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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think
The Crucible
I have a strong suspicion that the most important piece of theater this year was one I missed: Richard Nelson’s three-part “The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family,” at the Public Theater. His previous masterpiece, the “Apple Family Plays,” written in near real-time, was a richly novelistic examination of a liberal family…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Indecent
In May I left a preview for “Indecent” at Manhattan’s Vineyard Theater uncharacteristically silent. The play was advertised as a tale about Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” a Yiddish play that famously closed after one night on Broadway, with its entire cast arrested on charges of obscenity. “Indecent,” co-created by playwright Paula Vogel and director…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Next Thing
‘Next Thing,” the latest album from Frankie Cosmos, is a masterclass in “Less is more.” The album has 15 songs but runs for only 28 minutes. These 28 minutes, however, have significantly more depth than their run-time suggests. Lead singer Greta Kline (daughter of actors Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates) uses bare bones synths and…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Sebastian Junger’s ‘Tribe’
I was going to say how much I enjoyed the personal whimsy and occasional profundity of Joseph Skibell’s “My Father’s Guitar,” a collection of autobiographical and stylish stories. But then, the tribes spoke at the ballot box, in the United Kingdom and then in America. The outpouring of (often unacceptable) antipathy towards people outside of…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Citizen
I read Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen: An American Lyric” this summer, as I started a new job, teaching at a high-needs public school in New Orleans. Soon before the school year began, Alton Sterling was shot and killed by a white police officer in nearby Baton Rouge. I tried to process the onslaught of police murders…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Embedded
A welcome antidote for those in withdrawal from “Serial” (or for those who didn’t find the second season of “Serial” as satisfying as the first), “Embedded,” hosted by NPR’s Kelly McEvers, provided a master class in longform radio journalism. The podcast equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative piece in The Atlantic or The New York…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Jenny Diski’s ‘In Gratitude’
Jenny Diski’s “In Gratitude” resonates as sharply as a slap to the face: Wake up, the book demands. Inspired by the author’s diagnosis of terminal cancer in 2014 (she died in April of this year), it tells a pair of interwoven stories: first, that of Diski’s dying, and then the saga of her teenage years,…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Notes From the Field
No options but jail or death; look askance at a cop at your own peril; we’re failing our kids, our young adults, our own humanity. These are but some of the messages Anna Deavere Smith channeled in her indelible show, “Notes From the Field.” Melding journalism, anthropology and performance, Smith stitched a riveting investigation of…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Stranger to Stranger
Paul Simon has intimated that “Stranger to Stranger” will be his last album (“I am going to see what happens if I let go,” he told The New York Times) — but wow does he ever go out on a high note. The first two cuts get stuck in your head – “The Werewolf,” an…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Disney’s Jewish Princess Moana
By Laura Albert Growing up Jewish in Brooklyn, I often heard that Jews were the Chosen People. So, imagine my surprise when I realized that Moana, the Polynesian princess in Disney’s new animated feature, repeatedly proclaims herself to be “chosen.” She is chosen to save her people — and she has no doubt that she…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Falsettos
The best play I saw on Broadway this year was the revival of “Falsettos.” From its opening number, “Four Jews in a Room Bitching,” to its tear-inducing bar mitzvah denouement, it is also the most haimish. “Falsettos” tells a story of love and family in the late 20th Century and it resonates as clearly today…
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