comes to Sondheim, debate about the future of the musical misses the point. He occupies a place in the pantheon not of musical theater, but of theater itself...
...perks of being a theater critic, in those dog days of the season when you find yourself struggling to sit through the latest Chekhov revival or pretentious little comedy about tightly wound New York singles, is the Broadway-musical revival. Yes, you can complain - as I often have - about unimaginative commercial producers who keep recycling surefire classics like Gypsy or Guys and Dolls. But there's good reason they're recycled so often: they are surefire - unfailingly entertaining, no matter how uninspired the production, the indomitable high points of a genre that is America's great contribution to world theater...
...troubles began on the prompt, “Name the world’s most famous author.” After Shakespeare, I couldn’t divine what a famous author meant to the faceless, average American. My mind reverted to its natural state. Chekhov, Joyce, Faulkner, and Proust all ran through my head. A small part of me knew that these were a Harvard student’s picks, not an average homemaker’s. Flustered, I grabbed for something, anything. Melville seemed like a reasonable choice—even if someone hasn’t read...
...less stirred by the revival that has received the most resounding critical huzzahs of the fall, the London Royal Court theatre's production of Chekhov's The Seagull. Kristin Scott Thomas is the biggest star name in this one, and as Arkadina, the aging actress around whom revolves a typically Chekhovian slice of unhappy provincial life, she's just fine, if somewhat less the diva than I imagine Arkadina on the page. Indeed, the whole cast deserves high grades (though Peter Sarsgaard, an American ringer among the Brits, brings down the curve a bit). What bothered me was the fussy...
...probably unfair to compare the subtleties of Chekhov with the high-strung dramatics of Arthur Miller, but at least Simon McBurney, director of the gripping new revival of All My Sons, seems energized by the play rather than enervated by it. McBurney, artistic director of the avant-garde Complicite theater company, has reimagined Miller's domestic drama as a stylized mixture of Brecht and Euripedes. The main characters open the play by announcing they're going to perform a play for us; supertitles introduce us to "Act I," "Act 2" and even the "Intermission." The set is spare and semi...