An exuberant, entertaining collection.
Portraits from a devoted theatergoer.
From 1992 to 2012, Lahr (Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, 2014, etc.) served as the New Yorker’s theater critic, publishing nearly 1 million words. This collection brings together 16 lively profiles of playwrights and directors, along with reviews of a sampling of their works and assorted other productions. Only two women—playwright Sarah Ruhl and director Susan Stroman—appear in a roster that includes such luminaries as Arthur Miller, David Mamet, David Rabe, Harold Pinter, Sam Shepard, Ingmar Bergman, and Mike Nichols. Wallace Shawn, whom Lahr has known for decades, is a surprising—and delightful—addition. Asserting that criticism “is on the decline” because of media’s focus on lifestyles and celebrity, Lahr aims to provide context, illuminating the goals and artistry of his subjects. “Over time, if all goes well,” he writes, “I can ask the forbidden questions, and get answers.” Not all subjects are forthcoming, although the strongest of these profiles reflect Lahr’s dexterity as an interviewer. Miller talks about the genesis of Death of a Salesman in Americans’ “moral condemnation” of failure. The first performance, Miller told the author, was met with stunned silence until “someone thought to applaud, and then the house came apart.” Mamet reflects on “the helpless collusion of children with their parents’ sadism” in the “emotional hurricane” of his family’s life, which fueled his plays. In deftly crafted reviews, Lahr praises the premiere of Ruhl’s Stage Kiss as a “bright and buoyant thing” and Stroman for her dedication “to banishing gravity from the stage.” The profile of Shepard seems drawn entirely from publications by and about the playwright, resulting in a piece that lacks the intimacy of some others, such as the author’s portraits of the “arch manipulator” Bergman; Pinter, debilitated from esophageal cancer; and the “courtly, unassuming” Tony Kushner.
An exuberant, entertaining collection.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-393-24640-7
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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