Going to see an intense, absurdist Hebrew play performed in Yiddish for 20 people in Manhattan’s West Village may not be the most esoteric entertainment I’ve enjoyed in my decade at the Forward (though it surely comes close), but explaining its significance presents a challenge. And yet, just like Hanoch Levin’s “The Labor of Life”…
On May 2, 1949, Arthur Miller, then 33, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for “Death of a Salesman.” It was one of several remarkable moments in what was, for Miller, a remarkable year. “Death of a Salesman” swept up most of the season’s available theatrical awards, including the Tony Award for Best Author,…
In 1985, “Palestinian Girl,” a drama by Joshua Sobol, Israel’s most famous and prolific living playwright, premiered in the Haifa Theater. A story about a love affair between an Israeli man and a Palestinian woman whose relationship is being destroyed by right-wing thugs, the play was controversial, but a huge success. This was a few…
In May 1943, at Vienna’s Burg theater, the Nazi party staged its most famous production of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.” It starred Werner Krauss, a man so anti-Semitic that he is said to have asked Joseph Goebbels to make a public announcement clarifying that he was not Jewish, but rather habitually played Jewish caricatures…
The amazing, bar-raising production of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is unlike anything I’ve seen on Broadway. The $63 million budget, the total renovation of the Lyric Theater into a theme-park-like immersive Potterworld experience, the staging, the two-part/five-hour length (for a mass-market play) – watching it felt like seeing the opening of “Cats” or…
Based on one of Israel’s most celebrated movies — the multiple Ophir-winning “Bikur HaTizmoret” (“The Band’s Visit,” 2007) by Eran Kolirin — “The Band’s Visit” is this year’s surprise Broadway hit. The musical features Tony Shalhoub (“Monk” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) playing — and singing! — alongside Katrina Lenk (who recently starred in “Indecent”)….
“You just have to meet your bashert,” says grandma, sagely. Jordan, her late-20s grandson, is despairing that his friends are all getting married and he’s still alone. “And you will,” grandma continues, “because you’re the most wonderful grandson in the world.” Jordan is sad, but he’s also smart and a smartass. “I don’t think that’s…
David Mamet has written a new play, and, unlike his last three new ones produced in New York, it is not offensively bad. It is merely not at all good. That’s not quite true. It is potentially, slightly, maybe a little bit good. It is centered on a kernel of a good and interesting idea:…
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