Review by Booklist Review
Lahr is that rare bird in theatrical journalism--the prolific, witty, literate independent scholar. The regular New Yorker contributor creates exhaustively researched profiles that never descend into mere puffery and well-considered reviews that never resort to the glib, cruel, ad hominem attacks found in too much contemporary criticism. Reading these 41 pieces, it is hard not to be struck by Lahr's range, too, for his subjects span the spectrum of contemporary theater, from Harold Pinter to the politically engaged Anna Deavere Smith and even rebel stand-up comedian Bill Hicks. As you might expect from the son of the great clown Bert Lahr, he seems especially at home plumbing comedy's depths, and he has a great ear for great comic lines, both his own and others, but this expertise does not dim his eye for more somber work. Indeed, his discussions of serious comic playwrights Joe Orton and Tony Kushner (as well as of Barry Humphries--"Dame Edna Everage" ) make a dip into this book well worthwhile. --Jack Helbig
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In his introduction to this new collection, Lahr‘biographer, novelist and theater critic for the New Yorker‘pointedly calls what he writes ``essays'' rather than ``reviews'' and describes himself as a theater historian. Both observations are apt. Lahr is an inspired and insightful appreciator, able both to put his finger on what is valuable in what he sees and to put it in the context of theater history. Although some of the 41 pieces (arranged under the headings Comedians, Playwrights, Musicals, Productions) are reviews of specific performances (Ingmar Bergman's Madame de Sade, Ralph Fiennes's Hamlet, Anna Deavere Smith's Under the Skin, Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia), others are profiles of artists at work (Bill Hicks, Jackie Mason, Tony Kushner, Julie Styne, George and Ira Gershwin), and some are full-blown essays. For anyone who has not read Prick Up Your Ears, Lahr's biography of murdered playwright Joe Orton, the long review of Orton's life included here makes this collection worth taking seriously. Few reviewers (or historians) quote from their subjects quite so much as Lahr does, or quote from them to such effect. It is an indication of the priority he assigns to the backbone of the theater: the words themselves. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Lahr, drama critic for The New Yorker and author of Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization (LJ 10/15/92), here offers a collection of essays, most of which have appeared in The New Yorker. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A thoughtful, enjoyable collection from critic and theatrical biographer Lahr (Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation, 1992, etc.). Most of these lucid reviews/essays originally appeared in the New Yorker, which employs Lahr as its theater critic. Rather than simply evaluate a production, the author prefers to incorporate interviews with those who created it--playwright, actors, director- -in order to give readers a sense of the artists' goals as well as Lahr's opinion on whether or not they achieved them. The results are mini-histories of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, George C. Wolfe's Jelly's Last Jam, and other important contemporary works, as well as cogent biographies of comedians Bill Hicks and Peter Cook (the latter receives a notably moving, determinedly unsentimental tribute). Except in discussing Stephen Sondheim, whom he feels has led the American musical into a dead end, Lahr is almost unfailingly generous in his assessments: Even when he dislikes an individual production--Steppenwolf's Awake and Sing! or the Royal National Theatre's Sweet Bird of Youth--he musters his knowledge of theatrical and literary history to remind us why Clifford Odets and Tennessee Williams are key figures in modern theater. Like all good critics, Lahr focuses primarily on the play's text rather than the actors' performances; he considers theater an arena for ideas, not a showcase for celebrities. Unlike Robert Brustein (his only peer in current theater criticism), Lahr is seldom stridently polemical, though he does have a staunchly liberal political point of view. More openly stated is his artistic credo: that theater at its best is a collective art that binds the artists and the audience together into a community. In Lahr's view, individualism has its limits, both socially and creatively, even though he examines and pays tribute to individual achievements. Filled with love for the theater, ably conveyed to the reader.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
