Konstantine Stanislavski Love art in yourself and not yourself in art.
Harold Clurman The stage is life, music, beautiful girls, legs, breasts, not talk or intellectualism or dried-up academics.
by Geoff Hoff~
It has been said that an artist should not be held accountable for his early work. Anton Chekhov was already established as an innovative short story writer when he was commissioned to write a full length play. (He had also written several comedic shorts for the stage.) In his prose, he strove to [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
What was scandalous in the 60s is slightly less scandalous now. Casual attitudes toward homosexuality, infidelity, corrupt politicians and medical professionals, all presented in the guise of a light-hearted, door-slamming farce, were concepts that were shocking to audiences then. Now they seem almost quaint.
Joe Orton wrote What the Butler Saw, his final play, [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock, to horribly misquote one of its own characters, is “a darlin’ play. A darlin’ play.” It is, like much Irish art, a fine and disturbing mixture of comedy and tragedy, of fantasy and reality. It could even be considered a precursor to the very American [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
Julia Migenes is a ham. She loves opera and opera singers (especially those substantial Wagnerian Sopranos) and also loves poking fun at them. Diva on the Verge is Ms. Migenes’ saucy love letter to her chosen profession. At the outset, she tells the audience that, if they’re there looking for grand opera, they’re [...]
by Sylvia Blush ~
Nightsong for the Boatman is your basic morality play. Playwright Jovanka Bach doesn’t bring up a new convention in the telling of the story, but the floorplan is laid out cleanly. Its non-linear set-up helps support her main character’s distorted view on his own righteousness.
Harry (played by John DiFusco) is [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
Just once, I’d like to see the story of a woman from a privileged and affluent background who is living with the Bohemian artist, but falls madly and irrationally in love with the rich industrialist or Wall Street up-and-comer with whom she cheats on her uncaring but passionate artist.
The Bedroom Window, the new [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
Alan Ayckbourn has written more plays than many of us have seen in our lives, some 74 full length ones at last count, not to mention a one-act, plays for children, screenplays, scripts for television and radio, sketches for reviews and at least one book. He loves playing with setting. In Norman [...]
by Marcus Kaye~
Procreation takes a long, hard look at a dysfunctional family and the issues with, you guessed it, procreation. Directed by David Schweizer and written by Justin Tanner, Procreation is a troubled, crowded piece of theater.
The production was troubled from the get go. Originally set to open in New York City (where producers Linda [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
Alistair Beaton’s 2007 translation of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists (which was first translated into English as The Firebugs), now playing in its American premier at the Odyssey Theatre, is an allegorical and absurdist black comedy which examines middle class complacency in the face of great evil. Originally directed pointedly at the German people [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
Duel Citizens is actually two distinct plays with little in common besides that in each, all the characters are played by one person.
In Look, What I don’t Understand, a young family man from communist Bulgaria tries, with his family, to enter the United States as a political refugee in 1969. Through flashbacks we [...]
