The simplicity, even the banality, of a popular tune can be the arresting feature that gives a play its strength
Beyond
Intermission Talk: About the Alan Jay Lerner-Kurt Weill “Love Life”
An influential, pioneering concept musical from 1948 which lost its way
Intermission Talk: How Broadway Singing Fell Prey to Pop Music’s Excesses, and Why There’s Hope
On keeping singing in musical theater about storytelling, rather than showboating
Intermission Talk: An Actors Fund Benefit, And Everything’s Coming Up Rosie
The jolly tone and theater-centric focus of the old Rosie O’Donnell Show is charmingly recaptured on line for an awfully good cause
Intermission Talk: About Mack & Mabel
The inauspicious origins of the ill-fated Jerry Herman/Michael Stewart musical, recently revived at City Center
The Feingold Column: Songs to Write Plays by–Part 1
How classic American songs worked their way into the plays of Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, and more
From London: Kushner Visits Dürrenmatt’s The Visit
★★★☆☆ Lesley Manville is the vengeful Claire Zachanassian in director Jeremy Herrin’s production at the National
From London: Death of England, A Number, and Endgame
Intellectual exercises with Rafe Spall, Roger Allam, Alan Cumming and Daniel Radcliffe in worthy productions
From London: Stoppard Potently Examines His Elusive Background in Leopoldstadt
★★★★★ For his supposedly last work, the revered playwright looks at vanished Viennese Jews
Next to Normal: It’s Gonna Be Good
★★★★★ Director Michael Greif brings the musical to D.C. for a brief but intensely emotional run starring Rachel Bay Jones