Let us hob-and-nob with Death — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Duck Variations by David Mamet. Directed by Marcus Stern. Sexual Perversity in Chicago by David Mamet. Directed by Paul Stacey. Presented by the American Repertory Theatre at Zero Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA, through June 28.
Reviewed by Bill Marx
Death be not mentioned in David Mamet’s early [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
Starting in 1769 serious questions have been raised as to whether William Shakespeare (1564-1616) of Stratford-upon-Avon actually wrote the plays and poems attributed to him. For some years the true author was claimed to be Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). So far, at least sixty persons have been put forward as the rightful writer. [...]

Sometimes I wonder if Euripides saw the very texture of reality as ironic. Saw the gods in their interactions with human beings as essentially playing. A frightening idea. But at least it entails the assumption that Euripides himself was not playing. Anne Carson, in her introduction to her translation of Euripides’ “Orestes” in “An Oresteia.”

Melissa [...]

Commedia dell’arte performers doing their thing in the HTC world premiere production of “The Miracle at Naples.”

The Miracle at Naples, a new comedy by David Grimm. Directed by Peter DuBois. Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, through May 9, 2009.
Reviewed by Bill [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb

Some of the dancing feet in a scene from the Boston Conservatory production of “42nd Street.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a sucker for tapdancing – whether the unsurpassed solo hoofing of the late Gregory Hines (1946-2003) or an entire stage of unison clickety-clacking. Tapdancing was a stage staple in [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
NEW YORK, NY: Founded in 1971, the Theater Hall of Fame inducted the usual eight new members at a January 26 ceremony in the Gershwin Theatre. Actress Dana Ivey officiated at the 38th annual celebration as Mistress of Ceremonies. Inductees are voted on by the [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
NEW YORK CITY–Nearly thirty years ago – 14 December 1979, to be exact – the estimable Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) opened at its off-Broadway venue a play by one of its actors, Samm-Art Williams. Entitled “Home,” the production proved one of its major hits, and was extended thrice its scheduled run to 82 [...]

By Bill Marx
Earlier this month, Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, stoked up the cultural consternation machine when he implied that American writers are too provincial to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. American literary life is “too isolated, too insular” he opines, its writers don’t translate particularly well and they aren’t players [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
“The Winter’s Tale” is one of the glories of our theatrical inheritance. Of Shakespeare’s total output, the Big Four tragedies stand at the head. Then comes “Twelfth Night,” the greatest comedy in our language. Next I would place “The Winter’s Tale” as the finest of the late romances, though most people would rank [...]

By Bill Marx

A scene from the world premiere production of Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian’s “Of Mountains and Seas.”
“Of Mountains and Seas: A Tragicomedy of the Gods in Three Acts”
By Gao Xingjian. Translated from the Chinese by Gilbert C.F. Fong
The Chinese University Press, distributed by Columbia University Press

Filled with wise-cracking mythological demons and gods behaving badly, [...]