All stories by Bill Marx on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Fuse Interview: ArtsBoston Launches The Arts Factor — A Fact-Based Shot of Courage by Bill Marx

Until now, the powerful economic reality spotlighted by The Arts Factor has generally been ignored or dismissed as anecdotal.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:37AM
Thursday, June 19, 2014

Fuse Fundraiser: July 2013-July 2014 — The Year That Was For The Arts Fuse by Bill Marx

We have lots of plans to expand our readership and reach, to build new ways for our readers to read our online arts magazine. But we need some more resources and support to make this happen.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:31PM
Friday, June 13, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “A Lie of the Mind” – Trinity Rep’s Excellent 50th Anniversary Gift by Bill Marx

Critic Eric Bentley valued the theater of audacity above all, and that is just what is on glorious display in Trinity Rep's marvelously nervy A Lie of the Mind.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:19AM
Monday, June 9, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “Smart People” — A Sharp Satire of a “Post-Racial” World by Bill Marx

Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People is an amusing takedown of our “post-racial” world, and it is receiving a snappy, well-acted production via the Huntington Theatre Company.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:41PM
Sunday, June 8, 2014

Fuse Theater Interview: Beau Jest Turns 30 — Davis Robinson on Moving into “Apt. 4D” by Bill Marx

We do it for the joy and communitas of making theater together much as we do for responding to the world around us through art.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:23AM
Thursday, May 22, 2014

Fuse Remembrance: Polish Poet and Dramatist Tadeusz Różewicz — The Prophet of the Partial, the Herald of the Unfinished by Bill Marx

Tadeusz Różewicz's best poems are blunt hammer strokes that pound at the impossibility of crafting poetry true to the sins of history.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:26AM
Friday, May 16, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: At the A.R.T., “The Tempest” is Toast by Bill Marx

Is it the Bard or a magic show? The prestidigitation pretty well wins out given the wanness of the dramatic proceedings.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 02:37PM
Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “Sontag: Reborn” — A Song of Herself by Bill Marx

Dramatically speaking, Sontag: Reborn fails to treat a flawed iconoclast with the necessary creative playfulness. Hush, Saint Susan Aborning!

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:18PM
Thursday, May 8, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “Good Television” and “Sila” — The Struggle to Remain Human by Bill Marx

It is encouraging to see new plays that tackle substantial social problems.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:28AM
Thursday, May 1, 2014

Fuse Book Interview: James Shapiro on America’s Complicated Relationship With Shakespeare by Bill Marx

"Americans have been most drawn to the great tragedies—in our classroom and on our stages. "

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:43AM
Friday, April 25, 2014

Fuse News: Two Milestones – Shakespeare’s 450th and Anthony Burgess’ 50th by Bill Marx

"Nothing Like the Sun" remains, for my money, among the best works of fiction inspired by Shakespeare's life.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:32AM
Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “Becoming Cuba” — A Sugary Historical Melodrama by Bill Marx

Dramatist Melinda Lopez's "Becoming Cuba" holds your attention even after you see just where it is going and why.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:39PM
Monday, April 7, 2014

Fuse Interview: Silent Film Comedy Staged Live — Jakop Ahlbom Talks about “Lebensraum” by Bill Marx

"Buster Keaton's imagination and ideas are more surrealistic than Chaplin's, and his stunts are astonishing in terms of their demanding technique, even today".

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:07PM
Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Fuse Music Interview: Pianist Jason Moran Plugs into the Powerhouse, Fats Waller by Bill Marx

"I love Fats Waller. Fats Waller will always be here because he is simply that magnetic a person(a)."

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:08AM
Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Fuse Views: No More Double Talk at WGBH? by Bill Marx

This is a vaguely threatening day for New Englanders who love their NPR in duplicate.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:07AM
Sunday, March 23, 2014

Fuse Interview: Jewish-American Writer Bernard Malamud at 100 — Appreciating the Beauty of the Ethical by Bill Marx

"Bernard Malamud is the great sentence-maker, the great craftsman, and the sheer quality of those sentences has never perhaps been given its complete due."

