Light fantastic : adventures in theatre / John Lahr.

xiii, 381 p. ; 24 cm.

Includes index.

Comedians : Bill Hicks : the goat boy rises ; Joe Orton : a revenger's tragedy ; Max Wall : the monkey king of comedy ; Barry Humphries : playing possum ; Jackie Mason and Mort Sahl : working the room ; Peter Cook : bedazzled -- Playwrights : Oscar Wilde : running Wilde ; Harold Pinter : night sweats ; Mikhail Bulgakov : the lone wolf and the Russian bear ; Tennessee Williams : fugitive mind ; Tony Kushner : beyond Nelly ; Edward Albee : sons and mothers ; Sir Terence Rattigan : untutored hearts ; Lillian Hellman : hell on a short fuse ; Alan Bennett : madjesty ; Arthur Miller : dead souls ; Eugene O'Neill : selling the sizzle ; Arnold Wesker : hand to mouth ; Clifford Odets : waiting for Odets ; Neil Simon : shtick ball ; Brian Friel : sight unseen ; Tom Stoppard : blowing hot and cold -- Musicals : George and Ira Gershwin : city slickers ; Rodgers and Hammerstein : Carousel ; Jule Styne : Mr. Broadway ; George C. Wolfe : Jelly's last jam ; Savion Glover : tap messenger ; Lerner and Loewe : Shaw business ; Beauty and the beast : the shock of the neutral ; Stephen Sondheim : love in gloom ; The Who's Tommy : full tilt ; Isaac Bashevis Singer : bring back the clowns ; Kern and Hammerstein : Mississippi mud -- Productions : Ingmar Bergman : gravity and grace ; Ariane Mnouchkine : caprice of the gods ; Ralph Fiennes : matinée idolatry ; Ingmar Bergman : the battle of the vanities ; Stephen Daldry : the virgin and the dynamo ; Peter Brook : losing the plot ; Anna Deavere Smith : under the skin ; Ingmar Bergman : winter songs.

A collection of essays written by one of the drama critics for The New Yorker magazine, discussing comedians, playwrights, musicals, and productions in the international world of theatre.

0385315465 (hc)

792.02320922 L184L 1996