Williamson tales truly ri-Nicol-ousI received a batch of e-mails in response to my column two weeks ago about Nicol Williamson, the brilliant but troubled Scottish actor who died in December.
He was as famous for his off-stage antics as he was for his acclaimed performances in "Inadmissable Evidence," "Hamlet" and "Waiting for Godot...
Drama a Marvell to beholdMemo to theater companies specializing in the classics: Take a cue from Marvell Rep. The troupe's second season doesn't have a Shakespeare, Chekhov or Shaw in the bunch just six controversial works that were once "burned and banned." Like the Mint Theater, another daring company, Marvell realized that...
Worth Russian to the balletTo the list of Russian treasures Fabergι eggs, caviar, Anna Netrebko add "Russian Seasons," Alexei Ratmansky's beautiful ballet for New York City Ballet. Now going on 6 years old, it was the centerpiece Friday of an all-Russian program that with some magnificent debuts looked brand-new.
Set to Leonid Desyatnikov...
No escape from this absurd French caperThe three-piece orchestra in "Ionescopade" has barely started the overture zany percussion, wacky noisemakers and already the whimsy-meter is in the red.
You'd think you were at the Big Apple Circus, but instead, "Ionescopade" subtitled "a musical vaudeville" is a revival of a 1974 off-Broadway show. Admittedly, it does...
Black swan diveShe flies through the air like a shooting star, but she crashes to earth like one, too.
Ashley Bouder, a principal ballerina with the New York City Ballet, is among the finest ballet dancers in the world. But, man, she wipes out a lot.
"I'm famous for falling," Bouder...
Dead 'Park' back to lifeJordan Roth, the 36-year-old head of Jujamcyn Theaters, was working the phones like an old pro yesterday in an effort to salvage "Clybourne Park," the Pulitzer Prize-winning play that, after being torpedoed this week by Scott Rudin, was listing like the Costa Concordia.
And it looks like his efforts are...
A look at good 'Anger' managementJohn Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" opened in London with a huge bang in 1956, upending staid British theater and helping usher the era of "angry young men" smart, educated, working- or middle-class, and riled up by their lack of access in post-WWII society.
The highly combustible engine at...
Timid tango by lady in redSome are born female; others achieve it. Jin Xing is one of the latter, in a tenacious odyssey from birth as a boy to her present life and dance career as a woman. Her "Shanghai Tango" has the same passionate obsession with identity, but doesn't live up to the...
Fine writing does not apply hereIn light of the recent Vassar early-admissions snafu, already wary parents of students applying to college should avoid "Inadmissible." Not that anyone else should rush to see this play about three professors in the admissions office of a small university fighting over whom to accept into its performing arts program...
The wrath of RudinIn his heyday, David Merrick was the most powerful producer on Broadway. He had taste. He was prolific. He knocked out hits "Look Back in Anger," "Hello, Dolly!" "42nd Street."
And he could put the fear of God in actors, writers, directors and agents. When crossed, he retaliated swiftly and...
