Pirates! The Penzance Musical, a Jambalaya With Too Many Cooks
Rather than a slave of duty, Pirates! is the servant of too many masters: Gilbert & Sullivan, Dixieland jazz, milquetoast liberalism, and the tourism lobby New Orleans & Company, which “kindly sponsored” this production. The recipe is for a jambalaya of disparate flavors that come together in delicious harmony. The finished product is operetta as political compromise, in which everyone gets a little taste of what they want, but never enough to be truly satisfied.
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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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