The story of America has always been about the narrative, especially the righteousness of America’s foreign adventures or political leaders’ devotion to the public good. The country’s founding history is central to establishing America’s virtue. So, the narrative about Thomas Jefferson is that he was a heroic American patriot who wrote the Declaration of Independence (drum roll, “all men are created equal”) and served as the third American president.
Director Germán Kral’s fine “Adiós Buenos Aires” is a realistic and sensitive look at the lives of working-class Argentines desperately trying to survive and even prosper in the face of a government that does little for their welfare and, to top that, suddenly in 2001 limits withdrawals from their own bank accounts. All true. But the film is not depressing. It’s warm and appealing.
“Corruption” is the most important play in New York this season. In a mesmerizing true crime narrative, it documents the takeover of the UK by sleazy media, bought or cowed political leaders and even top paid-off law enforcement officials. No, this is not fiction.
John Patrick Shanley’s play opened in 2004, but is set forty years earlier in 1964. It deals with complex themes of suspicion, faith, and morality surrounding the possibility of child sexual abuse. The issue of pedophilia by Roman Catholic clergy in the U.S. was first publicized in 1985 when a Louisiana priest pleaded guilty to molesting boys. But even though the scandal is not raised in the play, Shanley knows that is in the minds of the audience.
If you don’t have the time to read or listen to every argument about the Israeli-Palestinian question, spend an evening at the Public Theater production of “The Ally” (ie America’s ally, Israel) and you will get it all. In an entertaining and succinct fashion. From the voices of characters who represent the various sides and in-between of the debates. Playwright Itamar Moses has presented a theatrically staged event that could easily have occurred, and parts already have in U.S. spaces, especially universities, where this story takes place. Director Lila Neugebauer allows passion to power the arguments without ever becoming nasty.
Kelli O’Hara is spectacular in “Days of Wine and Roses.” Sometimes her voice soars so high that you don’t pay attention to the lyrics. It’s a depressing play about two alcoholics, one who recovers and one who doesn’t. But in her operatic soprano, you can listen to the joyous sounds that that give you a lift even as what’s unfolding on stage is a downer. But this is not unusual in the canon of opera. The book is by Craig Lucas and the bracing modern music and lyrics by Adam Guettel.
If I was writing this review as a drama, where I could make things up, I would say “Congratulations to the Deep State (aka CIA & Co), which has moved from propaganda films into propaganda theater. However, Langley guys, you need some theatrical help. Your “Russian Troll Farm” at the Vineyard is the most crude, amateurish, nasty piece of pseudo-theatrical claptrap I have seen reviewing theater since 1998 when I became a member of the Drama Desk.”
“Phantom Parrot’ is an alarming film about a repressive UK law aimed at individuals the UK government doesn’t like because they support victims of repression by countries the UK does like. It was directed by Kate Stonehill and produced by Steven Lake and presented by The Double Exposure film festival in Washington in November.
I visited Russia twice, before and after the collapse of Communism and even attempted to learn Russian, not getting much beyond waiter and taxi talk, though I can pick up film and political speakers with the help of subtitles. So as an investigative reporter, not a film critic, to understand this film about a Russian editor who won a Nobel Prize, I sent a screening of this film to world-class Russia expert, Richard Sakwa. He is Emeritus Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent (England). He was also the head of the University’s Politics and International Relations department, has lived and taught in Russia and has published sixteen books on Soviet, Russian and post-communist affairs.
Through the lens of one Jewish family in Paris, “Prayer for the French Republic” delves into the thorny issues of identity, racism, and anti-Semitism. And to what country you belong. Seen from an intimately human perspective, these divisive political debates couldn’t be more pointed or timely. The work by Joshua Harmon premiered off-Broadway two years ago and reopened on Broadway last month.
“Our Class” by Tadeusz Słobodzianek, one of Poland’s most important playwrights, is a powerful and dramatic exploration of the impact of anti-Semitism and betrayal in a Polish village during and after World War II. It is based on a true story, a pogrom 80 years ago when 1600 Jews in a Polish village were murdered by their classmates, neighbors and friends.
Jan 25, 2024 – Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah BouHabib spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations Monday, Jan 22. I asked him why Arab countries are not acting to protect the Palestinians. He didn’t answer the question.
