Laurie Metcalf Is Our Greatest Curmudgeon Who Delights
The Orion’s Belt comments prefigure all sorts of big discussions to come about cancer and meth addiction and child abuse. They are the same tropes that other, lesser playwrights stick in their plays to give them meaning. Myself, I was happier when “Little Bear Ridge Road” wasn’t pretending to be anything more than a hilarious comedy about yet another dysfunctional family.
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Pope/Bettany Elevate ‘The Collaboration’ Into Art Worth Contemplating
One of them paved a path of his own ascending to artistic godhood by glorifying the mundane; the other painted SAMO (meaning the Same Old Sh*t) criticizing the very idea of repetition. One of them broke down the wall between art and business; for the other, walls didn’t mean a thing. One saw beauty, immortality, […]
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Complex Men and Caricatures of Women Are Caught ‘Between Riverside and Crazy’
Walter “Pops” Washington, as he self-describes in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer-winning play Between Riverside and Crazy, is “a flesh and blood, pee standing up, registered Republican.” He is also a litigious former cop caught within the crossroads of bureaucracy, racism, life as a widower, and a fast-gentrifying Riverside Drive. He also happens to be Black. […]
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