David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish is a highly improbable but entertaining diversion about a U.S. sign-company owner from Cleveland who goes to China to persuade government tourism officials that they need better translations. For example, Deformed men’s toilet doesn’t quite cut it for handicapped men’s toilet. The play benefits from comic, fast-paced direction by Leigh Silverman.
100Reporters, Jan 19, 2012 — Mitt Romney, who makes his hands-on business experience a talking point in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, was a member of the board of directors and audit committee of a global company when it paid millions of dollars to settle charges of extracting kickbacks that cheated clients.
The company is Marriott International and the accusers were hotel owners who had hired Marriott to manage their properties under the Marriott name.
In recent weeks, Romney has come under fire for his role at Bain Capital. But his actions as an independent director at Marriott in the late 1990s and again just two years ago open another window on the candidate‘s record in business and leadership qualities.
Eric Schaeffer’s moving, elegant production of Follies is dramatic proof of Steven Sondheim’s brilliance – the subtle combination of emotional focus and scintillating musical panache and wit. It is said best by the show’s name, Follies, which has a double meaning. It refers to the high-kicking vaudeville show the women of the show danced in their youths and to the foolish decisions of human beings. The book is by James Goldman, who is perfectly attuned to Sondheim’s sensibility.
Weird is relative, you might say about the characters in these three rather bizarre comedies about relatives as a connecting theme. The self-involvement of a wife when her husband dies, the revelations set off by a couple who flee a wedding at which one was to be wed, the impact of marital conflict on an unborn son, everything turns on the unexpected, which of course is what makes memorable comedy.
