Even in Shakespeare’s era, theaters literally shielded people from the state. Today’s theaters might talk sanctuary, but rarely practice it.
Tag: Drama
Nuclear Noir
At its core, noir is a feeling: realizing one’s own helplessness, when faced with the vast networks of power that control everyday life.
Alison Carey and Amrita Ramanan on Theater and Climate Change
"Greenturgy" orients a theatrical production toward the play's environment. And every play has one.
Helen of West Hollywood
It hardly seems necessary to offer a spoiler alert for news that is well over two millennia old. But some news is so surprising, so contrary to everything we thought we knew, that time can do little ...
“Euphoric” Heroes
“I know your generation relied on flowers and fathers’ permission,” says Rue, the protagonist of HBO’s Euphoria, “but it’s 2019, and unless you’re Amish, nudes are the currency of love, so stop shaming ...
Passion and Presence: Maria Irene Fornes, 1930–2018
In 1999, in an interview I conducted with Maria Irene Fornes on the eve of a ...
We Like Short Shorts
We seem to be in an age in which short forms have risen from minor to major cultural commodities. On November 30, 2017, word went out on the internet that Vine, a defunct video-sharing platform ...
11 TV Shows Professors Are Watching This Summer
The academic year has wound to a definitive close, the Handmaid’s Tale hype has died down, and those of the professorial persuasion now have less than two blissful months remaining ...
A Tale of Two Artists in ”La La Land”
It isn’t a surprise that Damien Chazelle’s third film, the sunny musical La La Land, would be a portrait of jazz artistry. His 2009 debut ...
The Model-Minority Bubble
Perhaps the most famous shopping trip in American literature can be found in Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise. Wounded by a colleague’s unflattering assessment of his appearance, Jack Gladney ...
“Harry Potter” and “Hamilton” from the Stage to the Page
Move over, Shakespeare. The best-selling play on record is the script of the London theater smash Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which was published as the latest installment of J. K. Rowling’s ...
The Taming of the Bard
We still take our Shakespearean directives from London, and this year’s news has been welcome: it was the summer of women and Shakespeare. The long reigns of Artistic Directors Mark Rylance and ...
The Bingewatch: It’s Never Just a Dress
My ongoing love affair with TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress began about two months ago, when a close friend prescribed the long-running reality show as a remedy for my encroaching PhD graduation anxiety ...
Antiheroic Feminism: An Interview with “UnREAL” Co-creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro
Sarah Gertrude Shapiro is a difficult person to pin down. With the second season premiere of UnREAL—the Peabody-award-winning series for which she not only writes and produces, but now also ...
Shakespeare in 2016
Over the last four centuries, we’ve reinvented Shakespeare to suit our purposes, much as Shakespeare borrowed from his past to do the same.1 2016 commemorates the four hundredth anniversary of ...
Virtual Roundtable on “Transparent”
Jill Soloway’s original program Transparent abounds with firsts: the first TV series to feature a transgender character as its protagonist; the first transgender-themed series to win Golden Globe ...
#Normporn
In the penultimate season of 30 Rock (2006–13), the sitcom’s resident kinkmeisters and genderqueer lovers, Jenna and Paul, are faced with a profound sexual crisis: after chatting about their day ...
Translating the Architecture of Desire: An Interview with Wallace Shawn
Well over a dozen years in the making, Wallace Shawn’s theatrical collaboration with André Gregory on Henrik Ibsen’s 1892 play A Master Builder opened this summer in New York theaters—movie theaters ...
Return to the Fold
At first glance, Rectify may seem like another variation on that favorite TV conceit of recent years: a damaged, asocial male struggles to reconcile with the modern world (see Breaking Bad, Mad Men ...
Forgotten Woman
When we think of the ’30s film musical, we tend to picture Fred and Ginger gliding through the polished worlds of Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). Earlier in the ...