Monthly Archives: November 2013

The Hypocrites’ Mikado: A Masterpiece Restored

When Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado opened in New York in 1886 Harper’s Magazine called it “pure rollicking fun. It is capital nonsense.” Since that time few productions of the great operetta have been worthy of those words. Time had accumulated layers of dust on the great and wild operetta.  Now a band of wise, […]

Hamlet in Jack Bauer-land

We returned to the Music Box Theater to see an encore of Nicholas Hynter’s 2010 Hamlet at the National Theatre. First of all, Rory Kinnear may be the finest Hamlet I have ever seen. His clear love of the language and linguistic devices arises from his clear conception of the character and the situation. “I […]

Smokefall by Noah Haidle: An American Classic

Smokefall by Noah Haidle, which I saw yesterday, is a great and important play, given a definitive, defining, and dazzling production by the Goodman Theatre. The occasion should be marked in theater history along with the Miller, Kazan, Mielziner collaboration on the birth of Death of a Salesman,Mr. Haidle’s play and the Goodman production are […]