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:11PM
Sunday, March 9, 2014

Fuse Views: Remembering a Preserver of Memory by Bill Marx

Jiri Fiedler's was a life of quiet heroism dedicated to the indispensable task of keeping the past alive.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:45PM
Monday, March 3, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: A First-Rate “Flick” From Company One by Bill Marx

In "The Flick," Annie Baker creates youngish characters that my students at Boston University would call “relatable,” exploring how self-delusions, stereotypes, and fear keep them from c…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 01:38PM
Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: A Moderately Powerful “Death of a Salesman” from The Lyric Stage Company by Bill Marx

A lack of dramatic combustion sometimes makes the Lyric Stage Company production, despite its intelligent detail, more staidly melodramatic than it should be.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:40PM
Monday, February 17, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “Witness Uganda” — From Africa, With Schmaltz by Bill Marx

"Witness Uganda" is a quintessential American musical -- a work of cultural tourism that condemns cultural tourism.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 01:06PM
Friday, February 14, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “Absence” — Movingly Moving Toward the Null Point by Bill Marx

The protagonist may necessarily be passive in the face of his or her diminishing mental condition, but art must rage against the dying of the light.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:40AM
Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Fuse News: Elizabethan Genius Gets Its Due — An Edition of Ben Jonson For the Ages by Bill Marx

The "Cambridge Jonson" volumes are available online, and the site is a bibliographical joy to behold, Ben Jonson's plays, poems, masques, and prose arranged in chronological order and in a s…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:09PM
Sunday, January 26, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: Bread & Puppet Theater’s “Shatterer of Worlds” — Apocalyptic Art by Bill Marx

Those willing to accept that powerful political theater can be as much about depicting pain as providing hope will find much to admire in this visually striking, dramatically compelling piec…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 01:27PM
Monday, January 13, 2014

Fuse Commentary: The Welcome Buccaneers of Arts Criticism by Bill Marx

"Criticism will always have the force of the child in the story about the emperor's new clothes, because there will always be naked emperors who everybody says are wearing today's Crown Jewe…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 07:59PM
Friday, January 10, 2014

Fuse Theater Review: “Venus in Fur” — No S & M Please, We’re American by Bill Marx

"Venus in Fur" could be best described as cheeky rather than kinky, more of a talky intellectual exercise than a zesty exploration of the allure of sexual domination and submission.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 07:39PM
Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Fuse Book Interview: “1941: The Year That Keeps Returning” — Doubt is not a Fatal Weakness by Bill Marx

Through meticulous research, interviews, and reminiscence, this compelling book illuminates a nook in the heart of darkness.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 06:09PM
Friday, January 3, 2014

Fuse Coming Attractions: What Will Light Your Fire This Week by Bill Marx

Arts Fuse critics select the best in dance and theater that's coming up this week.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:52AM
Sunday, December 29, 2013

Fuse Theater Review: Best Stage Productions of 2013 by Bill Marx

Fuse Theater critics pick some of the outstanding shows of the past year.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:18PM
Monday, December 23, 2013

Fuse Theater Review: An Amusing “Heart of Robin Hood” by Bill Marx

What is refreshing about the muscular back-flipping in David Farr’s amusing rewrite of the Robin Hood fable is that Maid Marion is as much into derring-do as the Merry Men.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 06:00PM
Thursday, December 19, 2013

Fuse Theater Review: Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII” — History as Smoke, Mirrors, and Spectacle by Bill Marx

Given how rarely "Henry VIII" is staged, any Shakespeare enthusiast worth his or her salt should definitely take in this uneven production.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:47PM
Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Fuse Theater Review: Chekhov Lite — “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” by Bill Marx

Chekhov's jokes are the inevitable by-products of his characters confronting life’s absurdities; Christopher Durang is content to wring laughs out of wacky situations and cartoon caricatur…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:46PM

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