“All Static and Noise” is what its title says, lots of static and noise, not much clarity, an anti-China propaganda film about claimed repression of the Uyghurs, Muslims living in Xinjiang in the northwest of China.
From working class kid to a master director/choreographer. That would have been story enough. But “Anuncia” is a charming, moving feminist story of a family of women who made that happen in the face of a repressive government in Argentina. Think of it as another take on “Evita,” the story of Eva Perón, who built her career on marriage with the president. This family was in the opposition.
The promotion for “Spain,” a new play by Jen Silverman, says, “Step into a sophisticated, slippery world where the line between truth and fiction is all in the packaging. It’s 1936, and a pair of passionate filmmakers have landed their next big project: a sweeping Spanish Civil War film with the potential to change American hearts and minds. It just happens to be bankrolled by the KGB. Unfortunately, the promo is fiction.
Artist Judy Chicago is known for her feminist work “The Dinner Party” (1974-79), plates depicting women’s lives, on permanent exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Not as well known, but very pertinent now, a few decades later, she created another dinner, “Rainbow Shabbat,” challenging hostilities between religious partisans.
Patrick Page’s brilliant one-man show on how Shakespeare invented the villain is a combination of theater piece, master class and college literature lecture. In a purple pullover and vest, before a red curtain, through his acting and explanations, he shows how William Shakespeare developed his villainous characters from crudely evil to confounded with moral dilemmas, even if they defeated conscience and killed at the end. And how he dealt with the mythology of evil in popular culture, such as the Jew as rapacious money-lender and Lady Macbeth conjuring evil spirits.
Reading another of the “Kissinger the killer” stories, I came across a link in Rolling Stone to a piece I wrote in 1999 that revealed for the first time how Kissinger met with Pinochet and told him he though what he was doing was great to fight the Communists. I had discovered links to documents in the Ford Presidential Library and gotten them through a FOIA request.
“Spamalot” was a 1975 Monty Python film and a 2005 Broadway play famous for offending particular sectors of society. Does that hold up? Can you still insult significant groups without being cancelled? Can you attack sacred cows (vaches) without being de-platformed? On the other hand, has book and lyric writer Eric Idle taken the easy way out by sucking up to the groups that wield power in the theatrical system? And can I get away with suggesting it?
Nov 24, 2023 – This is my favorite float of New York’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a charming snowflake train trailed by clowns. I like it not just because of the elegance, but because it is not selling something. Not a kids cartoon show or movie. Not fast food or bad food.
Nov 2, 2023 – Today is the United Nations International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. A week ago, at the Council on Foreign Relations, I asked Suzanne Nossel, CEO* of PEN and a former State Department official, why she has not led a campaign to free Julian Assange, who I described as the world’s most famous journalist political prisoner, imprisoned by the U.S. and UK.
Nov 1, 2023 – The annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade is like a movie you’ve liked a lot, repeatedly. Maybe the “Casablanca” of parades. It is led by the giant skeleton stick puppets created by the late Ralph Lee, who started the parade as a small event in the 1970s. From the artists’ residence Westbeth at Bank Street and the Hudson River, it flowed out into the streets and took over the Village. Alongside the skeletons are just as giant billowy puppets.
This play is about class and feminism, and also about the corruption of capitalism.
It is a smart satire by British playwright Elizabeth Baker staged in London in 1917. Baker started out as an office typist and wrote about office workers and shop girls and their struggles for emancipation against the bonds of class and gender. She was a supporter of the suffragist movement.
Oct 29, 2023 – I wrote about Israeli apartheid over 40 years ago. I visited Israel and the West Bank in 1981. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat had just been assassinated, though my visit had been planned before that. First I went on a trip organized for journalists by the Israeli government. Then, believing I hadn’t been shown the full story, I went months later on my own. This is what I wrote for The Nation, prescient in the title, “The West Bank as Bantustan.”
This annual series by the Mabel Mercer Foundation presents a selection from among the most talented and interesting established and new cabaret singers in the U.S. And occasionally a few from abroad. People attend as if it were an annual family event. And indeed, at intermission and after the show, the singers come out to the large entrance hall to hang out and chat with the cabaret community.
