Artists should “no longer huddle in the confines of a painted box set” but instead join together to “find visible and audible expression for the tempo and psychology of our time” and dramatize “the search of the average American today for knowledge about his country and his world.” – Hallie Flanagan, Federal Theatre Project
Stick Fly [...]

by Bill Marx
On his way to the Cologne literature festival earlier this week, dissident Chinese writer Liao Yiwu was escorted off the plane by the Chinese authorities and handed over to the police for interrogation. He has sent an open letter to the world, available in English, asking for help.
Share/Save

Highlights on stage this month include the world premiere of a drama about evolution by a respected local playwright and an intriguing collection of plays and musicals that bring an unusual perspective to topics ranging from love and music to extinction and dehumanization. And the wait is over: a show featuring singing dinosaurs has arrived.

By [...]

Boredom is the root of all evil . . . The influence that it exerts is altogether magical, except that it is not the influence of attraction, but of repulsion. — Søren Kierkegaard, “Either/Or”
Private Fears in Public Places by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by David J. Miller. Set design by Miller. Staged by the [...]

There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
that lift and drop a question on your plate
— From “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot, 1917
Not Enough Air by Masha Obolensky. Directed by Melia Bensussen. Set designed by Eric Levenson. Staged by the Nora Theatre [...]

(I am one of the judges for the Best Translated Book Award (fiction division) sponsored by Three Percent. The five finalists will be announced in New York on February 16th. Three Percent honcho Chad Post needed help to meet his goal of posting a commentary on each of the 25 volumes on the BTB’s fiction [...]

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 [...]

A recent piece in the New York Times provides further proof of the increasingly pernicious stranglehold marketing exerts on the production of new voices in the theater.
By Bill Marx
Let’s face it—the fastest growing segment of non-profit hiring in the arts over the past decade or so, marketing, is now pretty much in the cultural [...]

By Bill Marx
The coming month offers some unusual examples of theater. Finished with “exploding” Shakespeare, the American Repertory Theater has decided to present the American classics unabridged. Produced by the Elevator Repair Service, “Gatz” is an evening of drama that revolves around a complete reading of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Political point-scoring [...]

Because of my gig at WGBH’s The World I read works in translation when I have the chance. Here’s an idiosyncratic round-up of first-rate literary stocking stuffers from around the globe.
By Bill Marx
Some of my favorite books from around the world this year raise the thorny issue of the relationship between literature new and [...]