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Thérèse Raquin
The whites, greys and blacks of the Roundabout’s THÉRÈSE RAQUIN are so muted that, when a brown-hued backdrop appears, it is like a flash of color, and so, later on, is a sparse scattering of autumn leaves, dropped and faded. The interiors, when they appear, are dim and woody, the windows opening, at best, on…
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Machinal
Any credible list of the greatest U.S. plays would include Sophie Treadwell’s MACHINAL. It is our tautest and most rigorously constructed in the Expressionist mode, by any standard a masterpiece of feminist art, and one of the most universally applicable (and least commercially motivated) of all BOATS (Based-On-A-True-Story) dramas. It has not been revived on…
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After Miss Julie
It would be nice to see a production of Miss Julie in which Strindberg’s instructions for a naturalistic setting which exists largely in the wings, and that we see only a corner of, were actually followed. There are too many boxed-in containment units that improbably and without deviation follow the exact dimensions of the stage.…