Review: In ‘Topdog/Underdog,’ nothing is holier than the hustle
Under the expert direction of Kenny Leon, the actors have made a delicious dance out of besting one another. Clawing intense audience laughter from Parks’ dark script, Hawkins and Abdul-Mateen II are excellent students of “rep and rev” (repetition and revision), a technique that Parks — also a musician — borrows from jazz.
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This “Piano Lesson” Hammers the Obvious Note Over Its Head
The best horror films understand that what is left unseen is more powerful than anything that could ever appear on-screen. And though August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Piano Lesson is no horror flick, when staged well, its treasure trove of invisible forces and tensions leaves even the most stoic audiences alternating between pathos, humor, […]
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Is the American Dream Worth the ‘Death of a Salesman?’
Can you put a price tag on a life? In America, it seems as though you must. In the land of dreams, everything you have and everything you are, is what you can sell. Or at least that’s what’s been drilled into Willy Loman (Wendell Pierce), the protagonist of Arthur Miller’s seminal work Death of […]
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