Joseph Chaikin (1935–2003)

Some of the ideas are quite beautiful, but I had a hard time understanding them...the writing isn't the most clear or beautiful prose in the world, though it becomes really fantastic towards the end of the book. It's a good series of notes on the development of the Open Theatre. If you're interested in the 1960s/70s avant-garde downtown theatre in New York, or Joseph Chaikin or the Open Theatre, definitely check it out. I'd preface it with some other theatre artists of the same time, though, so you get an idea of the context a bit before you start reading this book, it'll leave you less confused.… (mais)

Some of the works in the Seven Plays collection (specifically the late-period "family plays") are very very good indeed, and make me feel like a more expansive human than I was before. The others are experimental-sixties hangover, occasionally interesting but mostly dated. Savage/Love, the last one and the one I just finished, is of that ilk--like, your heart is occasionally touched, but it's so easy to say profound things about love that heart-touched is cheap, and there is much hackneyed and repetitive, plaintive in a "me me me" way. In the immortal idiom of Lollipop Man, alias the Long-Haired Sucker, it only got about a two on it,for me. But the collection as a whole is well worth picking up!… (mais)