Critic unbound

Each game of chess / Means there’s one less / Variation left to be played.  So begins the opening number of the pop-rock musical Chess. At least, it used to. Each new production of the famously troubled show, it seems, means one less variation left to be staged.  There have been a ton of them. The musical … Continue reading Obsessing Over ‘Chess’ →

I venture into politics only occasionally on this blog — and maybe with good reason. A friend recently reminded me of a post I wrote last December, not long after Trump’s reelection, in which I enumerated “10 Reasons Not to Despair About Trump’s Second Term.” That column, to put it mildly, hasn’t aged well. Trump’s bulldozing power … Continue reading Message to Democrats: Drop the A-Words →

Jimmy Kimmel's return to the air came as a great relief to me, a hopeful sign that anti-Trump political satire is not about to be silenced in America. Indeed, Kimmel and his other late-night compatriots are the latest in a long American tradition of pointed, partisan and often quite influential political satire. I recapped a … Continue reading Jimmy Kimmel’s Satire: In the American Grain →

I must confess that, of all the outrages we’ve had to bear during the second Trump administration — the cruel deportations, the gutting of vital federal programs, the retribution campaign against Trump’s political enemies — nothing has alarmed or depressed me more than ABC’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air, for comments he … Continue reading Will Jimmy Kimmel Be Back? →

The flooding disaster in the Hill Country of Texas early this month generated weeks of news coverage. Stories of tragic deaths and heroic rescues; investigations into the state’s early-warning system; backgrounders on Camp Mystic, the beloved local girls’ camp where 27 young lives were lost; questions about whether budget cuts at the National Weather Service … Continue reading Whatever Happened to Maps? →

The most acclaimed play of this Broadway season – winner of the Tony award for best play, as well as the Pulitzer Prize – was Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Purpose. I found the drama, about tensions in the family of a revered Civil Rights leader, workmanlike but unsatisfying —  packed with cumbersome back-story (much of it simply narrated to the … Continue reading Rediscovering a Black Masterpiece →

The spring rush of Broadway openings is over, the Tony nominations are out, and I have a lot of catching up to do. (I haven’t been idle: my Opinion piece on Broadway's championing of D.E.I. ran in the Washington Post last week. You can read it here.)    Too many shows to review, but here are a few … Continue reading A Random Look Back at the Broadway Season →

About a year ago, after a theatergoing trip to London, I wrote in praise of Operation Mincemeat, the delightful West End musical about a bizarre (but true) World War II espionage plot, in which British intelligence planted fake war plans on a corpse, disguised as a drowned British flyer, in an effort to deceive the Germans about the … Continue reading Is Broadway Souring on the Brits? →

Like so many legacy publications, Time Magazine — where I worked for more than 25 years — is struggling to survive in the digital age. As readers and advertisers move inexorably online, Time issues have grown thinner, less frequent (the “weekly newsmagazine” now comes out every two weeks), less newsy and relevant. Yet, in at least one respect, Time can still … Continue reading Smoke, Mirrors, and Time Magazine Covers →

On Tuesday, Jan. 7, in his first show back after a two-week holiday hiatus, Seth Meyers confessed a stark feeling of déjà vu. He and his writers had put together an entire script for his opening “A Closer Look” segment, recapping some of the big news they had missed during the vacation break, but had … Continue reading Can the Comedians Survive Four More Years of Trump? →