Who Needs Theatre: Dramatic Opinions - Hardcover

Brustein, Robert

4

14 ratings by Goodreads

9780871132062: Who Needs Theatre: Dramatic Opinions

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871132060 ISBN 13: 9780871132062

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr, 1987

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Essays discuss the history of drama, specific productions, writers, actors, actresses, directors, musicals, English imports, and issues in the theater

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly:

Brustein's theater reviews and occasional essays make a marvelous armchair companion for theatergoers. His judgments are well informed, trenchant, sometimes perverse but always worth listening to. The New Republic drama critic knocks La Cage aux Folles for being too conventional; he analyzes 42nd Street in the context of the craze for revivals; he finds Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues meretricious; and he is disappointed in Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind. His generous praise for such plays as 'Night Mother and Glengary Glen Ross extends our awareness of how drama connects to our public and private lives. Brustein is not afraid to look at Sir Laurence Olivier's dismal string of film and TV roles, or to probe Clifford Odet's self-promotion as that of a prodigy who made a Faustian pact with the movie industry. The essays reflect his belief that the proper function of theater is to alter consciousness.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Brustein, a respected director and currently artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard, is a uniquely qualified drama critic. While his direct involvement with the theater lays him open to charges of bias, the only bias he admits to is a passion for the theater. This collection of essays and reviews was written between 1980 and 1986, primarily for publication in the New Republic. Besides reviews of individual plays, both in America and abroad, Brustein writes on general aspects of the theater, such as the quality of contemporary playwrights. His opinions are always interesting, always readable, not always in agreement with popular opinion, but reflective of the state of theater in the early 1980s. Marcia L. Perry, Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Mass.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.