Critic unbound

A good theater production can affect us in a lot of ways. It can make us laugh, or bring us to tears; deliver the catharsis of tragedy, or send us out of the theater on a musical high; probe the complexities of family relations, or bring to life a stimulating intellectual debate. But one thing … Continue reading ‘Paranormal Activity’: Scary Stuff on Broadway →

It’s hard for a Democrat not to feel optimistic, even giddy, at the prospects for November’s midterm elections. President Trump’s approval ratings are at a record low, and nearly all of his policies are wildly unpopular with the majority of Americans. All that, combined with the usual backlash against the President’s party after two years … Continue reading How Trump Lost His Mojo →

Ted Turner had been absent from the national scene for so long — he lost control of his media companies more than two decades ago, and more recently drifted into dementia-induced isolation — that his death this week was a somewhat jarring callback to an all-but-forgotten era. But what an era it was. I was … Continue reading Remembering Ted Turner — the Anti-Trump →

I waited until Amazon Prime was streaming it for free before I forced myself to sit through all 104 minutes of Melania, the documentary about the First Lady for which Jeff Bezos paid a ridiculous $40 million, in an obvious attempt to curry favor with the Trump administration. I knew it would be a chore — … Continue reading ‘Melania,’ Iran, and the Reality-Show Presidency →

You have to go way back in broadcast history to recall the time when a change in anchors at the network evening news was a big deal. CBS’s decision in 1981 to early-retire Walter Cronkite and replace him with Dan Rather prompted front-page headlines. For most of the next two decades, Rather, NBC’s Tom Brokaw, … Continue reading In Defense of the Evening News →

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? →