Category Archives: Theology

LYRIC’S FIDDLER ON THE ROOF: SWAN SONG FOR TRADITION

Fiddler on the Roof, the world-famous musical adaptation of the stories of Sholom Aleichem, opens with the glorious song, “Tradition”, which proudly announces the subject of the musical story about to unfold. The dean of American theater critics Harold Clurman explains what is meant here by “tradition”: “This tradition, which might superficially be taken to […]

September 29, 2022 – 3:14 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, Quotations, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on LYRIC’S FIDDLER ON THE ROOF: SWAN SONG FOR TRADITION

THE CHINESE LADY: HOW NOT TO TREAT A STRANGER

In their study of human behavior, ethologists have concluded certain facts about our species. One is curiosity. “In man, curiosity remains a prominent art pf behavior throughout life/ thus we can properly be called creatures of curiosity, and our curiosity maybe interpreted as a persistent juvenile characteristic. Indeed, we seek novelty even into our old […]

June 19, 2022 – 2:31 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, from Paul, History, Quotations, Science, Television, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on THE CHINESE LADY: HOW NOT TO TREAT A STRANGER

IRISH THEATRE OF CHICAGO: MOLLY SWEENEY – HAVING EYES BUT NOT SEEING

Molly Sweeney (1994), presented by the Irish Theatre of Chicago at the Chopin Theatre, is the second of two plays (the other is The Faith Healer (1979),  in which the great Irish playwright Brian Friel (1929-2015) explores the subjects of religion and science, faith and disappointment, and seeing and understanding. Healing is the topic of […]

May 1, 2022 – 4:55 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Quotations, Science, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on IRISH THEATRE OF CHICAGO: MOLLY SWEENEY – HAVING EYES BUT NOT SEEING

BOB DYLAN CONCERT: A “GHOSTLY APPEARANCE”

Since  it opened its doors in 1889 Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre has heard the world’s  great voices, in words, in music, and in both. On Wednesday, the eighty year old  Nobel Prize-winning Bob Dylan offered an inspired  concert which placed him in that pantheon of voices. Dylan opened the concert with 1971’s “Watching the River Flow”, […]

November 5, 2021 – 7:19 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Art, Current Events, from Paul, Music, Poetry, Quotations, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on BOB DYLAN CONCERT: A “GHOSTLY APPEARANCE”

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT: NON-STOP JOY

In the early 1970s countless undergraduate and graduate stage directing students had the “happy idea” of setting Shakespeare’s As You Like It in a then new and en vogue  Back-to-Nature commune,  populated mostly by trust fund baby revolutionaries fleeing Richard Nixon’s America. Arden was a Vermont ashram, the center of the American counterculture, home to […]

October 31, 2021 – 6:47 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT: NON-STOP JOY