Essays about Culture Page 224

Shortly before his death in 1956, Bertolt Brecht, in a characteristic moment of reflective irony, told a colleague that “the man who makes himself indispensable is up to no good.” A lifetime behind him of skipping town whenever indispensable leaders such as Hitler and the House on Un-American Activities Committee were hot on his trail,…

Officials in Cobb County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, voted to cut all county arts funding in late August, after initially moving to pass a resolution to restrict funding to organizations and programming that “advance and support strong community and family-oriented standards.” The anti-arts vote sidestepped the issue of free speech guarantees by eliminating support…

I’m trying to move away from the light form of the drawing-room comedy,” A. R. Gurney told a New York Times interviewer in 1989, in an article focusing on the success (despite a mixed Times review) of The Cocktail Hour, his semi-autobiographical piece about a playwright who informs his parents he’s used them as characters…

But Endowment reauthorization is still pending Congress, leaving Washington in the dog days of August, barely completed the grueling budget bill – a painstakingly achieved piece of legislation that contains several provisions of interest to the nonprofit arts community, for whom the bill’s passage is seen as a success. One of the most important victories…

Musical theatre works about painters are, in a odd sort of way, like movies about baseball stars. There’s no reason they shouldn’t work, but they rarely do. Goya has been the subject of hugely unsuccessful pieces by Gian Carlo Menotti and Maury Yeston. Frida, a portrayal of Frida Kahlo, was a mixed success last year…

The unveiling of a new play by Edward Albee at an American professional theatre is a rare event, but it will happen this fall at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. Lee Blessing is working on his second world premiere at the theatre in as many years. A new Eric Overmyer piece is expected to be on…

the translator, the actor and the poet are of imagination all compact–at least for Paul Schmidt they are. A true renaissance man of the theatre, Schmidt seems anomalous in our late 20th-century world of micro-specialization: a poet who translates, a translator who acts, an actor who writes plays, a playwright who writes poems. But lest…

Afternoon of the Elves, Y York’s new play adapted from the novel by Janet Taylor Lisle, tells a remarkable story about two girls, their parents, and the backyards which embody their vastly different lives and personal views of the world. It poses a serious question about contemporary notions and codes concerning families and social conscience….

What place can live theatre possibly hold in the 500-channel, multimedia-interactive, digital entertainment future? Prophecies of the high-tech millennium tend to divide theatre artists into several camps: those who want to get their hands on futuristic toys and play with them, on stage and off; those who dismiss silicon novelties in a high-toned huff and…

Seattle’s Alice B. calls itself “a gay and lesbian theatre for all people.” Nothing the group has produced in its nine-year history better exemplifies what that phrase might mean than Sub Rosa. Sub Rosa started out with writer-director Nikki Appino’s desire to explore the material and atmosphere of German cabaret between the World Wars, and…