Jesse Oxfeld
By Jesse Oxfeld
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Culture Reimagining Isaac Babel In The Era Of Fake News: Rajiv Joseph’s Obie-Winning Play
Editor’s note: “Describe The Night” won the 2018 Obie Award for best new American play. Below, read Jesse Oxfeld’s review of the play’s New York debut at the Atlantic Theater Company. There is fiction and there is fact. There is history and there is myth. There is truth and there is fake news. Or else…
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Culture NPR’s Bob Garfield Is Still Searching For His Identity — Jewish and Otherwise
Bob Garfield has been a newspaper reporter, an ad critic, a roving national correspondent for NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and, currently, the host of WNYC’s “On the Media.” Now he’s also a playwright and stage performer, taking his autobiographical one-man show, “Ruggedly Jewish,” to weekend performances around the country. He’ll be at the Majorie S….
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Culture Amy Schumer Shines As ‘Shiksa Goddess’ In Steve Martin’s Dim-Watted Play
Amy Schumer, in her Broadway debut, proves herself a competent stage actress, an unsurprisingly gifted physical comedian, and, remarkably, a formidable shiska goddess. It’s just a shame the vehicle bringing her here, Steve Martin’s “Meteor Shower,” is quite so stubbornly earthbound. Martin’s latest— the multitalented onetime “Saturday Night Live” star previously wrote the absurdist comedy…
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Film & TV Gay And Jewish Themes Converge Once Again In ‘Torch Song’
“I have taught myself to sew, cook, fix plumbing, do taxes; I can even pat myself on the back when necessary,” Arnold Beckoff tells his mother. “All so I don’t have to ask anyone for anything. There is nothing I need from anyone except for love and respect. And anyone who can’t give me those…
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Culture He Brought Us ‘Fiddler,’ ‘Evita’ And ‘Cabaret’ — But Is A Musical About Him Any Good?
We learn surprisingly little about the Broadway legend Hal Prince in his new musical, “Prince of Broadway.” But one thing we do learn is this: When Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick offered him the chance to direct “Fiddler on the Roof,” he demurred. “I explained that I was not familiar enough with the history of…
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Culture The Trump Resistance Begins On Broadway
The telescreens mounted above the doorways from the Hudson Theatre’s lobby to its auditorium — you might call them Samsung plasmas, but you’d be missing the point — display some familiar slogans: “War Is Peace”; “Ignorance Is Strength”; “Love Is Fear.” “This Bill That Cuts Billions From Medicaid Does Not Cut Medicaid” is not among…
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Film & TV Bette Midler Is Broadway’s Hottest Ticket — But Why Is ‘Hello, Dolly! Still A Thing?
Just because a musical was a hit with a long run, that doesn’t mean it’s a great show. And “Hello, Dolly!” is perhaps the proof point. Its Broadway debut won 10 Tonys, played for nearly seven years, and was for a time the longest-running Broadway musical ever. It led to the movie, three revivals, and…
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Culture 110 Years Later, This Tragic Yiddish Scandal Is More Timely Than Ever
The opening moments of “Indecent” are breathtaking. As you enter the Cort Theatre, where this Yiddish-theater drama-within-a-drama opened tonight, the cast is waiting, sitting quietly in an upstage row of chairs, dressed in early-20th-century clothes, valises at their sides. When the play begins, they stand and make their way onto the raised stage in front…
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