Millennial stages : essays and reviews, 2001-2005 / Robert Brustein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brustein, Robert, 1927-2023.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--United States.

Theater.

Theater--United States--Reviews.

Drama--History and criticism.

Drama.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (xviii, 282 p.))

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven, [Conn.] : Yale University Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A major figure in the world of theater as critic, playwright, scholar, teacher, director, actor, and producer, Robert Brustein offers a unique perspective on the American stage and its artists. In this wise, witty, and wide-ranging collection of recent writings, Brustein examines crucial issues relating to theater in the post-9/11 years, analyzing specific plays, emerging and established performers, and theatrical production throughout the world. Brustein relates our theater to our society in a manner that reminds us why the performing arts matter. Millennial Stages records Brustein's thinking on the important issues "roiling the national soul" at the start of the twenty-first century. His opening section explores the connections between theater and society, theater and politics, and theater and religion, and it is followed by reviews of such landmark productions as The Producers and Spamalot, Long Day's Journey into Night and King Lear. In his final section, Brustein reflects on people and places of importance in the world of theater today, including Marlon Brando and Arthur Miller and Australia and South Africa.

Contents:

Millennial Stages

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One: Positions and Polemics

No Time for Comedy

The New Relevance

Does Theatre Matter?

Maiming the Messenger

Words on Fire

The Rebirth of Political Theatre: The God of Hell; Democracy

When Dramaturgs Ruled the Earth

Red and Blue States of Mind: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Terrorism

Part Two: Plays and Productions

Varieties of Histrionic Experience: Medea; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Mind Over Material: The Invention of Love; Mnemonic

The Jew Who Buried Hitler: The Producers

The Harrowing of Hell: In the Penal Colony; Hamlet; and Hamlet

Angels in Afghanistan: Homebody/Kabul

Goat Song: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

Comedy Is Harder: Private Lives; The Underpants

Prescient Plays: Far Away; A Number

Clever Ladies: Imaginary Friends; Adult Entertainment

Creations: Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night; Take Me Out; Our Lady of 121st Street

Dysfunctional Families, Dysgenic Dynasties: Salome; Gypsy; Long Day's Journey into Night

Smelly Orthodoxies: A Bad Friend; I Am My Own Wife

Shotover's Apocalypse: Omnium Gatherum; Anna in the Tropics

Palace and Garden: Maria Stuart; House and Garden

The Political Power of Puns: Caroline, or Change; The Beard of Avon

A King and Two Queens: King Lear; Valhalla

Homeboy Godot: Topdog/ Underdog; Fortune's Fool

Pyrotechnics and Ice: Jumpers; Frozen

The Past Revisited: The Frogs; After the Fall

In the Jungle: Rose Rage; Hedda Gabler

Impersonations: Monty Python's Spamalot; Orson's Shadow; Julius Caesar

Prosecution Plays: Doubt; Romance; The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; The Pillowman; Thom Pain (Based on Nothing); The Light in the Piazza

Theatre of the Mushy Tushy: Le dernier caravansérail (Odyssées)

Lear's Lendings: King Lear

Part Three: People and Places

Marlon Brando: Contempt for Acting

Requiem for Jan Kott

Pieter-Dirk Uys: The Good Hope of the Cape

Theatre in Australia: The Cultural Cringe

Theatre in South Africa: Fronting

MASS MoCa: A Boom in the Boonies

Hallie Flanagan Davis and the Federal Theatre: Hallie's Comet

Suzan-Lori Parks: Does Race Matter?

Kenneth Tynan and Peter Brook: The Cavalier and the Roundhead

Shakespeare in Bloom: The Two Noble Kinsmen; Henry IV; As You Like It

George S. Kaufman: Keeping Company with Kaufman

Shakespeare's Geography

Primo Levi: The Saved and the Damned

The Death of Arthur Miller

Richard Gilman: Prisoner on the Aisle

Laurence Olivier and Elia Kazan: The Peer and the Pariah

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

1-281-73510-8

9786611735104

0-300-13536-X

OCLC:

1024014888