The Brooklyn Rail
Critical Perspectives on Art, Politics and Culture
July 2008
Theater
The Meltdown Should Be Televised
by Justin BoydTheater
You know Michelle “Shells” Haylie Hoffman. Or you know her type—fancy drinks, break-the-bank shoes and brand names flying from her lips like signal flares to any moneyed, available men in the vicinity—“I know what’s hot, so I am hot!”
You Will Remember What it Looks Like: Karinne Keithley
by Amber ReedTheater
Kentucky-Montana is characterized by several impossibilities, the number one impossibility being that the rivers have no banks.
A Play at Poolside: Caridad Svich's 12 Ophelias
by David G. SchultzTheater
Several months ago, Teddy Bergman got a unique script, 12 Ophelias (a play with broken songs), by Caridad Svich, from his friend Jocelyn Kuritsky. Ophelias is a series of scenes and songs in heightened language set, according to Svich, in a “timeless time,” depicting several characters from Hamlet in the aftermath of Ophelia’s suicide.
Crease Patterns: Rajiv Joseph's Animals Out of Paper
by Kristoffer DiazTheater
Playwright Rajiv Joseph is no stranger to works that tackle volatile, large-scale issues. In late 2007, New York’s Alter Ego Productions presented his play The Leopard and the Fox, an adaptation of an unproduced BBC screenplay about the 1977 political overthrow and subsequent execution of Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
On Innocence and Depravity
by Jason GroteTheater
I have a theory—half-baked and probably impossible to confirm—that new British plays seen by New York audiences don’t even come close to representing the most interesting work happening in the UK at any given time.
