More than any other art, theater asks for relevance. A play that convinces us that “this is the way it is now” can be excused many shortcomings. At any one moment there is a particular quality of feeling which dominates in human intercourse, a tonality which marks the present from the past, and when this [...]

The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess by Andrei Codrescu, Princeton University Press, 248 pages, $16.95.
Reviewed by Harvey Blume
In 1916, as Europe waged an horrific war that, nearly a century later, makes even less sense, if possible, than it did at the time, refugees, renegades, draft dodgers, opportunists, revolutionaries and artists massed in [...]

Whether you’re a Jungian or a Freudian, think Jung was a genius or charlatan, or even if you’re someone who’s never given much thought to psychotherapy, the exhibition on the “The Red Book” at New York City’s Rubin Museum of Art (which runs through February 15) is worth a visit.
THE RED BOOK by C.G. [...]

By Justin Marble
“The Beaches of Agnes” At the Coolidge Corner Cinema
If a motif exists in Agnes Varda’s sprawling new documentary, “The Beaches of Agnes,” it may just be the art of walking backwards. The 81-year-old director, famous among the art house crowd for French New Wave films like “Cleo from 5 to 7,” has a [...]

By Bill Marx
A number of new pieces on World Books since the last update in September, including my podcast interview with Benjamin Moser about his biography of Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) entitled “Why This World” from Oxford University Press.
The Brazilian writer’s challenging stream-of-consciousness technique, lack of political bite, physical beauty and, Moser argues, her [...]

Observe the ass … his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals. — Mark Twain, “Pudd’nhead Wilson”
The Donkey Show Conceived by Randy Weiner. Directed by Diane Paulus and Randy Weiner. Presented by the American Repertory Theater at Zero Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA Presented by American Repertory Theater, at [...]

THE THOMASHEVSKYS: MUSIC AND MEMORIES OF A LIFE IN THE YIDDISH THEATER. Written and hosted by Michael Tilson Thomas. Directed by Patricia Birch, with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.
by Helen Epstein
I’m a fan of the serious introspective kind of memoir, that tries to wrest meaning from existential and emotional chaos. But I’m [...]

By Bill Marx
Veteran “Village Voice” theater critic Michael Feingold has written a good column on the tragic news, for some, that the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, the organizations that jointly manage Broadway’s annual Tony Awards, have decided to remove the first-night theater press from the ranks of Tony voters.
Some hand-wringers charge [...]

by Helen Epstein
Go here for information about a live-chat, scheduled for August 23rd, with Helen Epstein on “The Art of Narrative Writing.”
They were around for most of my lifetime, I thought as I listened to Martin Bookspan, the 83-year-old radio announcer and music commentator and 80-year-old conductor, composer, and jazz artist Andre Previn.
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By Bill Marx
The ruckus kicked up by Yale University Press’s refusal to include cartoons offensive to some Muslims in a forthcoming book called “The Cartoons that Shook the World” underlines the ironic difference between offensive words and images. (Perhaps Yale U Press should re-title the censored version of the book “The Cartoons That Only Shook [...]