125 stories by "Terry Morgan"
Message plays are a pillar of western theater. Our entire theatrical ecosystem is unthinkable without works such as Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House or Larry Krame…
In my twenty-five years of theater reviewing, time and again when I find myself less enthusiastic about a show, ninety-nine percent of the time the culprit is the writing. One would think th…
Thornton Wilder's 1942 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Skin of Our Teeth, is an assuredly odd duck. It's eighty-two years old but still seems postmodern with its frequent fourth-wall breaki…
In my fifty-seven years of life, I've never seen this country so divided and tribalized. I think the media bears a lot of blame for this, referring to us as living in red or blue states and …
Fans of history can't help but wish they were there for private, unrecorded conversations between famed historical figures, to be the proverbial fly on the wall and gain insight into what th…
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a regular column featuring essays, articles and reviews about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
Longlegs in cinemas
This is the third piece of a thr…
The first time I read Jon Robin Baitz's 1991 play, The Substance of Fire, and later saw the film made from it, I liked it. I wasn't alone " the success of that play catapulted Baitz into the…
It may be less well known now, but back in the 1960s, the character of surfer girl Gidget was popular and influential, the subject of novels, films and TV series starring the likes of Sandra…
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a regular column featuring essays and articles about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House from Netflix
Qu…
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a new regular column featuring reviews and articles about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
The Blackcoat's Daughter from A24
The Angels, They Forg…
Musicals can have many different formats, but the two most prevalent structures these days are the traditional and the jukebox. The traditional (incorporating Sondheim, because his changes a…
Welcome to Watching the Dark, a new regular column featuring reviews and articles about horror films. Written by Terry Morgan.
You Can't Run Forever from Lionsgate
I've been a critic…
If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, perhaps the road to freedom is paved with righteous anger? Henrik Ibsen may have thought so when he wrote his proto-feminist play, A Doll's…
According to the great sages of the internet, Hamlet is the most produced play in world history, and whether or not that claim is true, the indecisive Dane is certainly ubiquitous. And if it…
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd is my favorite musical. Its combination of a beautiful score, clever lyrics and unusually gruesome subject matter is sui generis. When it's f…
"A sad tale's best for winter," Shakespeare has one of his characters opine in his penultimate work, The Winter's Tale, an odd duck of a play that's mostly been overshadowed by his final one…
I find one-person shows one of the most difficult types of theatre to review, for several reasons. If the quality of the writing or performance isn't good, there may be nothing but negative …
Although no year in which the Mark Taper Forum is at least temporarily shuttered and the Kirk Douglas Theatre's programming is reduced can be said to be an entirely positive year for Los Ang…
One of the great pleasures of theater is seeing a revival of a classic play not only succeed on its own merits but also be relevant to modern times. Certain works such as The Crucible or Ene…
Sometimes great actors can save a bad play. The sheer strength of their talent or the brilliance of their star power dazzles us into not noticing or caring that the vehicle they're in is lac…
The first time I encountered Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, I identified strongly with the title character, both with his frustrations and what he thought of as the tragedy of his life. As I got old…
Measure for Measure has been referred to as Shakespeare's "#MeToo play," a story in which a man in power uses his clout to try and sexually abuse a woman, except that she stands up to him an…
In a world in which a repulsive con man can get elected president and turn the entire Republican party into a credulous and insane mob, it's to be expected that somebody would try to write a…
For better or worse, it's human nature to find the misfortune of others amusing. YouTube is filled with videos of people making mistakes or getting hit somewhere unpleasant by a stray ball. …
When I got to my seat at the Atwater Village Theatre, I saw a note. It informed me that this seat was in "the Crabby Zone," and that performers in crab costumes with outsized claws would be …
