AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

UPDATED MID-MORNING JULY 16, 2008

TheaterMania

Review: August: Osage County
New cast members -- including Estelle Parsons and Frank Wood -- contribute to the continuing excellence of Tracy Letts' multiple award-winning drama.

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New York Times

A Fiery New Incarnation of a Monster of a Mother
Estelle Parsons is giving a superb performance in the demanding role of Violet Weston in the play “August: Osage County.”

New York Daily News

A whinny-ing way with death in 3 plays
Recent trips to the theater came with an unusually high body count - dead babies, dead horses, dead fathers. So many casualties. So why is Daily News theater critic Joe Dziemianowicz smiling?
[Includes 'August']

New York Post

'County' still talk of the town
They say you can't go home again - but surely it depends on the family and place to which you're going home. In the theater, at...

Entertainment Weekly

Review: August: Osage County (new cast)

UPDATED JULY 16, 2008 AM

Village Voice

Damn Yankees and The Bacchae: Devil Dogged by Michael Feingold

Previous reviews on page 2

Pages: 1 · 2

Zorro

UPDATED MID-MORNING JULY 16, 2008

London Theatre Guide

First Night Feature: Zorro
There seemed to be a mass holding of breath at the beginning of last night’s performance at the Garrick theatre as the audience waited to see if all three sides of a giant z would catch fire as intended, writes Caroline Bishop.

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The Independent

First Night: Zorro, Garrick Theatre, London

The Times UK

Zorro the Musical at the Garrick, WC2
Stephen Clark’s book and Christopher Renshaw’s production have the merit of not taking themselves too seriously

The Guardian

Zorro, Garrick Theatre, London
A good deal of Gypsy camp and dazzling choreography combine in a fun, refreshing show, writes Michael Billington

This is London

Zorro's a real swish buckler

Whatsonstage.com

Review: Zorro

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Sunset Boulevard

Daily Telegraph

A dark, twisted masterpiece
Charles Spencer reviews Sunset Boulevard at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury.

The Times UK

Sunset Boulevard at the Watermill Theatre
It has a car chase, a swimming pool and a crazy silver screen legend as its lead character

As I mentioned here yesterday, a lot of talk at the O'Neill Theatre Center over the weekend was about the future of arts journalism, particularly in the face of the financial woes of print publications around the country.

As if our general conversations over the weekend didn't seem awful enough, look at these three articles from various spots around the U.S. today.

Associated Press

LA Times Publisher David Hiller resigns
The Los Angeles Times says publisher David Hiller has resigned after 21 months at the helm of Tribune Co.'s largest paper.

Washington Post

Chicago Editor Quits as Tribune Cuts Deeper
The editor of the Chicago Tribune resigned yesterday, six days after its parent company ordered the paper to cut 14 percent of its newsroom staff and slash the number of news pages it publishes by the same percentage.

Atlanta Creative Loafing Fresh Loafing Blog

AJC staff poised for bad news
....What we’ve heard – though, we stress, have not been able to substantiate – is that the newspaper brass are looking to cut about 60 warm bodies from the newsroom and may pursue a program of buyouts.

Scary times indeed....particularly when this news comes from not one, but two different media companies.

New York Times

Horse Can’t Head Into the Sunset in Sam Shepard’s New West
Sam Shepard’s new play is a disappointingly arid lament for America’s lost ideals and despoiled frontiers.

New York Post

Not just horseplay
There are moments during Sam Shepard's new play when the title feels all too apt. A slight one-act, virtually a monologue, about a New York art dealer stuck in the middle of the desert when his ride keels over...

New York Sun

Sam Shepard's Horseplay

New York Journal-News

And the horse he rode in on
Sam Shepard's "Kicking a Dead Horse," which opened last night at the Public Theatre, proves to be an all-too-literal reflection of its title.

Associated Press

Sam Shepard treads familiar ground in 'Dead Horse'

Bloomberg.com

Stephen Rea Seeks `True' West in Shepard's Horsey Monologue: John Simon
With ``Kicking a Dead Horse,'' Sam Shepard returns as playwright and director in a co-production of Dublin's Abbey Theatre and New York's Public Theater, where it is now having its U.S. debut. Its one act is overlong (80 minutes), even if its one speaking character is played by the fine Irish actor Stephen Rea, who does everything performance can do for a play.

Variety

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
...Even with Stephen Rea re-creating his starring role in the original Abbey Theater production -- not to mention the huge horse carcass taking up much of the stage -- the piece is all metaphor and no drama.

Back Stage

Kicking a Dead Horse reviewed by Adam R. Perlman
Yesterday David Mamet's most recent play closed, and tonight Sam Shepard's opens. Both works, penned by arguably America's greatest living playwrights, bear the marks of the Bush presidency.

TheaterMania

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Stephen Rea fails to find sufficient humor in Sam Shepard's brilliant and macabre play about death.

Talkin' Broadway

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Before you ask, the title of Sam Shepard's new play, Kicking a Dead Horse, is both literal and metaphorical. Hobart Struther, "dealer in American Fine Art," spends no shortage of time assailing his equine mount after it dies shortly after beginning what for him was a vital emotional pilgrimage. ...

CurtainUp

CurtainUp

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Shepard wrote this play for Stephen Rea, and the Irish actor delivers a remarkable performance in return.

Hartford Courant

Good Ride, But A Bit Repetitious
'Kicking a Dead Horse'

Star-Ledger

'Dead Horse' takes a beaten path
A sad, unsatisfy ing new play by Sam Shepard, "Kicking a Dead Horse" reflects the futility of its title all too well.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Shepard's 'Horse' has a certain sameness
Sam Shepard's new lament for America, Kicking a Dead Horse, is far more despairing and far less funny but just as autobiographical as his great play, True West, written 28 years ago.